Nine Years Ago
“Arion Ashby’s having a party,” Damon told us, lying on the hood of his car and blowing a stream of smoke up toward the sky. “Her parents will be out of town.”
Kai groaned, and Michael laughed at him under his breath.
“What?” Damon taunted. “Are you bored, Kai? Restless? Need a new kind of fun?”
“Me?” Kai retorted. “Never. I’m perfectly content. Loving life.”
Damon smiled to himself, taking another drag off his cigarette, looking like he didn’t believe Kai for a second.
The school parking lot swarmed with students, all of us hanging out and trying to soak up the rare, warm October morning before classes started. A calm breeze swept through the trees, clouds rolled in, the air charged, and I looked around for any sign of Emmy Scott.
Without looking like I was looking for her.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want my friends to know that I was into her, because they already knew I was, but if she got the slightest attention for it, she’d get scared off, and she was already constantly bolting away from me.
My eyes lifted, covertly scanning the crowd.
She wasn’t waiting for me this morning.
I mean, of course she wasn’t, but still. Pretty sure I would’ve died, seeing her waiting on the corner of her block for me, but as much as I wished I didn’t know, I did.
She would never make anything easy.
Or maybe she couldn’t. Something kept bugging me about Friday night. Dropping her off at her house, I could hear it in her voice when she demanded I stop a couple houses down, instead of right in front of her driveaway. It was fear.
Almost like she was panicked.
I tied my tie, keeping it loose around my collar, and watched cars enter the gates, parents drop off their freshmen, and some students head through the parking lot on foot.
I was one of the first here this morning. Where the hell was she? Was she already inside?
“Same parties. Same girls,” Michael mumbled. “I’m fucking bored.”
“I know.” Kai let out a sigh. “I’m feeling it, too. I need something to happen.”
“Something to obsess over,” Michael added.
And then Damon chimed in. “We should kill someone.”
Michael snorted, Kai rolled his eyes, and I plucked the cigarette out of Damon’s mouth, taking a drag and shaking my head.
Michael whipped his uniform blazer at Damon. “I was thinking I needed the season to start, you fucking psycho.”
“Or maybe you need to fall for someone,” Kai told him, pulling his jacket out of his Jeep and slipping it on. “I’m ready to have my guts twisted into knots.”
But instead of looking at Damon or Michael when he said that, Kai met my eyes, a knowing smile playing behind them. I flipped him off, and he just laughed silently.
“Blood would be better,” Damon pointed out, plucking his cigarette back, taking a drag, blowing the smoke up to the sky, and then flicking the butt off somewhere. “Come on. We’ll pick someone. Someone who deserves it. Stalk her—or him—watch them, plan how we’re going to get away with it, dispose of the body…”
I shook my head, only half listening as I scanned the parking lot again for Em.
“And then watch this town lose their minds at the danger lurking right under their noses,” Damon said. “It’ll be fun.”
I heard someone breathe out a laugh again, but then silence fell, and no one said anything.
Because while no one was ready to do more than entertain the idea as a joke, not one of us doubted that Damon was somewhat serious.
He might even already have someone in mind.
“I’m so glad you’re on my side sometimes,” Michael told him.
But Damon just took out another cigarette and lit it, musing out loud. “We’d be bound together in the secret forever.”
“Yeah, well, there’s no one I want to kill,” Kai said.
Damon just stared up to the sky before bringing the cigarette toward his mouth again. “Lucky you,” he murmured.
I looked down at him, his gaze still on the clouds, and I couldn’t help this feeling in my gut.
Michael and Kai needed something to happen, and I… I already felt it coming.
The first bell rang, and we all headed indoors, students racing up the steps and trying to maneuver their way down the halls.
She’ll be in class. She never misses school.
After stopping at the lockers and dodging conversations the others got tangled in on the way down the hall, I finally dove into lit class with my book and binder, looking to see who she planted herself around, so I knew whose ass to move.
But as I looked, I only spotted Chase Deery and Morgan Rackham in the classroom. No one else.
I stopped for a moment, faltering. Fucking great. This was what I got for rushing and trying to pretend like I wasn’t rushing. Now I got to sit here like a dumbbell, and if she came in and sat far away, I couldn’t move, or else she’d know I was waiting for her.
And I didn’t want her to know I was waiting for her.
Continuing to a seat toward the windows, I took out my phone, pretending to look busy.
People drifted in, filling the seats, but I didn’t look up as Kai, Michael, and Damon surrounded me.
As the minutes passed, I barely registered the teacher talking, the papers shuffling, or the nudge on my shoulder to pass the new packets back.
There was only one thing I was aware of as I sat there.
She wasn’t here.
Maybe she was taking her time. She hated this class, after all.
But as the class wore on and she was nowhere to be seen, I barely heard a fucking word the whole time.
We started a new book. The teacher passed them out and finished his lecture, and something was due by the end of the week, but if it wasn’t tomorrow, then I didn’t care.
I didn’t give a shit. Where the hell was she?
The bell rang, and everyone rose from their seats, piling out of the classroom, but instead of turning left outside the classroom, toward my next class, I turned right.
“Hey, where are you going?” Michael asked.
He and I shared government and economics.
“I’ll be at practice,” I assured him.
And I spun around and headed toward the library.
Coach would make me run laps once he found out I’d skipped classes, but I’d run so many laps the past few years, I was kind of perfect at it.
I couldn’t sit in class right now. My head ached and heated up like a fuse, and I refused to look for her, because even though I told myself it would be just to make sure she was safe—make sure everything was okay—it was because I was pissed.
She really went to any length to avoid me, didn’t she?
Rushing into the library, I made my way through the tables of students working and jogged up the open stairwell all the way to the third floor. I tossed my binder and books onto a table and pulled the group phone out of my pocket, heading down the long aisle and turning right down the fifth row. I reached up to a line of books and pulled out a fat, navy blue text, titled Data Entry and Transcendental Curves of Non-Regular Polytopes, something we know no one on this planet would even be interested in touching.
Opening the cover, I punched in the combination to the lock box inside, stuck the phone in, and closed it, placing it back onto the shelf. The communal phone that recorded all of our pranks had to be hidden somewhere no one would look and all of us could have ready access to it. Not sure why, since I ended up being the one to fetch it and record most of the videos.
But then I heard someone’s voice. “That title makes no sense.”
I turned my head over my shoulder, seeing a glimpse of brown hair through the bookcases.
I clutched the disguised lock box in my hand, pausing. Had she’d seen what I put in here?
I let go, peering through the bookcase and seeing Emory lean against the back wall, her head down with her hair and glasses covering her face.
“You weren’t in class,” I said.
Her chest shook, and I thought I saw her lip tremble.
But then she cleared her throat. “Wasn’t I?” she snipped. “Wow, you’re outstanding. Maybe for your next trick you can make fire and draw stories in the dirt about those funny holes in the sky that let the light in.”
Huh? Holes in the sky?
Oh, stars. Was she calling me a caveman?
Little shit. I mean, I did do her literature assignment for her. Did she have any idea how hard it was to try to sound like an angry teenage girl with zero sense of humor?
Then a tear fell down her cheek, and she quickly swiped it away.
I dropped my eyes down her body, taking in the worn and cracked gray Chucks, and the skirt two inches too short with the green and navy blue tartan pattern that was two years outdated. The glowing olive skin of her beautiful legs, interrupted with the occasional bruise or scrape, which I actually kind of loved because she probably got them from constructing that gazebo and being amazing at something most of us could never do.
Her shirt tail and cuffs hung out of her navy blue cardigan because it was too big, and her tie was missing, her blouse laying open an extra button. A lock of hair was caught inside her shirt, laying against her chest.
She was here and dressed for school, but she was hiding instead of going to class?
“What happened?” I asked.
But she just shook her head. “Just leave me alone,” she whispered. “Please.”
Please? God, she must be desperate if she was using manners.
“We started a new book in class,” I told her.
She remained quiet, chewing on her lip.
“We had a choice,” I said. “The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Grapes of Wrath, or Mrs. Dalloway.”
A little snarl peeked out, and I bit back my smile.
“I chose for you.”
She gently pushed off the wall and started walking, dragging her satchel slowly down the aisle of books as I followed on the other side of the bookcase.
“I have your paperback in my binder,” I told her. “Don’t you want it?”
She didn’t answer.
“Don’t you want to know which one I picked for you?”
She kept walking, but she was going so slowly. Like she wasn’t in her body.
“I picked something good.”
“There’s nothing in that selection that’s good, so just give me The Grapes of Wrath paperback, because things can always get worse, and that choice will really make this day complete.”
Seriously? How the hell did she guess which book I picked?
Dammit.
I knew she’d hate all the choices. The first week of school she went on some rant about the lack of diversity and relevant topics on our reading list and how the “classics” were only “classic” because novels written for a broader audience weren’t getting published in the old days. The whole system was rigged and damn the man, etc.
I just wanted her to smile. It would be one thing if I were the one making her miserable, but I had a feeling I wasn’t.
“Em, look at me a minute.”
She stopped, looking like the whole world sat on her shoulders. What the hell was wrong?
I knew if I asked, she wouldn’t tell me, though.
“Em?” I murmured.
Just look at me.
Still, she wouldn’t turn. She was right here but miles away, and my chest ached.
“I grabbed you a study guide, too.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the folded packet. “Here.”
I reached through the books and handed her the guide. It only took her a moment to reach out and finally take it, but when she did, I let it go and grabbed her hand instead.
She sucked in a breath and tried to pull away.
But I whispered, “Look at me.”
She stopped resisting, but still refused to meet my eyes.
What was wrong with her? As far as my friends were concerned, there’d always been something wrong with her, but she looked…defeated. Like a broken vase barely held together with glue.
Emory Scott never looked like that.
She looked down, probably at our hands, and I didn’t tighten my hold or caress her fingers. I just held her.
“Look at me,” I whispered.
But she choked out a sob, turning her face away so I wouldn’t see. “Don’t,” she demanded. “Please, don’t be sweet. I…”
But all she did was shake her head, the words lost.
Rage boiled my blood, and I wanted to know what happened. Who hurt her? The sight of her crying was like a knife in my gut.
But she wouldn’t talk to me. Not yet.
Maybe never.
“Knock-knock,” I said.
She just sighed but stayed silent.
I knew I was being annoying. I’d punch me if I were her.
“Come on, knock-knock?”
She shook her head and dried her eyes, ignoring me.
I hardened my tone, demanding, “Knock-knock.”
“Come in,” she snapped, cutting off my joke.
I stood frozen for a moment. How did she always do that?
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not often I could be outsmarted, let alone repeatedly.
But that was clever. I broke out into a laugh, and after a moment, I noticed a small smile playing on her lips that she tried to hide.
Releasing her hand, I rounded the bookshelves and approached her, staring down at her bowed head and eyes that still avoided me.
“Look at me,” I repeated.
Slowly, she shook her head, but it seemed more to herself than an answer to me.
“Emory…”
She stared at the floor and then retreated a step, but I grabbed her face, bringing her in close and rubbing my thumbs underneath her eyes. I wiped away the tears, but more just streamed down.
And in that moment, I wanted to do nothing else with my life more than change her world, so she’d never feel like this again. Goddammit.
She tried to pull away, but I couldn’t let go. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in, hugging her as she gasped. Sobs wracked through her as she tensed, but I just held her tight, keeping her standing so she didn’t have to even worry about that right now.
I couldn’t stand this. She had to stop crying.
Finally, her arms relaxed, and every fight inside of her melted away. She let her cheek fall into my chest, her arms hanging limply at her sides as she leaned into me, letting me hold her.
People passed behind us, but I didn’t care what they saw as long as they kept going.
I stroked her hair with my hand, my fingers humming at the feel of finally touching her. Such a big mouth and attitude on a person who was really so soft and small.
I dipped my nose into her hair, the scent making my head buzz and the feel of her warming every muscle in my body.
“Let’s go,” I told her, taking her hand in mine and her bag in the other. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
I pulled her, not waiting for a reply.
She dug in her heels, suddenly alert. “We can’t.”
“Watch me.”
I pulled her out of the library, leaving my shit on the table because I knew it would still be there later, and walked down the hallway and out of the school, hearing her nervous breaths behind me as she looked around frantically for teachers or surveillance cameras.
For some reason, though, she didn’t protest more.
Heading to my truck, I tossed her bag into the bed and opened the passenger side door for her.
She finally met my eyes, looking so tired. God, the circles around her eyes I was finally able to see in the light of day… When was the last time she’d slept?
She opened her mouth, like she might argue, but then, she just climbed in. I slammed the door, rounding the truck and climbing in on my side.
I almost wanted her to fight. Emory Scott was letting me take her off school grounds during school hours, and she wasn’t even demanding to know where.
I didn’t like this dead look on her face. What the fuck was going on?
Starting the truck, I pulled out my phone and dialed as I drove out of the parking lot, turning to head toward the village.
She absently pulled her seatbelt across her body, fastening it.
Roger Culpepper answered on the other end. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Will. Can you open the doors?”
“It’s nine a.m.” he told me.
“Just open the theater,” I told him again. “Then you can go back to sleep.”
I hung up before he had a chance to argue and looked over at Em, who just stared out the window. She’d stopped crying and just relaxed back into the seat, looking sad but comfortable.
I stared out at the road as we headed back into town, unable to help the smile peeking out. Sorry, D. That’s her seat now.
• • •
Roger had the movie theater unlocked for us when we arrived, and I parked in the alley so no one would spot my truck off school grounds. Emmy didn’t ask any questions as I parked her in one of the theaters and left to grab snacks.
Culpepper managed the theater and had been here for the nightly festival until a few hours ago. I felt bad about waking him up and dragging his ass in, but ever since my impromptu birthday party last May after prom, my parents took my keys to the theater so I couldn’t let myself—or others—in.
Roger relaxed when he saw it was just one girl. He loaded the film, dimmed the lights, I made the popcorn, and after he left, I locked the doors again and carried a handful of junk food into theater three.
“Hungry?” I asked, slipping her drink into her cupholder.
She looked up at me, her eyes still red but always beautiful. She shifted nervously in her seat and looked behind her toward the doors, probably scared we were going to be caught.
“It’s gonna be okay.” I set down the rest of the snacks and picked the popcorn back up as I sat down. “I know a kid who works in the office. I already called and told him to mark you present in every class today.”
Plus, I had her turn off her cell phone in the truck, since I knew her brother might be tracking her. My parents threatened me with that from time to time.
I stuck some popcorn in my mouth and offered her some, the credits rolling on the film in front of us.
But she just stared at me.
“You know a kid?” she repeated, her usual snark painted all over her face with a big fat brush. “Of course, you have the whole school wired, because—”
“Thank you would be the correct response,” I said, mid-chew.
She gaped at me.
“Try it out,” I told her.
She closed her mouth, straightening her shoulders, but after a moment she dropped her defiant little chin and mumbled, “Thank you.”
Sitting back in her seat, she took her Coke and held it between her legs, and after a few minutes, I offered her some popcorn. She took it, pecking at her handful like a bird.
It was a rotten breakfast, but it was better than eating nothing, and I wasn’t sure she’d eaten yet today.
The trailers ran, and slowly, I felt her relax next to me, her eyes focused on the screen.
The opening scenes began, but instead of watching the movie I’d already seen, I watched her instead. Her eyes moved up and down and all around, mesmerized by the action, and her hand with a piece of popcorn stopped halfway to her mouth as she forgot all else.
“What is this?” she asked, but she didn’t take her eyes off the screen. “Is this…?”
The corner of my mouth lifted in a smile.
“Underworld: Awakening?” she finally said and looked over at me. “This doesn’t come out until January. How do you have it already?”
I cocked an eyebrow, and she rolled her eyes, remembering who I was.
“Of course,” she retorted. “Must be nice to—”
I looked back at the screen, clearing my throat extra loudly.
She halted whatever insult was on the tip of her tongue and let out a little laugh. “Thank you,” she told me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Yeah, shut up,” I teased. “Just watch the movie.”
She focused her bright eyes back on the screen, a smile still spread across her mouth that I had a hard time ignoring. I’d seen her in the theater by herself from time to time, so I figured this was her happy place.
We watched, and as the movie played, she started to change. Her eyes got bigger, her color came back, and I even heard her laugh once.
I held out the Twizzlers and Milk Duds, giving her first choice, but when she picked the Milk Duds, I opened the carton and spilled half in my hand before giving her the rest of the box. I gave her a choice to be nice. I didn’t actually want the Twizzlers.
I ate and she ate, and I snuck peeks at her throughout the film, watching her more than the movie.
She noticed, because she finally glanced over at me, catching my eyes. “What?” she asked, turning her eyes back to the screen.
“You’re not what I expected,” I said. “You like action movies, huh?”
“You don’t?”
I laughed. She was back to shaming my anti-feminist remarks. Yay for normal.
After a moment, she spoke up, her voice soft. “I don’t think about anything else when I’m watching them,” she explained. “They take me away. It’s an escape. I like the survival aspect in some of them, too. Ordinary people becoming extraordinary. Being called to do great things.” She rolled a Milk Dud between her fingers, watching the screen. “Hell hones heroes, you know? I feel it when I watch them.”
What did she need to escape, though? I didn’t ask, because that would only put her on guard, and I didn’t want her to run.
“Well, I prefer the classics,” I told her. “Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone…”
“Jean-Claude Van Damme,” we both said at the same time.
She turned to me, and I laughed.
“Yes,” she said, smiling.
“Fuck yes.” I nodded. “I mean, the Muscles from Brussels? Hell yeah.”
“Bloodsport,” she added.
“Kickboxer,” I chimed in.
Great movies. The eighties were the golden age. Ordinary people going to war—battling for honor. I mean, you just don’t get movies like Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop, and Cobra anymore.
You’re the disease, and I’m the cure. Booyah.
But then, Em started laughing, her pearly white teeth gleaming in the biggest smile I’d ever seen on the smartass little shit.
I pinched my eyebrows together. “What?”
What was she going to make fun of me for now?
“Kickboxer,” she said between giggles. “That scene where his teacher gets him drunk in a bar to see if he can fight intoxicated, and he starts dancing. Just the thought reminded me of you there for a minute.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Big guy, super happy, having fun… I don’t know.” She stuck a piece of candy in her mouth. “Just seems like something you would do.”
She sat back in her seat and looked up at the movie again.
“Hang around more and maybe you’ll find out,” I taunted.
I could dance. I could dance really well.
She licked her lips, the smile falling, but her breathing quickened.
We fell quiet again, the surround sound blasting every fight and explosion, but I swore I could only hear my heart beating with her next to me.
The minutes stretched, and I didn’t even know what movie we were watching anymore.
“Why do you like me?” she finally asked.
I looked over at her, repeating Edward McClanahan’s words, because it was the only way to explain. “We want what we want.”
Her chest rose and fell harder, but not an inch of her anywhere moved as she sat there and seemed to sink into her seat.
I looked down at her hands, the yellow box in one and the other clenching her skirt.
What would she do if—
“Do you still want to hold me?” she suddenly asked me.
I shot my eyes up to hers, but she just stared at the seat in front of her. My heart hammered in my chest, and every inch of me warmed.
Fuck yes.
Leaning over, I put her cup in the holder and dumped her Milk Duds into the popcorn container on the floor, taking her hand and pulling her up. I watched as she came over and lowered slowly into my lap.
I slid down in the seat, folding her into my arms as she tucked her head into my neck, neither of us giving a damn about the film anymore.
I closed my eyes, savoring the feeling of finally having her in my arms, and I had to fist my hands to keep them from roaming, or else she’d probably slap me.
But God, she felt good. Like everything was lighter when I held her.
“Don’t tell you I said this,” she whispered in my ear, “but you smell good.”
I shook with a laugh, unable to help myself. “Keep being, like pleasant and shit, and I’m going to find it really hard to keep being nice, Em. What are you trying to do?”
She shook with a chuckle, but then she slipped a hand around the back of my neck and whispered against my throat. “Remember what you said about nightfall?” Her lips grazed over my skin, feeling me. “You don’t have to be nice. Not until the end of the movie.”
The end of the movie. When the lights came up.
My dick swelled and hardened, and I threaded my fingers through the back of her hair, fisting it as I nuzzled into her mouth. “Em, Jesus.”
She came up, both of us tightening our arms around each other as the heat of her lips fell over mine. “Just until the end of the movie,” she whispered.
Sweat cooled my pores, and my cock twitched. I wanted everything at once, and my hands shook so fucking bad, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to control myself. I didn’t want to scare her.
We held each other, our mouths centimeters apart as I came in and she inched away, and then she came in, and I held back, playing.
And then finally…
I caught her bottom lip with my teeth, she whimpered, and her mouth sank into mine, every nerve in my body firing as her warmth hit my tongue and her taste filled my head.
God, I’d waited for this, but as soon as my mouth moved over hers and her body filled my hands, I wasn’t in a hurry anymore. I slowed everything, slipping my hand under her skirt and squeezing her thighs as she repositioned herself and straddled me.
I wanted this to last forever.
“So soft,” I panted over her mouth.
God, her lips were soft.
I kissed her, both of us getting faster and harder, and when she came in for more and more, I was high. My dick strained against my pants, and I gripped her thighs, pressing her down on me.
She moaned, diving down to my neck and yanking my tie looser so she could get to more of my skin.
My head floated, the feel of her mouth blazing through my body with the sweetest pain. We nibbled and teased each other, and I wanted to take things off and see her. I wanted to touch her and kiss her in other places.
But I had to go slow. I didn’t want this to be over, and she scared easily.
My cock bulged, and I felt it almost there. I grabbed her head, holding her to me and stopping her from moving, but not letting her go.
I…
She grinded on me, nibbling and licking my mouth.
I sucked in a breath. I…
“Shit,” I gasped.
I dug my fingers into her thighs, the theater spinning around us.
Kissing. Only fucking kissing, and I was about to come already.
She breathed hard into my neck, and I could feel her heart racing, too.
I hated it when things ended up being exactly how you hoped they’d be.
I leaned in and kissed her gently, starting slow again and taking my time.
She might regret this tomorrow. She was in a weird mood today, and maybe I was an action movie, here to help her escape, but that wouldn’t fly when I finally took her into bed.
I wanted inside her head first.
Because contrary to whatever she thought, this shit wasn’t ending when the lights came up.
