Razorblade Kisses

by R. L. Griffin

  “Don’t.” Emery didn’t recognize her own voice. “Thank you, but I’ll call him myself.” Liar.

  “Okay,” the old woman replied with a sigh. “Well, let me know if you need anything.” Ms. Carter closed her door and Emery padded up the remainder of the steps and stood in front of the door to her apartment.

  She leaned her forehead against the door and her existence disappeared. She didn’t know where to go from here. Ashley.

  She sent Tim a text.

  I’m still not feeling well. Stop bothering Ms. Carter.

  Then she pushed open her door and walked into the place that she’d begun to think of as home. She stilled about two steps in because she smelled him. Looking to her right, she found Tim sitting on her couch, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. He looked up and they locked eyes. He blinked slowly, as if making sure she was really there.

  “Please leave,” she said as she walked into the kitchen and put her bags of vodka on the counter.

  Tim was on his feet and in the kitchen in seconds. He pinned her back against the cabinets, his lips inches from hers. She blinked.

  “Are you okay?” Tim’s thumb grazed her bottom lip and it started to tremble, the events of the last two days bubbling to the surface.

  She shook her head.

  “Tell me,” he demanded.

  She shook her head again and closed her eyes this time, trying to ward off the tears that were pooling in her eyes.

  “Why the fuck not?” His voice was full of indignation.

  She sighed and stepped out of his hold. Turning, she reached into her cabinet and got a glass, filled it with ice, and started pouring her first glass of vodka, straight. Tim stood there and watched as she took gulps. She was still facing away from him after her third gulp.

  “You need to leave,” she repeated.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  Her head sagged and she sighed heavily. Emery didn’t want this. She hadn’t wanted to do this now or when she saw Tim in the dance club. She’d always known it’d come down to this.

  “Emma, tell me what’s going on.”

  His hand was on her back, threatening to soothe her, but she didn’t want to be soothed. She wanted the pain. Emery shook off his hand. The pain was all she deserved. Emery turned around and leaned against the counter, drink in her hand.

  “Tim, you don’t know me. This,” she moved her hand over her wildly to indicate her, “is why you shouldn’t have even talked to me after the dance club. I’m poison. I’m a criminal and I can’t tell you shit about it because you’re a cop.” She spit the word cop out like it was a disease.

  Tim’s eyes grew wide. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about how you need to get the fuck out of here and never come back.” Her voice didn’t give away the utter devastation she was feeling, but sounded steely.

  “Emma, we can work anything out. I love you.” He took a step toward her and she moved away, walking toward the back of her apartment.

  “You don’t love me, Tim. You don’t even know me.”

  “Emma, talk to me.” Tim followed Emery and stood right behind her.

  “STOP FUCKING CALLING ME THAT!” Emery turned and pushed Tim’s chest to get some space.

  His eyes widened and he took a step back. “You love me,” he whispered.

  “It doesn’t fucking matter.” She let out a cold laugh at the fact that she did love him, but needed him to leave. “I actually think I’m incapable of love, Tim.” This was a lie she now wished was true.

  “No, you love me. I feel it,” Tim asserted.

  “You feel my orgasm, Tim, that’s it.” Emery actually felt her heart crack in two and she looked away from him so he wouldn’t see the truth in her eyes.

  His eyes lit with pain. “Why are you doing this? Do you want me to go?”

  “I warned you. I told you this wouldn’t work and you just kept pushing. You wouldn’t listen.” She couldn’t look at him anymore so she walked back to the kitchen and filled up her glass again.

  “Emma, what’s going on?”

  “We’re done,” she said softly. The brittle silence between them hung in the air. She tried to breathe and hoped he would just leave.

  “We’re done?” He looked at her from where she’d left him standing in the den.

  She glanced sideways to see resignation fill his features. Those perfect features that she loved to trace with her fingertips that she’d never see again.

  “We’re done?”

  “Yeah, we’re done.” Emery turned up the glass, the vodka going down smoothly now. “Don’t come back.”

  “You’re really doing this? You lied to me about being sick, you come back here on a mission to get drunk, and now you’re breaking up with me?”

  “I LIE TO YOU EVERYDAY!” She turned and took a few steps toward where he was standing and yelled at him, shocking him again. “Don’t you get that? I fucking told you. I told you that and you didn’t care.” She pointed her finger at him accusingly. The liquor was making her mouth a little loose. “You wanted to give in to whatever we feel, but guess what? Our feelings don’t matter. Nothing fucking matters. I can’t be with you and you shouldn’t want to be with me.”

  He took a step toward the kitchen again. “Why did you lie to me every day?”

  “Fuck, Tim,” she said, her voice exasperated, “just leave. Okay?” She was begging now.

  “Why?” he repeated his infuriating question to her back.

  “Because you fucking ruined everything. Now leave, please.” She turned to face him and they stared at each other, but there was no hunger like there usually was, only desperation and heartbreak. Emery blinked first. “I’m going to get very drunk to mourn the breakup of us, so get out so I can get on with it.”

  Stepping toward her, he reached out and took her left forearm and ran his fingers over her scars.

  “GET OUT!” she screamed and doubled over. Tears started then. Great, huge sobs. She couldn’t help it. He was everything she needed and couldn’t have, but she was lethal and she loved him too much for that.

  “Don’t do this, Emma,” he pleaded. “You don’t want to.”

  She couldn’t speak, and she didn’t look up from where her body had collapsed in on itself, she just pointed to the door.

  He took steps backward toward the door, clearly shocked by what had transpired. “Make sure this is what you want, Emma. If I leave now, I’m not coming back.” His voice was soft but resolute.

  “I know, that’s the plan,” she straightened up and said clearly. Then she grabbed the bottle and poured herself another drink.

  Emery kept the covers over her head, hiding. Sometimes it helped to just hibernate. She’d purchased three bottles of different flavored vodka on her way home from Atlanta. She’d drank most of the vanilla vodka yesterday when she broke up with Tim.

  She’d broken up with Tim.

  In Atlanta, everything went terribly wrong. Not that anything she did ever went according to plan, but she wanted to avenge her sister, hoping that her own soul would have been mended. She thought it would be easy, but reality had crashed into her like a freight train going full speed.

  She’d wanted to kill Phil, but her mom did it. She’d wanted to be done thinking about them, but she couldn’t, no matter what she tried.

  The heavy thud of her mother’s body falling to the floor as she and Rachel were leaving the house echoed through her brain repeatedly. The image of her mother shooting Phil appeared every time she closed her eyes. The slackness in his jaw, the blood splattering on the light pink of her sister’s comforter seemed to be tattooed behind her eyelids. It didn’t matter what she did, it was there. She was sure the dull sound of her mother’s body hitting the floor in Ashley’s room would haunt her until the day she finally left this godforsaken earth.

  Fucking ruined.

  “Ugh,” she muttered to herself. She only had a half of the marshmallow vodka left and that was because it was dis
gusting. She rolled the vodka bottle on the floor as she lay in her bed trying not to think of anything. Could she just live in the space of nothing? She wouldn’t care about anything there and she wouldn’t feel any pain. That way she wouldn’t feel as if razors were slicing her open, a new cut opening as soon as one healed, over and over again in a vicious cycle. How could one person bear so much? She didn’t know if she would make it; she just wanted to stay in this place of nothing.

  Her cell phone rang, but she didn’t make a move to answer it. She wasn’t speaking, not to anyone about anything. She couldn’t form sentences. She’d killed her sister and Phil and now her mother was dead too. She’d always thought of him as evil, but he’d turned her mother into a person Emery didn’t recognize. Maybe he’d turned Emery into a monster as well.

  Her phone chirped that she had a message. It’d been doing that every few minutes for the past hour and Emery simply couldn’t pull her drunk ass out of bed to quit the annoying chirping. Then it rang again.

  “FUCK!” Emery screamed at the top of her lungs.

  She rolled over on her back and looked up at the hammered tin on the ceiling. Please stop calling me. The phone rang again and Emery threw herself on the floor and crawled into the den where the phone was on the charger, still ringing. It was Rachel. She couldn’t talk to her. She couldn’t talk to anyone.

  A text appeared.

  Emma, this is Meme. Tim told me to come get you and bring you to Lucas but you aren’t answering your phone.

  Her heart stopped beating. She would die, drunk and in Noah’s Vanderbilt jersey. It was the only thing she had of his and it comforted her for some reason, she didn’t know why. As soon as she started listening to the voicemails, there was a knock on her door. She was on her hands and knees, her head hung so low her chin rested on her chest. She didn’t want Meme to see her like this. Ms. Carter must’ve let her into the building. Emery didn’t move. She was frozen. The knocking grew louder.

  “Emma?” Meme called from the other side of the door. “Tim said to come get you and take you to one of your kids’ houses.”

  Emery sat back on her heels in what looked like a yoga pose and was quiet. Her mind wouldn’t work to even respond.

  “Emma? I know you’re in there and Tim told me you may be in a state. Baby girl, just let me in.”

  Pushing herself off the ground, she walked over to the door and opened it. Without greeting Meme, she turned and walked into her room to put pants on.

  “Emma, are you okay?” By the sound of Meme’s voice, it sounded like she was staying in the den. She appreciated that.

  She pulled on jeans, rain boots, her coat, and a wool cap. When she started toward the den again, she grabbed some gum off the counter and popped it in her mouth. Emery was drunk, and she shouldn’t be going anywhere involving her job, but it was Lucas.

  “Emma…” Meme’s mouth hung open and her face showed shock as she took in Emery’s appearance and demeanor. She clamped her mouth shut and she followed Emery out to her car. Once they both got in, Meme turned to face Emery, who was sitting with her head against the passenger side window. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but you need to pull it together, baby. It doesn’t sound good.”

  Emery blinked. My life isn’t good. My life is miserable. All that surrounds me is misery.

  Nothing. She thought nothing, heard nothing but the monotone voice of the GPS system telling them which way to go. She didn’t need that, she had the route memorized. If she could talk, she could direct Meme.

  When they turned down the street that Emery knew very well, everything stopped. She felt like she was in some sort of movie where everything froze, but she kept moving. The air stopped entering her lungs, the scream caught in her throat, and she felt life leave her. The blue lights that lined the road leading up to Lucas’s home flashed on their faces as Meme tried to figure out where to park. Emery couldn’t hear anything and it felt like a weight was on her chest. She searched the road for Tim—the only part of her body that worked was her eyesight—but she couldn’t see him. Meme pulled up very close to the house.

  Her nothing came crashing down as she got out of the car. She saw nothing but a body bag being wheeled out of the house. Her guts seized in fear and everything else fell away. She braced herself on a tree with one hand and vomited up all the vodka she’d had over the past twenty-six hours. When she looked up, the cart with the body was being shut in the coroner’s vehicle.

  “Yeah, it’s a bad scene over here. Yeah, the kid.” Emery looked up at the cop with his phone calling in the scene. “DFCS has been involved.” The cop walked by her and she heard the words that shut down any sort of functioning she was capable of. “No, he didn’t make it.”

  “Lucas,” she sputtered, spit and drool slipping off her chin and falling to the ground to pool on the leaves collected under her feet. She put both hands on her knees and tried not to scream. She had now officially lost the very kid that she’d been working so hard to help. Nothing she did mattered. She’d failed Lucas. Without realizing it, more vodka escaped Emery’s mouth. Her nose was burning with the puke.

  Meme came around and put a hand on her shoulder. “Emma, I think we should go,” she said softly.

  Emery looked up and saw Trina coming out of the house in handcuffs. Tim had his hand on her elbow, leading her toward his cruiser, and it was like the cord that had been barely holding her together snapped.

  No! Lucas was the only person left who could save her. She’d lost everyone. Her life stopped here. She would leave everything here.

  Emery pushed herself up and rushed to Trina, ramming her shoulder into her at full speed. Trina was screaming and floundering on the ground. She’d knocked Tim down too. Emery was straddling Trina and she began pummeling Trina’s face, ribs, and stomach. Emery heard nothing. She didn’t hear Meme yelling. She didn’t hear Tim calling her name. She just kept hitting Trina. Blood was on her hand and splattered on her face. Then she felt herself being pulled. Pulled away from Trina and her fucked up selfish bullshit. Tugged from the reality of what she saw. Jerked from this half-ass life she’d tried to make for herself in Savannah. In the moment she was uprooted from beating Trina’s ass, she realized everything she’d ever done was a lie. Her life was a fucking lie.

  “Emma.” Tim was breathing into her ear. “Breathe, baby, just breathe.”

  She was done breathing, but she was still screaming. Lucas was gone, they were taking him away and she, the liar, the asshole, the nothing was still here.

  He’d made her better for a short time. She couldn’t be better.

  She felt a prick in her arm and everything turned black.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  No Fight Left

  She blinked rapidly as the grimy room came into focus. Inhaling deeply, the pungent smell of antiseptic filled her nose. She tried to ease into her new reality; the only people that she’d stayed around for were dead. Dead and gone. Why was she still here? Emery closed her eyes for a few seconds, hoping that this was just a drunken nightmare. Oh shit, I’m going to be sick.

  Her eyes flew open. She was in an empty hospital room. Emery dry heaved into a plastic dish she found sitting on the tray next to her bed. Tears fell from her eyes; she wiped them away with the back of her hand. There were beeps and voices outside her room. Panic began circling her, surrounding her and closing in around her. She had to get out of here.

  She put her feet on the floor and stood up slowly, then walked the few steps to the chair where her clothes were neatly folded. On top of her clothes was the bracelet Rachel bought her. It taunted her. Her purse and shoes were sitting on the floor in front of the chair. A Trenta size Starbucks coffee cup sat next to her shoes. She only knew one person who drank a coffee that size. She wondered if Rachel was still in the hospital. Her phone told her it was 5:00 am and that she’d missed a million calls from Rachel. She texted Rachel quickly.

  Headed back to the apartment

  She threw her arms and legs into her clo
thes and shoved her feet into her rain boots. She shoved the bracelet into her jeans pocket, not able to bring herself to put it on. Pulling her wool cap down to her eyes, she peered out of the door, thankful she didn’t see anyone in the hallway.

  She hurried to the stairs and took the three flights down to the lobby slowly, then speed walked out the front door to where the lone cab driver sat waiting just to the left of the entrance. Her heart was beating so fast she thought it may burst out of her chest. She gave the cabbie her address and leaned back as she watched the sun peek up over the water. She texted Rachel again.

  Thanks for bringing my purse.

  “Thank you,” Emery said and handed the cab driver her money out of her bag that Rachel had somehow brought to the hospital and slid out of the back seat. She had no recollection of anything other than Lucas was dead. Ashley was dead. She hadn’t been able to help anyone.

  She took a deep breath and took out her key, unlocking the door and trudging up the stairs. Her door was slightly ajar, but that didn’t surprise her since she’d left drunk out of her mind, but then she saw Rachel standing in her den. She was holding two books in her hands, her hair pulled up in a messy bun. Derrick was sitting on the couch on the phone.

  “What are you doing?” Emery asked still standing at the entrance of her apartment.

  “Emery, things are a little…” Rachel looked to Derrick for help. “Complicated. We came as soon as we heard.”

  “How did you hear?” Emery asked.

  “It was on the news. You can’t beat the shit out of a mom at a crime scene where there are TV cameras and think that won’t get picked up,” Rachel chastised.

  “I don’t give a fuck,” Emery barked and walked into her room. She was so done with everything.

  Rachel looked at Derrick and then followed Emery into the bedroom. “Listen, I know you’re upset…”

  “Upset!” Emery spun around and yelled. “Upset? You don’t know shit. I can’t even describe to you how I feel because it is so beyond anything I’ve ever felt. There’s no name for this emotion,” she choked out.