Nine Years Ago

My brother stopped in front of the school, pulling off to the curb and putting the car in Park.

I hadn’t slept a wink last night, and while there was a cloud fogging my brain, so nothing was really clear yet, I didn’t feel tired.

More like my head was floating six feet above my body, detached and delayed.

“You look really pretty today,” Martin said.

I tried to smile. “Thanks.”

My skirt and shirt were ironed, my hair was combed and fixed with a headband, my tie tightened, and for once, I wore the expensive navy blue blazer he bought me last year that still fit.

“I hope I find you at home when I get off work.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry about everything,” I said in a low voice.

I felt his eyes on me, but he remained silent for a while.

Then, his soft voice filled the car. “We have to get along, Emmy. I’m all you have.” Then he ruffled my hair, laughing. “I mean, I’m nice, right? I buy you stuff and let you have freedom. I got you into this school because I want you to have the best. I try, right?”

I nodded again.

“I’ll make some of that homemade caramel corn you like tonight, too,” I said.

He groaned, smiling. “Sounds like a plan.”

I climbed out of the car, taking my bag with me and waving goodbye before heading through the parking lot.

It wasn’t often we patched things up with so little effort, but after I got home last night, I didn’t even try to sleep. I showered again, washing my hair and scrubbing and shaving like a new me would be some kind of armor.

I cleaned my room, fixed up the kitchen again, and made cinnamon rolls, letting them bake as I sat at the table and completed all my homework, even the study guide for The Grapes of Wrath that wasn’t due for another week.

I packed up my school bag, dressed, and even put on some mascara before Martin arrived home to find life perfect again.

I wasn’t getting out of this situation. And I couldn’t kill him.

I had to survive, and just like last night when I told Damon that there was a tear in the membrane, I realized as the hours passed that it wasn’t going away.

Something had disconnected, and every memory of his hand across my face or his fist in my stomach over the years was like a dream happening to someone else.

I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t here now.

I didn’t have the energy to care about anything.

The morning classes came and went, and I wasn’t even sure if Will was in my first period, because the lecture seemed to end before I realized it had started.

I stared at my desk, the wrestling room playing in my head and something swelling in my heart but ripping it to shreds at the same time.

I was glad he had his friends. They loved him, and Will deserved to never be alone.

But I also hated the idea of anyone else but me making him happy.

Making Will happy was an amazing feeling.

I wished I could be the girl I was at the Cove every day, but it was gone. The weight had crushed that spark, and I couldn’t muster the energy to even try anymore.

“God, I’m not ready for basketball season to start,” Elle said, setting her lunch tray down next to me in line. “There are like two weeks where it overlaps with football, and we’ll be swamped.”

“Not me,” I muttered, moving down the line. “I quit band this morning.”

“What?”

I took some chicken tenders and ranch, not bothering to look at her.

“My grandmother is sick,” I explained quietly. “Or sicker, I mean. I’m needed at home now.”

I didn’t even bother to talk to the director in person. I emailed her, pretty confident my brother would agree that concentrating on my studies and my architectural projects would be a better use of my time.

The less I was at school—or games or on buses—the better.

“I’m going to go sit with Gabrielle today,” she said suddenly. “We have to talk about a… a project.”

She took her tray and walked past me, toward the cashier, and I didn’t look up or respond.

The one friend I might’ve had…

I didn’t care.

I paid, walked to an empty section of a table in the corner of the room, and sat down, slipping in my earbuds and turning on some music from the iPod hidden in my pocket.

I raised my eyes for a split second, immediately locking gazes with Damon. He sat twenty yards away at a circular table filled with his friends. Chaos went on around him, but he remained still and calm like the eye of the storm, the tears and rage from last night almost like they had never happened.

I’d been waiting for the guilt to start eating me up, but it didn’t. The worry sat there, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it now, and I wasn’t sure I would’ve done anything differently if I could go back to last night. He had as much to lose, and he was sloppy. There was probably evidence of him all over her.

Somehow, I felt more in control not caring than I ever did.

Dropping my eyes, I opened my milk and my ranch, starting to eat as “Army of Me” played in my ears, but then the air around me started vibrating, and I heard a different beat in my ears.

Pulling out the earbuds, I looked up and saw Will on top of his lunch table.

His friends sat or stood, looking up at him and laughing as he started dancing to some pop 80s or 90s tune, stripping off his school jacket as his shirt and tie hung on him like a god.

He was going to look amazing in a suit someday.

He jumped off the table, moving around the room as students hooted and howled, and he looked like…

I laughed under my breath, a smile spreading across my face.

He looked like Jean-Claude Van Damme in Kickboxer.

Hang around more and maybe you’ll find out.

The smile slowly fell, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. This was for me.

Needles pricked my throat, watching him dance and loving the smile on his face.

I flashed my gaze to Damon again, seeing that he wasn’t looking at me anymore. His head was turned and his eyes fixated on another table. I followed his gaze, seeing Winter Ashby and Erika Fane sitting and eating, surrounded by other kids.

What was he doing with her last night on that motorcycle? We might’ve bonded in ways most people never did, but I wasn’t an idiot, either. Damon screwed, abused, used, and there was no one and nothing on which he didn’t prey. I didn’t know what his interest in her was, but I was pretty sure it would hurt her.

“Get down!” someone shouted.

I looked away from Winter and over to Will, seeing Kincaid bark at him as he stood on the table. The music over the loudspeakers died, and everyone laughed as he smiled and jumped down from another table.

The cloud that had been sitting in my head the last twelve hours started to fade a little, and for a moment, I missed him.

Wouldn’t he love it if I made the grand gesture next? Snuck into his room tonight? Hung out at the pool every afternoon, waiting for him to show up?

Called him?

Erika Fane led Winter Ashby out of the lunchroom, both of them dumping their trays before they exited and Damon watching them. I tore my eyes away from Will, putting my earbuds back in and trying to eat.

I barely heard the music as I nibbled on my food, ignoring the eyes I felt on me and the sounds of laughter coming from his table.