Crumbling Walls (Jack and Emily #1)

by Laura Strandt

  Elizabeth could plainly see the anxiety suddenly cloud her face, “I would rather not keep anything from him if that’s alright.”

  Thinking for a second, realizing how much Elizabeth had already done for her, Emily nodded her head, “Okay.”

  After running her hand across Emily's shoulders a few times, “Everything is going to be fine. I’m gonna hunt down Will. Why don’t you go lie down? You look exhausted.”

  Her entire body suddenly ached for a soft bed, “A nap sounds really good right about now.”

  “Jack?”

  He popped his head into the front room, “Yeah?”

  “When did you change your sheets?”

  “This morning.”

  “Okay.” Turning back to Emily, “Go on upstairs to Jack’s room. He’s got the cleanest bed and if you shut the door, the other kids won’t wake you if they come in before you’re up.”

  This conversation, of course, set her to yawning, “Thanks.”

  Elizabeth then disappeared into the small room that served as Will’s office and shut the door behind her. Jack took her hand and led her upstairs. Kicking Tim’s dirty socks under his bed, he put his hand on the bedspread, “Underneath or on top?”

  Already crawling on, “Top is fine.”

  Since she kept her eyes open, he sat on the corner of the bed, “Is she telling him now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ah, okay.” Standing back up, “Well, I’ll leave you alone.”

  “Wait.” She propped herself up on her elbow, “Maybe you could stay?”

  With a half-smile, he moved to shut the door as instructed, then grabbed his iPod, which his mom had brought back from the apartment, and laying down behind her, “Did you ever listen to your playlist?”

  Shaking her head, “I didn't have time. I'm sorry.”

  “It's okay.” Handing one of the earphone sets over her shoulder, “We can listen to it now if you want? Hope you like it.”

  “I can’t imagine I won’t.”

  After rolling to one side of the bed, he settled behind her and she slid back against him. With his arm over her waist, he hit play and laid the player on the bed in front of them, “Let me know if it’s too loud.”

  As the opening notes filled her ears, “It’s perfect.”

  ▪▪▪

  Will sat silently as Elizabeth filled him in. He nodded every once in a while, but mostly he just absorbed and digested. By the time she'd finished, he had gone pale.

  Then suddenly, he stood and began pounding the cushions of the small couch he had in the corner. He raged on that couch for several seconds before turning back to his wife, his face now a vibrant red color, “If he ever shows up, I’ll kill him myself.”

  “Honey, would you please sit back down? You’re starting to scare me a little bit.”

  Instead, he took to pacing, “She’s been on her own for three years? What if he’d come back? What if she’d opened the door and there …” He couldn’t continue as he once again hit the couch several times, then went on, “We can’t leave her by herself, El, we can’t.”

  Standing, she reached for him, slipping her arms around his waist, “Well, I already promised her that we weren’t going to turn her over to Social Services and I don’t think I could bear forcing her to do anything. We can offer to help, but we can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

  Will finally let go of the fierce fire in his eyes and returned to a somewhat calm, human state, “But I can’t just leave her there.”

  “Will, honey, it’s not our choice.”

  “Then what would you think about …”

  ▪▪▪

  They talked for a good hour and when they finally came out, the boys still hadn’t returned from the sledding hill. Seeing this as a pretty good opportunity, they both headed upstairs to find Emily and by obvious default, Jack.

  Elizabeth opened the door and was kind of shocked to see them both sound asleep, curled around each other, two pairs of earphones lying beside them. It probably should have bothered her more to see her 16-year-old son in bed with a girl, but given what she now knew, she just motioned for Will to be quiet as she pulled the door shut.

  But of course, the door let out a loud creak that seemed to echo off the walls and Jack picked his head up suddenly, “Tim?”

  “No, it’s us.”

  Jack sat up and slid off the bed. Coming over to the door, “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. She asked me to stay and I guess I was more tired than I thought.”

  Will beckoned him out, “Let’s just leave her alone for now. We can talk later.”

  Her voice bought them all into the room though, “It’s okay. I’m awake, for the most part.”

  Elizabeth apologized, “Sorry, I don’t think any of us know how to be quiet.”

  Smiling, “s’okay. I don't mind the noise. It's nice, actually.” As she sat up, she realized that all her muscles had yet again stiffened, “Oh, I hurt.”

  “Hurt?” Jack came back over to her, “What hurts?”

  “Mostly my chest and back.” Giving him a sheepish smile, “I’ve never been an easy puker.”

  “Now there’s information I didn’t really want to know.”

  Will put his hand on Jack’s shoulder, “Would you mind leaving us alone for awhile?”

  Glancing over at Emily, “We both lied, Dad.”

  Elizabeth jumped in, “I know, but right now, we need to talk to Emily, okay? Nobody’s in trouble, all right? Can you just go downstairs and start cleaning the potatoes in the sink for me?”

  With a quick look at her, Jack left and pulled the door shut behind him. Emily, still sitting up, refused to look Will in the eye as he sat on the end of the bed. He didn’t push it, but he did lean forward a little, “Do you know you’re one of the bravest people I know?” Leaving her bangs as a curtain between them, she shook her head, still silent. “Well, you are. And even though I wish you’d told me earlier, I think now that we both know, we might be able to help.”

  This got her and she looked up, “Help?”

  “Yeah. You’ll decide everything and we’ll respect any decision you make but, we’d like to put a few things on the table, if that’s all right?”

  Looking over at Elizabeth, who had pulled the desk chair to the side of the bed, “I get final say though, right?”

  “Of course. First of all, we don’t want to make you do anything. I think you’ve had enough people controlling you to last a lifetime. Feel free to jump in and tell us to shut up at any time.”

  A small smile played on her lips, “Okay.”

  “We’d like you to think about the possibility of moving in here with us. We could either fix up that room above the garage or we could shuffle the boys around, move Tim to the basement ... something like that.”

  For a moment, Emily forgot how to breathe, but recovered nicely, “Move … move in … here?”

  “Yeah, I know you did pretty good by yourself these last few years, but now that we know you’re on your own, if anything happens to you or you get sick again or something worse, I don’t think I, or either of us actually, could live with ourselves.” Looking over at his wife, “Before I finally told El about me, I was all on my own and thought I could handle anything, keeping everyone at arm’s length. But then something happened. I met her family and her friends and I realized I needed them. I needed people and interaction and friends and a life.”

  “But I have a good life, Will.”

  “Yes, you do. But if you think about it, he’s dictating your entire existence. You have to keep yourself a secret because of him. He still has that hold on you.” Emily continued to stare at him, her face a wrinkle of concentration and thought as he went on, “And even though you’re 16, you need to be able to also be a kid. You never got that. You grew up when you were five years old. No one should have to miss out on their entire life because of what one person did.” Leaning forward, he tapped her on the bottom of the foot, “I’d like to be able to le
t you be a kid again. Maybe just for a couple years, but still, let someone else do the worrying for you.”

  The wall she'd kept up for so many years cracked a little more.

  “Em, you don’t have to decide now, but for what it’s worth, we’d love to have you here.”

  In a quiet voice, “But I’m not yours.”

  Elizabeth, who’d been silent until then, “That doesn’t mean we don’t want you.”

  Will added to this, “And you and I probably have more in common than I do with the boys. I think we might actually be good for each other; in a weird ‘son’s girlfriend/boyfriend’s abused dad’ kind of way.”

  The wall now had a big, gaping hole in it, “What if I can’t answer you now?”

  “Then we’ll all wait until you can. There’s no rush, no hurry. Just know that we’ll be here whenever you’re ready, yes or no.”

  “What happens until then?”

  “Until then, we get to demand that you call whenever you need us and according to the deal you already made with Elizabeth, you come here as often as you want, you get to eat as much as you want and you can stay over any time. We also get to check up on you with disturbing regularity.” Looking at his wife, “And you get to handle Jack at your own speed and your own pace. We’ll be quiet about it.”

  Letting out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, she nodded, “Thank you.”

  He waited a second, then spoke again, “I think if I’d ever had a daughter, I’d have wanted you.”

  With that, he stood and left quietly, leaving them both until Emily got up and went to the door, “Will?”

  He turned back from the stairs, “Yeah?”

  Not saying anything, she went over to him and hugged him around the waist. Standing like this for awhile, she finally pulled back and looked up at him, “I wish you could have been my dad.”

  ▪▪▪

  Jack walked her home after a quiet dinner with just the nine of them.

  Well, as quiet as seven kids under 19 can be.

  That is to say, after a very loud and boisterous dinner.

  Anyhow …

  After digging out his mom’s car, which was still at Emily’s, he turned it on to warm it up a little, then went and stood just inside her front door, “You gonna be okay tonight?”

  With a nod, she slipped her bundled up arms around him and settled her cold cheeks on his jacket, “I’ll be fine. I think I’m just going to sleep until tomorrow.” He hadn’t asked at all what was said in the bedroom after he left and she loved him for it. Leaning up a little, she rubbed her cold nose on his, “I’d ask you to come up, but I’m exhausted. I’ll see you tomorrow morning though, right? Bright and early?”

  Kissing her forehead, then both cheeks and finally the end of her red nose, “I’ll be here.”

  ▪▪▪

  Things slipped back into routine: work, school, homework, only this time there was something different.

  Emily began smiling again.

  She still had to lie to certain people but that had become second-nature to her years ago.

  What she relished in was the fact that she could tell the truth to certain people as well.

  It was liberating and scary at the same time.

  How do you just stop doing something you’ve been doing for years?

  You just begin.

  PART 3

  Chapter 17

  It took nearly a week before Emily finally felt truly better. Jack had been by the night before and, together, they’d spent their first quiet evening at her house. It was rather unnerving not to have at least four people sharing the couch with them, but as Jack stated, he could easily get used to it.

  And now, the next morning, she stretched luxuriously under her mountain of quilts and blankets and marveled at the feeling of not aching. With a grin, she decided that today was going to be a very good day. The sun was pouring in the front window and she could almost imagine it summer and boiling hot outside.

  Almost.

  She did, however, come back to reality when she slid out from under the covers and was met with the biting cold floor under her feet. Hurrying to get dressed and cleaned up, she was just walking out of the house when Tim’s car pulled up to the curb. Hopping in, she couldn’t help but smile. Both boys just looked at her, their eyes still cloudy with sleep.

  “You realize it’s entirely too damn early to be this happy, right?”

  She just stuck her tongue out at Tim and, turning to Jack, she handed him the homework he’d left on her table, “You might be needing this today. I found it after you left.”

  Taking it from her, he leaned in for a quick kiss, “Thanks.”

  ▪▪▪

  The day, afternoon, evening and night were indeed very good. And late that night, after having already dropped off Sarah, Tim just wanted to get home. He debated telling Jack to walk. But, of course, they’d waited while he’d said goodnight to Sarah, so for karma’s sake, he made himself not lay on the horn to make them hurry up.

  That, and the fact that it was after midnight and he didn’t feel like waking the entire neighborhood up.

  So he sat …

  Until he saw both of them coming back to the car. Once Jack had opened the door, Tim looked over, “What’s wrong?”

  With his breath hanging in a thick cloud in the cold air, “I think the power’s out. The house is cold and the lights aren’t working.”

  Knowing she was alone, Tim made an executive decision, “Then get back in. We’ll go home and worry about it in the morning.” Looking past Jack at Emily, “You need anything from up there? I’ve got a flashlight here somewhere.”

  With a shake of her head, she shivered, “I’m good.”

  Turning the heat up more, “Then get in here before we all freeze. Why the hell did Delia decide to get married in February? Mom really should have chosen a smarter Goddaughter.”

  As Jack helped Emily in and pulled the door closed behind him, “Dude, you’ve been in love with her since you were five years old, so shut up and crank the heat would you?”

  “Already cranked. We’ll be home in a flash.”

  ▪▪▪

  Once inside, they explained what was up and Elizabeth sent both upstairs so Jack could find her something to wear. Instead of finding the pajamas, however, he twirled her once again into his arms, “Sorry, had to dance with you one more time tonight.”

  As she laughed, she swung her hips slightly, her dress flaring out at the bottom, “The last four hours weren’t enough?”

  Bending at the neck, he kissed her once again, “I think I could dance with you forever,” and with a wicked grin, “as long as your toes can take being stepped on a few more times.”

  Returning the kiss, “For giving me one of the best nights I’ve ever had, I think my toes can handle a bit more.”

  With a last turn, he let go, “Best night?”

  He couldn’t help notice the twinkle in her sleepy eyes, “So far, at any rate.”

  As he pulled out a clean pair of flannels and a shirt for her, “Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?”

  “Once or twice.”

  Coming back over, he handed her the clothes, then with one last hug, he not so sneakily reached around and unzipped the back of her dress, “You look beautiful.”

  And with that, he grinned and left her to change, closing the door quietly behind him, leaving her trying very hard to remember how to breathe.

  By the time she’d carefully laid her dress, a rare and beautiful find at the thrift store she frequented, over the end of Jack's bed, pulled her nylons off and worked the pins from her hair, she was yawning uncontrollably. Her body screamed at her to lie down and she did, just for a second.

  She was asleep immediately, curled on top of his unmade bed.

  ▪▪▪

  Elizabeth set up the couch for Emily, then headed to bed herself, leaving Will downstairs with Jack and Tim. After having a fast snack, “Dude, how long does your girlfrie
nd take to change?”

  “I was just wondering that myself. Back down in a second.” Going upstairs, he knocked quietly on the bedroom door and, opening it slowly, let the smile spread across his face as he saw her asleep. Returning to the kitchen, he told his dad, “Um, she’s asleep on my bed.”

  Will couldn’t help shaking his head and smiling, “Okay, Tim, do you mind sleeping down here? If she wakes up, it might be better that she sees Jack.”