“And you’re fact-checking it to see if they have done their research?” He made an educated guess.
“Exactly!” She grinned. “What are you listening to?”
His earbuds hung from the collar of his hoodie, so he wasn’t surprised by the question. Then again, she knew music was one of his coping mechanisms anyway.
“Well, the last song I had on was Portugal, The Man’s ‘Feel It Still.’”
“Nice one, I approve.” She nodded vigorously. Both of their tastes in music had widened significantly during the time they’d known each other. They swapped book and music recommendations and had a weird sort of almost-friendship going on that tiptoed around the line of professional conduct versus so not that.
Leah came to bring Emil his lunch, and he smiled at her again. “Thanks. Can I get a strawberry milkshake in a bit?”
“Sure, honey. I’ll keep an eye on when you’re done with that,” she said, nodding at his plate.
“Great!”
Once Leah was out of hearing range, Evy chuckled. “Someone’s feeling good today,” she teased ever so gently.
The problem with being friends with one’s therapist was the teasing, even though she knew to never overdo it.
“Yeah, yeah, shut your mouth, hippie,” Emil grumbled as he dug into his meal.
He had eating issues. He could admit that. There were days that he couldn’t really eat at all. One of the doctors he’d seen after—in the last five years—had even thought he might have anorexia. Spoiler alert: he didn’t. He just had severe trauma when it came to food, and his PTSD sometimes fucked things up for a while.
Today was a good day, so he’d take advantage of that. The thing with his issues was that he knew all about them and had learned to live with what hadn’t gone away completely. It wasn’t easy, but he was coping with the help of Evy, his parents—although they could be a bit stifling—and music. Well, and books, but that went without saying.
While Emil ate and ate, and then had his milkshake, he chatted with Evy about what was going on around town.
“Did your dad tell you about the new guy yet?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with mirth.
“Not really, but I’m not deaf.”
Evy laughed. “Yeah, nobody isnottalking about him.”
Emil snorted. Anyone moving into town was the Big Thing for a while, at least until they moved back out or someone else moved in. Or something huge happened in Mercer. None of those things were common enough to keep people from remembering what had happened to Emil. Frankly, if this new guy took the weight of their gazes off Emil for a while, he wouldn’t mind at all.
“Apparently he’s hot,” Evy said out of the blue.
Emil blinked. “What?”
“Lotte met him, and he’s hot. In the way really big guys sometimes are,” she explained. “That was a direct quote, by the way. I like willowy men, I can’t even lie.”
Emil chuckled. “Yeah. Well, it doesn’t matter what he looks like, now does it?”
“How do you reckon?”
“Well, he’s a convicted criminal, even if he’s been found innocent and all that. He could be young Marlon Brando and people would still look at him funny.”
“Emil Newman, are you telling me that the townspeople can’t let go of the past?” Evy clutched her chest dramatically.
Emil snorted so hard he almost inhaled some of his milkshake.
AFTER THEincident when he was seventeen, Emil had dropped out of high school. He hadn’t been fit to go back for a while, and he’d ended up having his mom homeschool him, and then he’d gotten his GED last year. For now, he didn’t have any plans for a career.
He felt like he was mooching off his parents, but they insisted he stay living at home until he knew what he wanted to do next. He had some disability money coming in, and it was enough for him to save just a little bit each month so that he’d have something of his own whenever he moved out.
There just didn’t seem much chance for that, really. Not when his PTSD kicked in as soon as he had to be around more than a couple of people, especially if they were strangers. What he needed was an emotional support animal, but his mom was allergic to anything hairy, so that didn’t work so well.
In any case, the event that shall not be named had changed everything: Emil, his parents, his relationship with them, hell, the whole town of Acker.
