My eyes felt matted together. I remember I had had a bawling fit last night. I had just let all of the balled up tension and emotions pour out of me. It seemed like it had lasted for hours as it felt good just to release it. My life was such a mess. It was utterly phony. Somewhere out there I had two parents who had given me up, who were leading probably totally different lives than the one I had grown accustomed to here in Seneca. Somehow in the midst of it all, I had gotten in the middle of people from another world. Other worlds did exist, at least one I knew of so far. There was life outside of our planet. It was an amazing revelation but an overwhelming one at that. The bigger picture was much more complex. We thought we were so intelligent, but really, humans were idiots, blinded by their own selfishness and narrow mindedness, terrified of the unknown, striving to rid the world of anything out of the ordinary because of fear of the unknown. It was a ridiculous and vicious cycle, and now I saw it plain as day. How many others knew these secrets? It seemed like more people should know and seemed impossible to have kept it a secret so well. I assumed that most, like I had been, were completely clueless. Even those chasing evil, such as my father, truly didn’t know the extent of what their actions meant. Again, they were just scared of any kind of change.
I glanced at the door of the antique store one more time before driving away from it and toward my house. I wasn’t sure who’d be home, who I’d have to face, but right now, I didn’t really care. I didn’t have to answer to anyone there. I just needed a shower, and then I’d be on my way again.
The house looked still in the early morning as I parked and didn’t bother being discrete about slamming my car door. I even opened the front door of the house as loudly as possible, my keys jingling as they dangled in the keyhole. I might as well make my entrance known this time.
I hung up my coat and saw that the kitchen light was on. It was quiet in there. I peeked my head in. My mother was sitting at the small kitchen counter with a cup of coffee and a muffin in front of her. She looked up at me. Dark circles were underneath her eyes. She looked more drained than I felt, but the pity that I used to get when seeing her look frail didn’t come to me then. I just felt like she used it against me to lure me in and suck the life out of me to regain some of hers. She had a worried look on her face.
“You want one?” she asked quietly, meaning a muffin.
My stomach growled. I ignored it. “No. I’m going to take a shower.” I turned around to leave. “Anna?”
I clenched my fists together and turned back to face her. I raised my eyebrows in question. “Are you all right?”
What did she expect me to say? I wasn’t going to open up to her right here right now at 6:00a.m. in the morning after crying my eyes out all night partially because she had turned out to be such a hypocrite and a liar and partially because my father was in cahoots with Mrs. Anderson in trying to keep Emry locked away forever. I had every right to be a little grumpy and not quite in the mood for a heart-to-heart.
“Yeah,” is all I managed to say before heading up the stairs. On the way up, my father was coming down carrying a newspaper under his arm. His hair was wet as he had just gotten out of the shower. We stared at each other but said nothing as we walked away in opposite directions.
I locked myself in the bathroom upstairs and turned the hot water on full blast. The mirror was already all steamed up from my father’s just having been in here. I wiped it away to catch a glimpse of myself. My hair was sticking up everywhere and my eyes were red. Wow. Gorgeous, I thought sarcastically. I pulled my sweater up over my head and tossed it onto the floor. Well, I thought, time to get beautified. Today’s the day I make another venture down to the jail.
After the shower, I shut the door to my bedroom and sat down on my bed. I looked around at the room that had once been my place of comfort, of rest. It seemed so childish now with the girly paint and dolls that I had had since I was a toddler sitting on my bookshelf. It seemed small and uncomfortable.
I stood and walked in front of my mirror in my towel. I studied my face. I looked the same, but different. More tired and probably even more aged, but I looked better, more alive and my skin had more color than before. I tore the towel off my head, letting my wet brown hair fall over my shoulders.
How was I going to get to Emry today? I had asked myself this a million times already over the course of the morning. For some reason I couldn’t answer myself this time. I had no clue. I was starting to feel hopeless about the idea, but I knew I had to try. Emry was now more in the dark than I was for once. I couldn’t bear the idea of not seeing him again or of something terrible happening to him. I forbid myself to think like that again. It was too crushing. It was something I couldn’t handle to even think of, let alone to live it out. No. I didn’t have a plan, but I knew I was going to get myself dressed and head straight down there.
A sliver of sunlight filtered in through my slightly parted curtains. I looked back at my face. What should I wear? I knew the contents of my closet without searching through it this time. I had nothing that I’d want to wear, so I decided on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a sports logo on the front. Well, at least I could put some makeup on. I didn’t want Emry to think I looked like a disaster if I even made it that far for him to get a chance to see me. It probably wouldn’t make much of a difference though. I’d probably just end up crying for some reason, and the makeup would streak my face.
I dried my hair and ran a straightener through it quickly. I was feeling anxious already, the adrenaline making me jittery and unable to stand still. One final look in the mirror. I sighed, dissatisfied but knowing it was probably as good as it was going to get today. Without allowing myself to stay in this room for a minute longer in case I’d try to talk myself out of going, I reached for my purse and headed for the stairs.
“Anna?” I heard my father say when I had reached the final step. I stood still, not knowing if I should turn around. He’d notice I was wearing makeup. He’d force me to go upstairs, sabotaging me before I even got a chance to leave the house. My heart beat faster. I started to turn around and look at him. He was sitting in a recliner in the living room with the lamp on, reading his paper.
“Are you on your way out?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
He didn’t bother to ask where. “May I just speak with you for one moment, please?”
His tone of voice was a lot nicer from the last time I had been face-to-face with him. I wasn’t quite sure how to react. I took a few steps forward, careful not to get too close to the lamp thinking that the more I was in the shadows, the more difficult it would be for him to see my glistening lips and black eyeliner.
“Helene told me that you two had a conversation the other day about … well, you know, you having been adopted,” he said.
I sighed again. “I’d prefer not to talk about it.” “I’m sure you don’t,” he went on. He took his reading glasses off and looked up at me. “I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea. We thought it was better not to tell you, because we didn’t want to hurt you. You’re still our daughter is what I’m trying to say. You always will be and nothing will ever change that. I hope your heart still feels the same way.”
“It doesn’t,” I snapped.
He actually looked hurt by my comment. “Anna …”
“No.” I put up my hand for him to be quiet. “Under different circumstances, I might be actually listening to you right now, but you and I both know that things are different.” Life was too complicated to go back and make any sort of attempts to rekindle anything with my father. “I have to go.” I turned to leave, expecting him to interject, to block the doorway with his body until I told him that we were still all a family or something, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything at all.
There weren’t many cars in the parking lot when I had reached the prison. It was still fairly early yet. My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t bothered to eat any breakfast. Probably not the wisest
choice, but too late now. I was already here.
I parked the car as the panic settled in once again. Had my father followed me? I was being paranoid, but for good reason. The realization that I had no plan terrified me once again, and I tried to push the emotion out of my body, pushing it down into the depths of my stomach so that it couldn’t totally control me. I lifted up my hand. It was already shaking.
I got out of the car. The sun felt good on my back. It actually wasn’t too cold today. Maybe I was just sweating from being so nervous and wasn’t a very good judge of the temperature. I started pacing around the parking lot trying to think. Again, I came up empty handed. So I started to just walk around the prison. My boots shuffled against the sidewalk that had been freshly salted. I walked past windows of the prison, fully aware that someone may recognize me.
I got off the sidewalk and began going through the snow. It wasn’t very deep on the one side of the prison where the wind had made it drift. I stared down at the cold ground as I went, down at my feet. Then I glanced up at the huge building towering above me and the frustration settled in. What was I doing? I can’t just waltz on in there. They’d probably arrest me this time. This was just plain crazy and a really bad idea. I started picking up the pace a little. I decided I would walk completely around the prison and then head back to my car. I was already halfway around anyway. I looked up just then. I froze dead in my tracks.
Straight up ahead of me was a fenced-in recreational outdoor area for the inmates. There were basketball courts and picnic tables. And more importantly, to my surprise, there were actually people out there this morning. I squinted my eyes in the sunlight to try to get a better look. There were a lot of prisoners out there. A flicker of hope swelled in my heart, bursting through the frustration. I walked a few yards closer to get a better look.
“No!” I gasped, a smile instantly appearing on my face. It couldn’t be. It was. There sitting on the edge of a picnic table with his back almost against the fence sat Emry. He was slouched over like the first time I had seen him, his hair in his face as he sat there perfectly still. It was definitely him. Joy shot through every inch of me. Fate. This was truly fate today.
It took all I had not to run over to him. I had to move casually so as not to draw too much attention to myself. I knew I would only have a few minutes at most until someone did realize I was standing there, but I’d take it.
I was almost there and couldn’t contain myself any longer. “Emry!” I said in a loud whisper. “Emry!” I walked over to the fence and wrapped my fingers around the tiny holes in it. “Emry, turn around. It’s me!”
As if in slow motion, Emry’s body rose to a more upright position as he turned his head and his beautiful blue eyes locked on mine. His lips turned upwards in a closed smile, and that’s when I noticed it. His face. He had a huge black bruise covering his right eye and his bottom lip was slightly swollen and scabbed as it had been busted open.
I gasped and put my hand over my mouth. “Oh, Emry, what have they done to you?” He walked over to me with his head down, ashamed that I had seen him like this. He wrapped his fingers around mine in the fence. The warmth of his touch overwhelmed me. My heart ached to see him like this.
“It’s nothing,” he mumbled. “I’m so glad to see that you’re all right. I wasn’t sure what they had done to you. It was killing me.”
“Who did this?” I demanded. “Was it my father? Buck?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It’s fine.”
He was being too quiet. Maybe he wasn’t as excited to see me as I was him. This cloud of sadness drifted around him. I wanted to hug him so badly, to touch his wounded face and ease his pain. “I had to come see you. I’ve missed you so much,” I blurted out right away. I knew I should be on the lookout to see if anyone had caught onto my being there, but my eyes couldn’t leave his face. It felt like it had been so long, like I needed to memorize it all over again or else I’d forget what he looked like when I was away from him.
“Anna, you have to be careful. Tell me you are,” he whispered, his fingers still gripping onto mine. “Emry, they’re after you,” I told him. I had to get it all out. He had to know before I wasn’t able to tell him. “A woman named Mrs. Anderson is leading a group of men who are against you. They think you worship the devil after what happened with Buck. But she’s like a witch. I saw them perform some sort of ritual.”
“You saw?” “Well,” I said, knowing he was probably going to be upset with me that I had put myself in such a vulnerable situation. “Yes, but they didn’t see me.”
“Anna,” he said in a worried tone.
“Emry, please,” I begged. “Just listen to me. There was another, Lucas Banesberry. He had some sort of strength too. Mrs. Anderson had him killed, Emry. She’s a murderer, I just know it. You’re the one who has to be careful. She’s dangerous. She’ll stop at nothing to get what she wants.”
Suddenly I heard whistles being blown and shouting I was certain directed at me. “Hey, you there!” someone yelled out. “Get away from there!”
Emry didn’t bother to turn around. “Run, Anna. Get out of here. Now!”
I looked at my fingers intertwined around his. The tears started to flow. I couldn’t bear being separated from him again. He stared at me with those blue eyes which were full of fear as he tried to urge me to leave.
“Go!” he hissed.
I nodded as the tears dripped from my cheeks. He took his hands away from mine. I turned to go. “Anna,” he said.
I turned back around.
“I love you.”
The words tore through me and made my lungs feel as if they were suffocating me instead of helping
me to breathe. How could I leave such a beautiful creature as Emry Logan behind, not knowing when I’d ever be able to get an opportunity again such as this one? I had fallen in love, and he had felt the same, and now we couldn’t even see one another. It was unbearable.
I started to run as fast as I could through the snowy patch of grass that I had just come through. I heard footsteps behind me, policemen shouting. I had almost made it back to the sidewalk when I got tackled from behind. I fell to the hard ground, my face digging in the snowy mud beneath me.
“Don’t move!” he told me. I recognized the voice immediately. It was Buck. I didn’t bother to put up a fight. It was no use at this point. He forced both of my arms behind my back, my shoulders hurting from the sudden force. Then I felt him slap cold handcuffs on my wrists as they cut into my skin. He pulled me to my feet.
“I figured you’d be back,” Buck said.
I stared him straight in the eye and didn’t bother to say a word. My heart was aching, but a sense of joy was somewhere in there, too. Emry Logan was in love with me. Later that night, I was curled up in a ball on my side of the couch, a blanket wrapped around me. Matthew sat beside me watching TV and giggling away. I stared at the wall in front of me. I hadn’t stayed at the prison too long after Buck had handcuffed me. He took me into a little room in the prison and left me there. It wasn’t long before my father had come down to retrieve me. He told me to stand up and come on, but we barely exchanged any words, nor made much eye contact with one another. I followed him outside to my car where he told me he’d have someone drop it off at the house later. I was to go with him in his car. Again, the entire way home he said nothing, nor I to him. And here I was, lying on this couch, wallowing in my agony.
This house was just as much a prison to me as the actual prison itself was to Emry. At least when I was down there, I knew he was there also. Here, there was no one I could turn to. Besides Matthew, everyone inside these walls were as good as enemies to me now. I pulled the blanket up to my chin, and after a while, I started to drift off to sleep.
“Anna?”
I opened my eyes.
“Here, Anna, I made you some chicken noodle soup.”
My mother set down a little bowl on the end table beside my head. I closed my eyes again. “I’m not hung
ry.”
She sat down on the edge of the couch and put her hand on my knee. “Now don’t be silly,” she said.
“You have to eat something.”
I sat up and faced her. “If there’s something you need to tell me, just tell me.”
Matthew let out another laugh and pointed excitedly toward the cartoon he was watching.
A very serious expression came over my mother’s face. She looked down at her hands as she crossed them in front of her. “I’m very worried about you,” she confessed.
“Don’t bother,” I lashed out.
She didn’t move a muscle. “I want you to be careful, Anna. Mrs. Anderson, well, she’s dangerous. Don’t mess with her.”
She knew about me and Emry now. My father must have finally told her.
“Listen,” she whispered, turning to face me. “I know you don’t want to talk to me like you did before. I know I’ve screwed things up, but I want you to know I’m still here for you. I know that you have to be suffering all alone and need somebody to talk to.”
I studied her eyes. I still didn’t trust her. If Mrs. Anderson could have some sort of hold on my father, how did I know that she didn’t have one on her? No. I couldn’t risk leaking any information out to her. I started to feel slightly guilty though about snapping at her. Maybe she was being genuinely nice without any other motive besides worry.
“I appreciate that,” I said.
She smiled and patted my leg, satisfied with some sort of answer. “I always thought you’d end up with Buck Brady.” I cringed at the mention of his name.
“Buck always seemed like such a kind man. It’s not that way at all, is it?”
It surprised me that she would know that, let alone bring it up to me. I took a deep breath. “It’s like he’s bipolar. He does have this nice side to him, but then on the other hand, he can be pretty mean, too.”
She nodded as if she understood. Perhaps my father had a similar way about him. “So now you love someone else?”
Strange in Skin Page 22