~Emmalyn~
Rhys had acted weird the rest of the day since going to meet with that woman, and I was pretty sure he took off before the school day was even over because I didn't see him after the bell. I hoped he was okay. And then I realized I was concerned for him and he could very damn well take care of himself. He didn't need me wasting time being worried.
I could hear Michael and Clara in the living room talking. The TV was on, too. I kicked off my shoes and dropped my backpack, stomach rumbling.
"Emma? Is that you?"
"No, actually, it's a serial murderer and I'm coming to kill you both," I replied sarcastically with a smile playing at my lips as I bit into an apple. "I'll give you five seconds to run for you lives."
"Just like her mother," I heard her say. "Jemma wanted me to tell you that she went out for a little bit, but she should be back soon."
"Coolio," I mumbled in reply, my eye catching some photographs hanging on a bulletin board by the fridge. I had never seen them before. I wiped my wrist along my mouth to clear the traces of apple juice as I squinted at the pictures. They were so clearly of my parents. I was sure there wasn't another person alive who resembled my Mom exactly.
They seemed to be taken at different times, as they progressed in years. The last one was of them in a hospital, my mother holding a baby which I guessed to be me. I smiled softly at that. The others were my parents being goofy or just acting as hopelessly in love as they really were. As they still are. They were seriously adorable.
I finished the apple and tossed it into the trash can, wandering into the living room. Clara was stretched out on the couch, using Michael as a footrest. I noticed he was massaging her feet.
"A regular ole' slave driver around here, huh Clara?"
Clara and Michael both laughed. I folded my arms over the back of the couch, grinning. "She's lucky I love her," Michael commented, tickling her feet. Clara jumped.
"Hush, you should feel honored to touch my feet," she replied in a jokingly indignant manner. I rolled my eyes and Michael might have done the same, though I noticed he didn't stop massaging her feet. I had a rather comical image, then, of Rhys massaging my feet, but it was so farfetched I nearly laughed aloud.
I was about to turn and disappear upstairs when I saw that all they were watching was the news-it always seemed so depressing to me-but a particular name caught my attention and I made the mistake of gluing my gaze to the screen.
My blood froze in my veins and I wouldn't have been surprised if my heart stopped beating for two seconds. I watched the people moving around on the screen, the words scrolling along the bottom. I gripped the back of the couch in white-knuckled hold.
Breathe, Emma.
I wanted to look away, to run away, but I couldn't move. I was paralyzed where I stood, eyes fixated on the man being led by cops on the screen, his face half-assedly shielded from reporters.
"That was a damn shame what happened with that boy," Michael commented. I barely registered his words. "Kids can be real cruel these days."
I swallowed hard. Right. My mother didn't tell our family why we moved in with them. And it was asked before that my name not be given out on details since he hadn't gotten put away for what really happened . . . For what my parents had fought for . . .
Breathe, Emma.
"The poor girl," Clara murmured. "I wish I knew who she was so I could send my condolences."
"That's just because you care too much," Michael added. "You with your heart of gold."
Breathe, Emma.
Michael grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. The reporter was a woman with curly black hair and popping red lipstick. Her eyes were serious and laced with just that bit of disgust directed at the man who was literally the bane of my existence. "Mike Packer, who was arrested and sent to jail two years ago without bail after various charges were placed on his person on the assault of a girl-who had asked previously to remain anonymous-in his high school class, has just been released today." It then shot to an image of him. He would be twenty now, since he had been a senior at our old high school. He looked worse for wear. Stubble covered his face and his dirty blonde hair was shaggy and unkempt. He had on a quick change of rumpled clothes. Reporters snapped photos and popped questions left and right. I recognized his mother on one side of him, his father on the other.
"Out of my way!" he snapped, ushering his family through.
Breathe, Emma.
My knees trembled, threatening to collapse entirely on me. Visions of the past and that wretched night passed through my mind like some sick slideshow. They wouldn't stop; wouldn't go away. I chomped down hard on my tongue, hoping the pain would prove something else to focus on.
It didn't work.
"What are you going to do now?" a reporter had to ask, and at that Mike's shoulders stiffened on the screen. He angled himself so he was facing the camera of the man who had spoken. His eyes were abysmal and depthless, like two black holes. They betrayed the insanity, the sadism, he held inside of him.
"I have some unfinished business to attend to," he growled in a husky, gruff voice that promised nothing pleasant. His eyes stared straight into the camera, and I swore they looked right at me, right into my soul, tearing me to shreds. I was trembling something horrible, needing to escape before Clara or Michael saw. Before they could ask me what was wrong and I would give them proof of the mentally broken girl I really was inside. "And they know who they are."
His last words sent a tremor of fear- pure, unadulterated fear-straight through me. The kind of fear that ripped you in half and exposed your raw, vulnerable layers to the world. That revealed the scars you tried so hard to keep concealed. The helpless kind of fear you couldn't do a thing about.
The car sped away and I zoned out when the reporter started speaking once more. Holy shit. Mike was out. Mike was . . .
I had nightmares of this moment. I had always hoped they would find something, anything to convict him and put him away longer, but apparently there was nothing. There was just him with his freedom, and me stuck again in the imprisonment of my fear.
That threat was meant for me. I knew it with all my heart. He had said something similar after the trial. I had been present for it.
"You'll pay for this," he had spat, words oozing venom as he slowly poisoned me. "When I get out you better watch your back, because I'm coming."
I had pushed it to the back of my mind. But seeing it . . . It was all so real. And he really had poisoned me. Just knowing he lived and breathed was a toxin and I was dying slowly, every day, that he endangered my life. Every day he woke up in the morning and wished I were dead. Every day a little bit more of me would be reduced to nothing at the thought of him ever finding me.
Already I had a permanent reminder of what he could do to me, of just how disturbed he was. How cruel and cold-hearted he was. What made me most sick was the fact that I had dated him. We had kissed. He had once said I was his whole world.
And then in one night he had stolen everything from me.
Breathe, Emma.
I was an idiot. A naïve young girl who knew nothing about life and was in over her head dating a senior. To think he could like me. To think he was interested. I would never make that mistake again. What my parents had was one in a million. Some people just weren't meant for happily ever after and I was one of those people.
"A damn shame," Michael reiterated in a quieter voice as a different topic flicked onto the screen. But I was very much still hung up on the breaking news segment. My own personal hell was now loose in the world. My nightmares were real.
I feared what would keep me up at night now that what haunted my thoughts was reality.
Air. I needed air. And maybe a sedative to take me away from it all. That would be nice, too.
I was vaguely aware of the door banging open as my mother's cheerful voice greeted us. She clanged around in the kitchen, putting groceries away. I still couldn't move. I knew where I wanted to go; upstairs. Locked in my room for all eternity. I just couldn't seem to get my feet to go there.
"What's going on?" she said as she joined us in the living room. The TV had to flash again to breaking news segment and Mike's stupid face popped up. There was silence, and I felt her about ready to approach me when my feet finally caught up with my brain and bolted me up the stairs. I could hear my mother close behind me. I was nearly to my room when she grabbed my arm and forced me to a stop. My mom was not a big woman. She was quite petite but stronger than she appeared. I could already feel the tears falling as I sagged willingly against her chest, needing the comfort only a mom could give. She walked us into my room and shut the door gently behind her. She sat us down on the edge of my bed and pulled her hand through my hair.
"Shh, Emma, it's okay," she soothed. "You're okay. Don't be scared."
"Don't be scared?" I yanked away from her, my petrifying fear morphing into rage. "Don't be scared? I have every fucking right to be scared, Mom! He-he-oh, my God." I collapsed to the floor, covering my face in my hands as I sobbed. My shoulders heaved with the intensity. Every image that came to mind was of his face and that only caused me to cry harder.
"Sweetheart, you must listen to me," she started again, sounding closer. When I glanced up through my teary eyes I saw that she was kneeling before me. "You can't let this consume you, okay? You're my daughter; you are stronger."
I wanted to believe I was. I wanted to believe I could carry on like perfectly normal even with the knowledge that he was no doubt searching for me as we spoke. But being realistic I knew I couldn't. I knew the chances of that happening were terrible and I was more likely to go into a catatonic state of shock and not say a word for months.
"Emmalyn, you are stronger, and he can't break you," my mother continued. She sounded so sure, so freaking sure of herself, that I almost believed it, too. Almost.
But not quite.
"You don't know what it's like," I whispered, staring dazedly at the floor. "To see him everywhere you go. He's in my dreams, in my thoughts. He's every other face walking down the street, every voice I can't locate. He's every phantom brush of my shoulder, every unaccounted for touch. Every leering look, every passing gaze." I met my mother's sorrowful eyes. "He's a part of me, Mom. He won't ever leave."
The look in her eyes was one of loss and pain, like she knew there just wasn't anything she could do to help me. I had had the best psychiatric care had to offer, and look at where I was..
"We'll get through this," she stated instead, in a voice way stronger than she looked. "We've gotten through worse and we can do it again, as a family. You must trust in yourself, Emmalyn."
I didn't, though. I didn't trust in myself to keep that bastard from my thoughts one single second, because before I could even entertain such a thing he was already creeping in. "Can I please be left alone?" I squeaked.
She ran her hand over my hair. I knew it was the last thing she wanted to do, but begrudgingly she stood up. "Sure. I'll start on dinner. Meatloaf sound good?"
I nodded absentmindedly. She left. I noticed she kept my door open a crack. I couldn't say I blamed her. Under such a state of distress I was known to take extreme measure to relieve it.
I sat in a pathetic huddled mess on the floor, back against the end of my bed. My knees were drawn up tight to my chest, as if I could protect myself from all the worldly horrors that way. It was a naïve thought, but I wished it were true.
He was back. Back to make my life miserable. He should have been put away for much longer, but I had no idea where those tapes were and they were the only real evidence. The only fighting chance I would have if I took anything to court. And if I had any say in the matter, it would be to never see that son of a bitch again, especially not in person. Even court seemed like an impossible, faraway prospect.
I couldn't believe it. With his freedom came my feeling of captivity. And with his captivity came my glimpses of freedom.
We couldn't have both.
Not forever.