He sidelined his flattery and asked, “You sure there’s nothing else?”
“Not from the folder, but there is something that happened at the party. Martin Kranski said someone is pulling the strings in the Velascos from the great beyond. It didn’t make sense at the time. He meant Ivan, didn’t he?”
Emory nodded and, unsteady on his feet, looked to the sky, but there was no anchor there, only clouds that blighted the moon and delivered a chill. The abyss below beckoned, and thefall seemed less treacherous. Broken at the bottom was perhaps a kinder fate.
“Emory,” Amelia ventured softly, “my first night here you told me there are real monsters, ones who would tear me apart if they got the chance. Both you and Mirabelle talk about Ivan that way. Why?”
Emory eyed the terrace steps with a bullish need to take his exit. A worn-out voice within warned him not to breathe this to life. Then again, it was easier to talk to strangers. Maybe he’d trot out a little tale like some fucked-up vaudeville.
“You can tell me,” she encouraged with a hand on his forearm, her palm warm against his skin.
Good women promised their silence, but it wasn’t about that. It was about trust. Hadn’t he asked the same of her, to put faith in him when she had no reason? And Amelia wasn’t a stranger anymore. Strangers didn’t look primed for heartbreak on his behalf or part their lips with words of comfort at the ready.
“I was ten,” Emory said and stared at the tips of his boots, though they held no particular fascination. “It was the first warm day of spring. I went to the woods where Jack and I had built a fort. I wanted to see if it’d survived the winter.”
That day, the wind moved tender through the trees, sweetened with clover grass and morning dew. Emory had darted down a path through the woods, besotted by the sun that felt like warm bliss. When he rounded a grove of trees, the contentedness vanished in one catastrophic instant.
“I found Ivan there. He was on the ground and gyrated in this strange way, grunting like he was hurt. The sun broke through the trees, and I saw a flash of blonde hair and a body beneath him. It was our babysitter, a girl from school. Her face…”
Emory closed his eyes. It only made the flood of memories worse. Amelia caressed his forearm.
“Her face was bloody and broken. Her belly had been cut open. It took me a while to realize she was already dead. When I did, I ran, but Ivan ran faster. He dragged me back to her body,told me to lay down in the leaves, and made me watch as he finished raping her.
“If I looked away, he’d get up and kick me in the ribs. I didn’t care about the pain, just that I could see her insides. Somehow that was worse. So, I laid there on the dead leaves. Her eyes were open, staring at me, and I stared back. I don’t remember how long it lasted, but when he was done, we hid her body behind a fallen tree and covered her with leaves. He told me, ‘You and I, we did this together as brothers. If you tell anyone, I’ll say you fucked her too.’”
That night, the family had celebrated Ivan’s fifteenth birthday. As Ivan blew out his candles, Emory silently sobbed at the dinner table and was sent to bed for making a fuss. Thereafter, the world was cold and stinking, no longer ripe with better days to come.
Sick to his stomach, Emory wavered on his feet. Amelia stared at him on the verge of tears. He didn’t want her sympathy, didn’t need her feeling sorry on his behalf. Plenty of people got a raw deal. Plenty.
“I’ve never told anyone that,” he whispered and hid shaky hands in his pockets. “I don’t talk about it or Ivan because people get the wrong idea, try to draw parallels between us or weigh my sins against his.”
Amelia nodded but couldn’t meet his eyes. He shouldn’t have told her. He should’ve lied, said he was fine and sent her to bed. Maybe they should both just walk away and call it a wash.
Emory collected his reserve to do just that, but, like a bolt from the blue, Amelia flew into his arms. Her cheek burrowed against his chest, and her arms coiled around his middle.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her tattered breaths warm as they seeped through his shirt. “You’re not a monster. I never should’ve called you that. It’s not what I think. You’re nothing like him.”
Emory froze on delay, processing the feel of her body and the affection she gave so freely. That was her off-ramp, her reason to reject him and stand firm in her disgust of his world. She didn’t but consoled instead with her hands caressing his back.
Emory returned the embrace with his heart racing. Surely, she felt it humming against her as he held on tight. As she let go, Amelia slipped her hands to Emory’s forearms and pondered the tattoos there.
“At Rich’s party, someone pulled me from the crowd. It was you, wasn’t it?”
Emory nodded. “I thought you knew,” he said but wasn’t so sure anymore. In the chaos, she probably hadn’t seen him trudging through bodies to get to her.
Her brows furrowed, and she licked her lips. “No, if I’d known…”
“I know. I wanted to help you. Still do.”
Amelia swayed to the cricket’s song, an excuse perhaps for her arms to slip around his neck and fingers to weave in his hair.
“Even though I have nothing left to tell you?”
Emory cupped her cheek. “That’s not the only reason I brought you here.”
“What’s the other reason?” she asked and tilted her head to find more of his touch. Her face fit so neatly in his palm, every piece of her constructed to match with him, or so it seemed.
Emory dipped his head until his mouth hovered close to hers, their lips brushing as he whispered, “Because I know what it’s like to feel unsafe and alone.”
