by L. D. Davis
Another arm closed around me, securing me in an embrace. My head naturally fell back on his shoulder and his cheek naturally pressed against my hair. I breathed him in and his scent settled my nerves better than any cigarette ever could. Feeling his body enveloping mine made me feel safe. It was only in his arms that I ever felt safe.
We stood quietly as the sun set and darkness set in. He kissed the side of my head and I closed my eyes, both relishing and cursing the kiss. His breathing changed as his arms tightened their hold on me. I felt his breath on my neck and I knew he wanted to kiss me there. I hated that I wanted him to kiss me there.
There it was. The line I spoke to Luke about. I had one foot on the right side of the line and one foot on the wrong side of it. It was the third time in a week I had found myself standing like that, with the line between my legs. The line got blurrier and blurrier every time I even poked a toe at it. If we weren’t careful, the line would dissolve, and so would so many other things.
I knew that, yet I could not make myself pull away. I could not push him off of me and walk away. He would always find me again. He would always tug on the invisible tether between us, and I would always return.
Eventually, the cord needed to be severed, or we were all going to crash and burn.
I turned around and looked into those green eyes I fell in love with as a child, and spoke his name.
“Emmet.”
PART ONE
Tethered
Chapter One
“My name is Emmy, and I don’t like your shirt, but your hair is pretty. What is your name?”
I looked at the pretty girl with dark, long and wavy hair and then I looked down at my red and white striped shirt. What was wrong with it? My mom let me pick it out at K-Mart. I was lucky she even took me shopping because she was always so tired.
I looked at Emmy’s shirt. It was blue and had a ruffle down the front with gold buttons. I frowned because I did like her shirt better than mine.
“Don’t be sad,” she said, touching my arm. “I just don’t like the lines in shirts. They hurt my eyes. What is your name?” she repeated.
“Donya Elisabeth Stewart,” I said quietly. Emmy was the first kid to talk to me since the school day started. She was sitting right next to me at our table, and we were eating a snack. Well, she was eating a snack, and a lot of the other kids were eating snacks, but my mom didn’t give me money for snack time.
“Where is your snack, Donya Elisabeth Stewart?” Emmy asked as she looked at the empty space before me.
“I don’t have one,” I mumbled. I had looked down at my hands, feeling immensely embarrassed.
Many years later, the school began providing the snacks so that kids like me wouldn’t have to endure the humiliation of not having anything to eat, but I was lucky to have Emmy. Right after I told her that I didn’t have anything to eat, she wordlessly divided up her four cookies, gave me two and put her carton of chocolate milk between us.
She kissed my cheek and said, “You can share with me, Donya Elisabeth Stewart.”
After that day, we were inseparable. Emmy slept on the mat next to mine at every quiet time, played with me at every playtime and shared her snack with me at every snack time. She was the first friend I ever had and meeting her changed my life forever.
My mother was late every day picking me up from school. I was always the last kid to leave. Emmy and her mother Samantha stayed with me every day until my mom or dad arrived, but one day Sam asked my mom if it was okay if she picked me up with Emmy every afternoon. She said she would take me back to their house, give me lunch with Emmy and let us play and have me home by dinner. It took my mom a couple of days to think about it, and I begged her and nagged her so much about it that she finally gave in. I didn’t have anything to do at home anyway. My mom was spending more and more time sleeping or watching television and less time with me.
On that first day at Emmy’s, Samantha made us a nice lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, celery with peanut butter and we had cups of apple juice with it. It was so much better than the lunches I had at home, and I told Emmy and her mom that.
“What do you usually have at home?” Samantha asked me.
“Cereal,” I answered. “But if there’s no milk, I just eat it with my fingers. Sometimes there is bread, and I’ll have toast.”
“But you don’t eat lunch every day,” Emmy reminded me, and I agreed. I did not eat lunch every day.
“You need to eat more,” Samantha said. “You’re too skinny.”
“I don’t always have lunch to eat,” I said very quietly.
Even at five, I knew that it was not normal for me not to have food in the house. I was on the verge of tears; I was once again embarrassed. I wasn’t like other kids. I wasn’t like Emmy. Her mom and my mom weren’t alike either.
“Well, don’t worry about that,” Samantha said, tenderly caressing my wild hair. “You can eat lunch here every day, even on the weekends. If you can’t be here to eat lunch, I will send something to your house, okay?”
I had nodded and smiled with relief, knowing I wouldn’t have to wonder about my next meal.
After lunch, Emmy and I played in her huge back yard. We made mud pies and grass cakes and flower stew and got super dirty. There was dirt caked under our nails, all over our clothes, and I knew I had a few muddy streaks smeared across my cheek.
“Let’s take a break and swing,” Emmy said after we grew tired of cooking.
I followed her to the swings, but I didn’t know how to swing. I had only been on a swing a couple of times, and I never learned how to swing myself. I sat down on mine and watched as Emmy began to move. Her legs kicked out and pulled back again and again until she was swinging high.
“Don’t you know how to swing?” she called to me.
“No,” I said dejectedly.
She tried to explain it to me, and I tried to do as she said, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was frustrated and angry and sad because she was swinging and I wasn’t.
The back door opened, and I expected to see Sam come outside, but instead a boy came out. I knew Emmy had brothers and sisters, but I had never seen them until just then.
Even from across the yard and with his brown hair falling onto his face, I could see his green eyes. I had never seen anyone with such vivid green eyes before.
He looked right at me as he walked across the yard with his hands in his pockets. He was older than us, a big kid almost. I didn’t know if he was going to play with us or not, but I felt shy and nervous as I watched him approach. Butterflies swarmed in my chest, and I wanted to stop looking at him, but I couldn’t.
“Emmet!” Emmy called as she swung high. “Push Donya on the swing! She doesn’t know how to swing by herself!”
He never took his eyes off of me. It was almost like he couldn’t look away either.
“You don’t know how to swing?” he asked, stopping a foot away from me.
I shook my head, too afraid to speak.
“You have dirt on your face.” He reached out and touched my cheek.
My face felt hot under his finger, and the butterflies went crazy in my chest.
He dropped his hand and sucked in a breath.
“I’ll teach you how to swing,” Emmet said and walked around me.
He told me how to move my legs and how fast. He reminded me to hold on to the chains no matter what.
“I’m going to push you for a little while until you get it,” he said. Then his hands were on my waist, and I held my breath. “Here we go,” he said gently from behind me.
He gave me a small push and then another. I started to move my legs as he told me and he continued to push me. His hands were so soft on my back even though he was pushing me higher and higher.
“You’re doing it! You’re doing it!” Emmy cried out as I began to fly.
Eventually, Emmet stopped pushing me and got on the swing on the other side of me. The three of us swung together for a long time. Emmy was firs
t to stop, and Emmet stopped soon after her. I wasn’t sure how to stop swinging when I was ready to get off, and before the swing could stop moving, I had let go of the chains and fallen to the ground.
“I told you not to let go of the chains,” Emmet said as he helped me to my feet.
“I didn’t know how to stop,” I said quietly as I looked down at the ground.
“Well, that was one way of stopping,” he said. He plucked me in the forehead, gave me a grin and walked back to the house.
I stood there rubbing my forehead, watching him leave. Just before he went inside, he paused and gave me a long look. Then he shook his head and went inside.
*~*~*
I was seven years old, and I was mad as hell. I had been riding Emmet’s skateboard, even though he told me not to, and I had fallen off. My knees were scraped, and so were my elbows. I didn’t just fall off of the board because I was a terrible rider. I was pretty good and getting better all of the time. I fell off because the big punk kid from a few streets over pushed me off. Benny was such a bully. He was Emmet’s age, but he was always picking on kids my age.
Emmet was my best friend’s older brother, but he was very much like my brother, too. We argued a lot, and he was always yelling at me not to touch his stuff, but I always did anyway, hence the skateboard. Even though I had no business being on the board in the first place, when Benny pushed me Emmet dropped the basketball he had been bouncing around in the street and took off after Benny.
“Don’t ever touch my sisters!” Emmet yelled after he bloodied the other boy’s lip. Benny ran away crying while I tried hard not to cry too. Boy did my skinned knees and elbows burn.
“Are you okay, Donya?” Emmy asked, bending over me. She pushed strands of loose hair off of my forehead.
“I hate that kid!” I snarled and pushed myself to my feet.
“Come on, brat,” Emmet said. He picked up the skateboard in one hand and took my hand with his other. “Mom will give you a Band-Aid.”
Emmy took my other hand, and we headed across the grass to the house.
“What in the lord’s name happened to you?” Samantha Grayne asked with her hands on her hips. She was wearing a flowery apron that I really liked. I liked all of her aprons. She always looked like a TV mom with her perfect blonde hair and big green eyes, but she wasn’t anything like a TV mom.
“Benny pushed her off of Emmet’s skateboard,” Emmy said, stomping a foot. “I hate him!”
“I told you to stay off of my board anyway,” Emmet said, plucking me square in the forehead.
“Ow,” I murmured, rubbing the spot.
“Did you kick his ass?” Samantha asked her son.
“Yes, I kicked his ass,” he said, standing up straighter.
“Don’t curse,” she admonished and then put her hand on my shoulder. “Come on, honey. Let’s get you cleaned up. You should feel blessed that you have a brother like Emmet.”
Blessed? He had just plucked me in the forehead!
I stayed for dinner like I did most days after school. I had my own place at the table, between Emmy and her dad Fred, who sat at the head of the table. He talked to me like I was one of his kids. Besides Emmy and sometimes Emmet, he was my favorite. My other “brothers and sisters” were okay, but they were so much older than me. The oldest brother, Freddy was about to graduate from college already. Charlotte was only a couple of years younger than him and Lucy was about to turn sixteen, so she was a little bit closer in age to Emmy, and Emmet and I, but honestly, I didn’t understand those mystifying teenage years. So, I didn’t spend much time with her. I spent most of my time with Em and Em.
After dinner, Samantha packed up a bag full of food for me to take home for my parents. My dad wouldn’t be home from work until it was almost my bedtime and my mom didn’t cook much. She didn’t clean much either. She didn’t do much of anything but sleep and watch television. Sam said my mom was sick, but I never saw any tissues or anything, so I wasn’t sure about that.
Sam told Emmet to walk me home. He argued. He was tired of Emmy and me. He put up with us all afternoon and even beat up Benny for me. Why couldn’t Lucy walk me home, he had whined.
“Boy, if you don’t pick up that bag and walk that girl home I will slap your head sideways,” Samantha threatened.
Emmet huffed and he puffed and picked the bag up.
“Can I walk with them?” Emmy asked, hanging by the door.
“You need to take a bath and get ready for bed,” her mother said. “You look like hell. How do you get so dirty? What happened to your hair anyway?”
Emmy rolled her eyes. “I like my hair in a side ponytail, Mom. You always put it where I don’t like it. So I fixed it.”
“Well, it looks stupid,” Samantha spat out.
“Your shirt looks stupid,” Emmy sassed. “Nobody likes stripes anyway.”
“Let’s go,” Emmet growled, snatching up my hand. We stepped outside and the door closed behind us, silencing the typical argument between mother and daughter.
Emmet was quiet. He was probably still mad about the skateboard and then having to walk me home. He always got stuck walking me home. It made my chest feel funny to know that he was mad at me.
“I’m sorry you always have to walk me home,” I said quietly.
He looked down at me with green eyes. “It’s not your fault.”
“I come over every day. I can maybe not come over so much and you won’t have to walk me home every day.”
We were quiet again until we were almost to my house.
“You have to keep coming over,” he finally said.
“Why?”
We stopped at the end of the walkway to my front door. He handed me the bag. It was a little heavy, but I tried to pretend that I could handle it.
“You’re special to my family,” he said. Then he plucked me in the forehead. “And you’re kind of special to me too.”
He pointed to the house in a silent command. I walked up the sidewalk, up the two steps and pushed open my front door. My mom was sleeping on the couch with the television on. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at me and smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile. It was one of those smiles people give to kids when they really don’t feel like smiling at all.
I looked back at Emmet standing on the sidewalk. He made a shooing motion, indicating I should go inside. I waved, but just before I closed the door, he shouted, “And stay off of my skateboard!”
Emmet had made my chest feel funny again when he told me I was special to him, but it was a different kind of funny. It made me feel like giggling and crying at the same time. I never forgot the day he said that and the way it made me feel and the way his green eyes looked at me. Like I was special.
Special or not, I didn’t stay off of his skateboard.
Chapter Two
By the time I was ten, I knew my mom was depressed. I knew what it meant to be depressed. It wasn’t one of those words that went over my head anymore.
I couldn’t stand to be home alone with her. I loved her, but being in the house with her felt like being in a dead house. When my dad was home, it wasn’t much different. I didn’t think he was depressed, but I think he gave up on my mom and it just made him sad. He didn’t know what to do with a growing young girl. It was easy for both of my parents to let the Graynes take over and do what they were incapable or unwilling to do.
The summer after my seventh birthday, I started going away with Emmy and her family. Her mother is originally from Louisiana, but her dad is originally from New Jersey. They kept Sam’s family home down south and they traveled there every summer and some holidays. Sam’s family was still down there, and her best friend still lived close to her childhood home. Her children were the same ages as Emmy’s older brothers and sisters, and they were all good friends. The first time I went down there, I felt a little out of place, but after a few days I was just another one of the kids in the great big family.
It was my third summer in Louisiana. Emmy
’s cousins Tabitha and Mayson also made the trip from New Jersey. I got along with them fine, but they all wanted to do girly things. I liked girly things just as well as they did, but I liked playing football with the boys, tinkering around on cars with the older guys, and fishing. Those girls wouldn’t touch a worm if their lives depended on it.
“You got your pole?” Fred asked me early one morning as we packed up to head to a nearby fishing hole. There was a great big lake right in their back yard, but Fred said he couldn’t fish in peace there between Samantha and the steady stream of kids.
“Yeah, but why did you buy me pink?” I pouted, throwing the pole into the back of the big truck.
“Because you’re a girl,” Emmet sneered.
I took a swing at him and missed.
“I picked it out,” Fred Jr. said, pulling the bill down on my hat, partially blinding me. He was twenty-five years old already and was getting married in a couple of weeks. Charlotte was twenty-three and getting married in the fall. Both of them felt more like a third set of parents rather than siblings.
“We’ll buy you a new pole for next time,” Fred promised, fixing my hat. “What does the princess want?”
I looked at Emmet’s pole. “Green, like Emmet’s.”
“Copycat,” Emmet said, climbing into the back seat of the truck.
I followed after him, lost my grip, and started to fall, but his hand shot out and caught my wrist. I regained my footing and my hold on the truck and let him pull me in.
“Clumsy,” he teased, pushing my hat down again.
I blew a frustrated breath out and fixed my hat and turned my head to glare at him, but he was smiling at me and I couldn’t be mad when Emmet smiled at me. I tried not to smile back and looked forward as Fred and Freddy climbed into the front seat.