“I know.”
“Five o’clock, Emery.” She gave me a final, hard glance, then continued past us down the stairs, leaving a trail of perfume and a faint whiff of alcohol in her wake.
“Sorry about her,” Emery said, looking away. “She’s…not feeling well.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll make sure I’m gone before five.”
She smiled at me gratefully and led me down a hallway toward her room. She caught me glancing to the right, to the other wing of bedrooms.
“Grant’s room is the one on the left,” Emery whispered. “I sneak in there sometimes. To visit him. Don’t tell anyone.”
“I never would.”
She smiled again, and I followed her into her room. Unlike the rest of the house, Emery’s space was warm and brightly lit, and everything about it washer.
Her room was at least three times the size of my loft and furnished like a living room as much as a bedroom. A pink reclining chair sat in one corner, a white desk stood under the window that overlooked the bay, and a fluffy pink throw rug lay over the carpet.
The dominant color was white with tasteful pink accents, little vases of flowers, and blank walls—except for two. One wall wascompletely covered in collages. Squares of paper populated with clusters of photos or images or sketches that ran along distinct themes: the 1940s, French provincial countryside, Art Deco glamour… All of them saturated with taste and style. This wasn’t just a hobby but professional-level artistry, like design blueprints for all the rooms Emery would never get to touch thanks to her father’s oppression.
But the wall behind Emery’s bed made me catch my breath. Electric blue with a cherry blossom branch laden with little pink flowers arching down from the right corner, shedding petals here and there. At first, I thought it must be wallpaper, but upon closer inspection—as close as I dared get to Emery’s queen-sized bed—I realized it was hand-painted.
“You made this?”
Emery was at her desk, gathering chopped up magazines and printouts for a work-in-progress. “Yep. I convinced my parents to let me decorate my room. I thought it would help show them what I was capable of but…nope.” She smiled sadly and held up a printout. “Prom ideas. My last chance.”
Aside from marrying me,came the thought, but I pushed it away. Of all the things we talked about over the past six weeks, my “proposal” wasn’t one of them. We’d both shelved it out of sight, stuffed it in a closet until—if—she needed it.
“Emery…your room is incredible.”
She glanced away, smiling. “Thank you.”
Anger swept through me that her parents could look at what she’d done to this room—transforming it into a safe, warm space that reflected Emery exactly—and not put her on the first bus to RISD.
She removed a decorative throw pillow from a chair in the corner, then dragged the chair beside the one already at her desk. She giggled at me standing there like a dope, my arms laden with bananas and chips. “Oh my gosh, you can put those here.”
We sat together as the late October clouds rolled over the Narragansett, and I felt as if I’d been lured into a trap. Being inEmery’s bedroom was dangerous. It was suffused withher:her warmth and softness, her artistry—but heat too. An electricity or energy that made the air feel combustible. Radioactive. It didn’t help either, the way she sipped her drink, touching her tongue to her lips afterward, or the way she glanced up at me from under her bangs, as if we shared a secret only the two of us knew.
This was a bad idea.
The radiant energy of Emery’s room, her nearness, herself… decayed the walls I’d put up to protect myself until they were flimsy and paper-thin. I didn’t trust I’d remember how to chew food, so I drank water for my throat, which had gone dry. Eventually, we pulled out the study materials, and Emery assumed her usual position: elbow on table, cheek propped in her palm, pencil tapping idly in her other hand.
“The midterm is going to cover hyperbolic functions, right?” I said, flipping open the math text, seeking refuge in the safety of cold, sterile numbers. “So let’s start here…”
“How’s your dad doing?” Emery asked. “Still working on the unified theory?”
I smiled at her gentle concern and the fact she would do literally anything besides math.
“Yeah, he is,” I said. “But it’s a struggle. His equations keep running into infinities, especially when they come up against phenomena like entanglement.”
Emery arched a brow. “English, please.”
I chuckled. “He’s using super hard math—the kind that makes this stuff look like basic arithmetic—to try to make sense of entangled particles.”
“What are those?”
I frowned. “Don’t you think we should study? You’re paying me for this time…”
She waved a hand. “In a minute. Please continue.”
