~Rhys~
I was pissed. Again.
At Emma.
Again.
I drove to her house because I thought like the fucking greatest guy I was, I would chauffer her to the dance. But when I arrived her house was dark and the car was gone, which left me no choice but to think she had driven herself or her parents had given her a ride. Which meant I had gone out of my way for absolutely nothing.
This was why I didn’t bother dealing with people before. All they did was piss you off, give you headaches, and make life harder than it needed to be.
I pulled into the parking lot of the dance, knowing full well I would rather ram my car into a tree then go and suffer through the hell taking place in that gym. Balloons and punch and people grinding . . . It was enough to make me puke.
Begrudgingly, I shoved open my car door and trudged into the school. Maybe Emma would only want to stay for ten minutes and we could sneak out without Mr. Matthews knowing we left.
Ha. Fat chance. That old geiser didn't miss a trick.
I was hit with a wall of music and thumping bass that set my teeth on edge the minute I crossed the threshold into the gym. I skirted the boundaries, spotting Rose and Luke amidst the chaos. They were chatting away with a couple of their equally annoying friends. I scoffed and grabbed a seat by the food. I might as well get compensation for the terrible time I was bound to have.
It occurred to me then that I really didn’t have true, legit friends I could rely on. Except for Rico, and whatever Emma was. My English partner, I guess.
And it also occurred to me I didn’t care.
Maybe I was just a loner by nature.
“Where’s Emma?”
I swore, the girl had like sensors or some crap that told her the exact time I didn’t want to talk to anybody, and made her just have to come up and say something. I glanced up at Rose, holding Luke’s hand. I raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. “I don’t know.”
“Did you do something to her again?”
“I didn’t do anything to her last time.”
“Right, and I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Yep.”
She huffed. “You’re impossible. I don’t know how Emma does it.”
I grunted.
“Let’s go, Luke,” Rose urged. “He’s just going to be his usual grouchy self.”
Luke sent me an amused smile before letting the red-head brat pull him away. I sighed, digging my fingers into my temples. Emma clearly wasn’t there. So maybe she bailed. Maybe she was finally paying me back for that Vittorio’s incident when I didn’t come to train her.
So then what the hell was I still doing there?
“Rhys?”
Right. He was the reason.
I spun on my heel with full intention of giving him hell for the stupid dance, but hesitated when I saw the grim expression on his face. If there was one thing I had learned about my odd English teacher, it was that he never looked the least bit stricken.
Ever.
“I was waiting for you,” he began, eyes flickering with sadness. “I have some troubling news.”
I frowned, eyebrows dipping. “What do you mean?”
“It concerns Emma.”
The dive my stomach took was unexplainable. It felt like it fell all the way to my knees. “What’s wrong with her?”
He started wringing his hands. “She was taken to the hospital earlier this evening.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said quietly.
“Which hospital?”
“The one in town. I don’t think you can—Rhys!”
My body was acting before I could think it through. Emma was in the hospital. Thinking about the events of the past few days didn’t make any result I could fathom very pleasant.
“Dammit, Emma,” I mumbled as I started up my car and sped out of the lot, going about ten miles over.
This stupid caring thing wasn’t worth it.
Way too much anxiety.
~*~
I arrived at the hospital about ten minutes later and crashed through the doors, darting up to the front desk. The lady appeared a bit frazzled. “Hello,” she greeted. “Can I help you?”
“Emmalyn Hall,” I blurted out in a rush. My heart was pounding and I couldn’t identify why. “She was just admitted.”
“Ah, yes. She’s not available for visitors at the moment.”
“Why the hell not?”
The lady pursed her lips at my language. “Because she’s unstable.”
“Unstable?”
“Quite.”
“Well, when will she be?” I persisted, running a hand over my hair.
“When she’s deemed stable.”
“Well when is—”
“Rhys?”
I turned and saw Jemma, Emma’s mother. She had a tissue in her hands and tear stains marring her cheeks. She beckoned me over and I came, hungry for information. “What happened?” I demanded.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized, taking in my apparel. “I’m sorry she couldn’t make the dance.”
I waved her comment away like it was an annoying fly. “Clearly she had a reason. Did she hurt herself?”
She shook her head. “She tried to,” she whispered.
Fucking hell, Emma. "What happened?"
Her legs shook, so I ushered her over to a chair and sat down beside her. Mascara trailed her cheeks, sopping wet from her tears. "I'm sorry, Rhys."
"I told you, it's okay. I hate dances anyway."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Not for that. I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry my daughter isn't like most girls. I'm sorry she isn't as easy to understand as most of them at Heart. It's just, she . . . There's so much I wish I could take back."
Was she aware her words made zero sense? "What do you mean?"
Jemma twisted her fingers together, chest still heaving. "Emma tried to kill herself," she murmured. "By overdosing. I found her in the bathroom just in time."
Being best friends with Rico, that wasn't an unfamiliar phrase. Half of my life was drugs and overdosing and missed opportunities. Even at thirteen I was trained to recognize symptomps of a regular user, and those of an intermittent one. I helped Rico hall his fair share of bodies into the ground. The words "just in time" never applied to them. They never had anybody. They were lost, at a dead end, and stuck.
Emma had people. She had parents, Rose, her aunt and uncle . . .
She had reasons to live.
So why didn't she live?
"I can't stop it," Jemma continued, half talking to me and half talking just because. "I try not to show it, but I'm scared that one day I won't be home. One day she will be alone, and she'll lose control, and I won't be there to stop it."
There were no words. I certainly couldn't say "Sorry", or "That sucks". Sometimes, no person could be articulate enough to find the right thing to say. Some situations warranted nothing but silence.
"You have to help her," she said. "Mr. Matthews paired you two up for a reason. You have to help my daughter, Rhys."
Maybe they were just words spoken from an upset and desperate woman, but still they shot through me, like bullets. As if it was my job to take care of her. As if it was my duty to put her back together. Who the fuck did they think I was? Weeks ago everybody had me labeled as the poor delinquent who would end up in jail the rest of his life. Then Emma showed up and suddenly people think I can become something.
I wasn't anything. Not a savior, not a hero, and certainly not a person to pin hopes and dreams on. Hell, I wasn't even that nice. I had done a lot of stupid and cruel things. A lot of things I didn't deserve forigveness for.
So how in the hell was I supposed to help Emma, when I couldn't even help myself?