Cold Hard Truth

by Brown, Anne Greenwood;

  “You want to play some pool?” Chris asked. His voice was extra nasally from the splint. Brock stood up, ready to go.

  Max looked at Emmie and put his hand on her knee. “Do you want to?”

  “You go ahead. I’ll catch up. I want to find Marissa. And maybe get some fresh air.”

  “You’re sure?” he asked, standing up.

  Emmie nodded and reached up to him. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. The guys headed upstairs, and Emmie padded around the first level in her bare feet. Eventually she found Marissa in a small room with a group of girls who were all drinking bottled mojitos. No one seemed to notice Marissa’s small notebook filled with sociology project notes on the ottoman beside her.

  Raven-haired Lauren from the hockey game and Elizabeth, the hostess, were in animated conversation with Katie. They sat cross-legged on the floor, an empty bottle in front of each of them. Katie was on the girls’ hockey team, but apparently she didn’t police herself during the season like the guys did.

  When Lauren noticed Emmie in the room, she tipped her head toward Katie as some unspoken message. Emmie tried not to notice or to wonder what they thought of her. She didn’t want to spend any time in this room with them either.

  “Where’s Sarah?” Emmie asked Marissa.

  “I don’t know,” Marissa said. “She went off with some guy named Jason? Or Justin?”

  “Josh,” another girl said with a slur. “Who knew that Sarah was such a slut?”

  Marissa made a surreptitious hash mark in her notebook and looked up at Emmie with a wink.

  Emmie’s little bag hung from her wrist and rested against her thigh. She felt her phone vibrate inside the bag and went to check what she supposed would be her father’s third text, asking again when she would be home. Instead the text read: It’s Angie.

  Emmie’s heart gave a little stutter, and she quickly moved out into the hallway so Marissa wouldn’t notice her reaction. Angie had her new number? How did she get her number? Had she somehow jacked her phone at the rink? No. That was impossible.

  Then her father’s suspicions got the better of her. Emmie’s mom must have found her number. Her mom must have given it out. Emmie looked around. There were only a few people in the hallway with her, two of whom were seriously focused on each other. Emmie read on.

  I probably shouldn’t be doing this, but Nick wanted me to get a message to you. Delete this as soon as you read it. I went to visit him.

  Emmie’s blood felt chilly in her arms. No. She couldn’t believe her mom was behind this. If her mom had her number, then why had she never called herself? So, there was that no-contact order…Still, she couldn’t believe her mom would have abided by it this long without testing the limits. That just wasn’t her mom.

  Another text came through:

  He wanted me to tell you that he’s not mad anymore. He’s had time to think about how everything went down, and he understands why you testified. He doesn’t blame you, and he still LOVES you. I know you can’t see him, but if you want me to send him a message for you, let me know.

  Love? Emmie couldn’t breathe. She seriously could not find any air. He’d never shown her love before, and she didn’t want it now. She was, however, desperate for his forgiveness, and that felt really good. Before Emmie could formulate a coherent thought, another text came through:

  I worked things out with Frankie too. He was really sorry. Things are good with us now.

  Then finally:

  If this isn’t Emmie’s phone, quit reading this, you nosy bastard. It’s none of your business.

  Emmie clicked out of her texts and slipped her phone back into her bag. She closed her eyes and tried to get a grip on what was happening. There was nothing directly threatening in Angie’s message, but her stomach turned in revolt. And then she had a terrifying thought.

  If they knew where she was on the crew, and where she lived, and how to reach her, what if one of Nick’s friends had followed her here? What if Angie was here, in this house? Oh my God, what if Frankie was with her?

  Emmie pushed herself off the wall and raced down the basement steps in search of Max. Her eyes quickly glanced around the crowd. The faces of strangers. Laughing. Oblivious.

  For the first time since moving back home, Emmie wasn’t able to lie to herself. She wasn’t fine. This wasn’t nothing. She couldn’t handle it on her own.

  Maybe it was because she wasn’t in her own environment. Maybe if she could just get to her own room and under the covers, she wouldn’t feel the need to start screaming. I never saw freaking out do anybody any good. She took a deep breath and let it out. She needed to find Max.

  If he wanted to put those overprotective urges of his to good use, now was as good a time as any. She wanted to go home.

  Emmie tapped the nearest girl on the shoulder. “Do you know where the pool table is?”

  “Upstairs,” the girl said, then turned back to her small circle of friends.

  Emmie whirled and ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. Then up the next flight to the second story. She walked quickly and systematically down the hallway, opening doors, looking for Max. They all seemed to be bedrooms on this level. All immaculately clean and smelling like lavender. She climbed the stairs to the third floor. There were fewer rooms up there. A study, a bathroom, and the only other door, which had to be the game room.

  Emmie turned the knob and gave the door a push. She expected to find a group of guys on the other side, but instead the room was empty, save for a pool table at its center and—

  Her mind could not process what she was seeing.

  Max was sitting on the edge of the pool table. His feet nearly reaching the floor. Between his legs stood a girl. Emmie’s mind was working so slowly that she didn’t recognize her at first. Long, wavy red hair pulled out of its earlier twist. Toned shoulders. Narrow hips. Her black dress draped off one bared shoulder, and her hands rested gently on the sides of Max’s face.

  Emmie needed to look away. She needed to run, and yet she stood there—rooted—with her mouth hanging open. It seemed like an eternity before Max and Katie looked her way. Max’s shoulders slumped when he saw her. Emmie thought she detected a small smile play at the corners of Katie’s lips.

  “Emmie, wait,” Max said, which was strange because she still wasn’t moving.

  “You asshole!” Then Emmie found her feet and bolted from the room.

  Hands holding both sides of the stairwell so she wouldn’t fall, Emmie stormed down the two flights of stairs and into the small room where she’d found Marissa earlier. “We got to go.”

  “What? We just—”

  “Marissa, I need to get out of here.”

  “Is everything okay?” Elizabeth asked, standing up from the floor. “Did you break something?”

  Marissa escorted Emmie out of the room and into a private corner of the kitchen. “What’s going on, Em?”

  “Please,” she said, her eyes stinging. Emmie looked behind her to make sure Max hadn’t followed her, but of course he hadn’t. He had his hands full. “I found Max with Katie.”

  Marissa’s face was a mixture of surprise and sympathy, and Emmie hated to see it. She didn’t want it. She just wanted to get the hell out of there.

  “Please, let’s go.” Emmie’s throat was as dry and ragged as a bale of hay, and just as easy to swallow.

  “Yeah, let me find my keys.”

  Emmie grabbed her shoes from where she’d left them by the fireplace. Her feet protested when she forced them back into position.

  “Sarah’s getting a ride home with Josh,” Marissa said as they exited the house. She unlocked her car. Emmie jumped in the passenger seat and slammed the door shut, pressing the heels of her hands against her forehead. It took a while for Marissa’s defrost to work. Emmie knew it was silly to be mad about the delay. Obviously, Marissa needed to be able to see to drive, but all Emmie wanted to do was get home.

  There was a loud noise at her window, and Emmie jumped
in her seat. She glanced quickly to her right, then closed her eyes. Max’s palms slapped a second time against the glass, and his muffled voice yelled at her to roll down the window.

  Emmie cranked up the radio so she couldn’t hear him. She stared straight ahead without blinking, but all she could see was Katie. Katie’s bare shoulder, her hips between Max’s legs, her hands on Max’s face.

  Why should she be so surprised? How could she have been so stupid? Did she really think she and Max were together, as in together together? He was a player. Like all of them. Don’t be so clingy, Pigeon. If I’m going to kiss another girl, I’m going to kiss another girl.

  Marissa turned her head toward Emmie as if waiting for instructions. Emmie yelled, “Go! Please, let’s just go.” She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes and—what was this? Tears? This was not her. Emmie O’Brien did not cry. Or at least, not in front of anyone else.

  “You don’t have to be tough for me,” Marissa said as she pulled out and Max made one last slap at the car. “What happened exactly?”

  “I found him with Katie. Alone in a room on the top floor. She was standing between his legs, and she had her hands on his face.”

  Marissa sighed. “Damnit. You can’t ever trust a jock.”

  She was right. She was obviously right. Emmie had seen the evidence to support that statement with her own eyes. But she still felt the urge to rise up and defend Max. The shock of the moment was fading, and reason was taking over. Yes, it hurt. It hurt like a mother. But Emmie had only been Max’s date to a dance. And that dance was now over. They hadn’t made each other any promises. He could make out with anyone he wanted.

  Then she remembered his words from earlier in the night. But this. Us. This is separate from any of that. Right now. With you. I’m happy. Goddamn bastard, making her believe him. Making a fool out of her.

  When Emmie didn’t say anything, Marissa leaned over the steering wheel and peered through the shrinking hole of visibility as the windshield frosted over again. It took another few minutes, but they did manage to get to Emmie’s house in one piece. Before they got out, Emmie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Do you want to spend the night?”

  “Definitely,” Marissa said. “I’ll have to call my mom.”

  Emmie climbed out of Marissa’s car and sucked in a breath. Max’s jeep was parked on the opposite side of the street, and he was standing outside it, leaning back against the hood. His head bowed.

  “How—?” Emmie started.

  Max looked up. Sheepish. “I told you. I know all the shortcuts.”

  “Go back to the party,” she said.

  “We need to talk,” he said, crossing the street.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s the last thing we need to do.” Emmie started to walk up her driveway, and Marissa hurried around the back of her car to catch up.

  “It wasn’t what it looked like,” Max said from behind them. “Don’t shut me out, Emmie.”

  Emmie kept her body as controlled as she possibly could and turned around coolly. “You were never in, Shepherd. Go back to your own kind. We’ll both be much happier that way.”

  “You mean things will be easier that way,” Max said.

  “Same difference,” she said, turning.

  Max reached out and tried to stop Emmie by putting his hand on her arm.

  “Don’t touch me!” she said with a jerk of her shoulder.

  Max pulled back his hand as if he’d been bitten. “I’m not interested in easy. I’m interested in you. And I know enough about you to know that nothing is going to be easy.”

  “Yeah, well…” Emmie hated that she had no better comeback for him than that. Marissa was already at the back door. Emmie finished her trek up the driveway with Max close on her heels.

  “There are plenty of charity cases out there,” Emmie said, turning around one last time to face him. Her hair flew around her face, caught in the wind. “I’m sure you’ll find someone else to challenge your overprotective macho urges. As for me, I’m good. And I’m done. I don’t need you. Nick’s not going to be a problem anymore. None of them are.”

  Her hands balled into fists. She wasn’t sure she believed what she was saying, but that was for her to worry about. Not him.

  “Nick?” Max asked, his eyes wide. “Emmie, what are you…? Please let me explain. I don’t want tonight to end like this.”

  Marissa held the back door open, and Emmie stepped into the warmth of her house. She thought she caught Marissa giving Max a sympathetic look before she shut the door, but Emmie’d give her the benefit of the doubt. She could only handle one friend’s betrayal per evening.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CONFESSION (OF SORTS)

  Once they were in the kitchen, Emmie let out a long, ragged breath. Marissa was at the window peering through the break in the curtains.

  “Is he gone?” Emmie asked.

  “He’s staring at the house,” Marissa said. “Now he’s putting his hands in his pockets. He’s tur…Wait, yeah, he’s turning around. Okay, he’s leaving.”

  “Good.”

  “Emmie?”

  “What?”

  “This had to be the weirdest, most made-for-TV-miniseries-ish night of my life, and I wasn’t even the main character. What the hell happened back there? And don’t tell me ‘nothing.’ Who the hell is Nick? You’ve been keeping things from me, and it’s not fair.”

  Emmie hesitated for a couple seconds, then let out a breath. “You’re right. There’s been…stuff…going on, and I haven’t told you everything because you’re going to look at me differently once I do.”

  “Aw, Em.” Marissa walked across the kitchen toward her friend. “I love you. You’re my best friend. You’ve seen me at my worst…”

  Emmie rolled her eyes and started to walk out of the kitchen and into the living room. Marissa’s worst was an ugly, crying meltdown in front of the whole class when she got an F on a science test. Second to that was the time she farted during music class in fifth grade.

  “No. You don’t get to walk away from me,” Marissa said. “Not from me.”

  Emmie turned and leaned against the wall. “Your worst…your worst is like a day at Disney World compared to my past year.”

  “Don’t patronize me,” Marissa said, raising her finger like a scolding mother.

  “I’m not. I—”

  “Did you kill somebody?”

  Emmie’s mouth dropped open. “I—I…” And then, though her mind couldn’t help going to B. J.’s body laid out in a cold parking lot, she said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Well, I’d still love you even if you did. I’d call the cops, but I’d still love you. I know bad shit went down. Maybe I don’t know all the details, but I know enough. If that was going to scare me off, it would have happened a long time ago.”

  “Am I going to be another one of your sociology studies?”

  Marissa shrugged and gave Emmie one of her mischievous smiles. The kind she gave Emmie in seventh grade right before they forked Kelly Winkler’s front yard. Emmie could still see the thousands of white plastic handles sticking out of the grass, glowing in the moonlight.

  “You can be a test case if you want to be. Does your dad still keep a gallon of…” Marissa walked back into the kitchen and opened the freezer door. “Bingo. Some things never change.”

  Emmie was glad her father’s fetish for mint chocolate-chip ice cream had come through for Marissa. She also hoped she could take Marissa at her word because she needed to unload a boatload of shit on someone tonight, and right now Marissa was the only one volunteering for the job.

  They went up to Emmie’s room. Emmie changed out of her dress and gave Marissa some sweats to wear. Then they did what they did when they were little. Emmie pulled her desk closer to her bed, and they draped a quilt over both of them, making a tent. Emmie brought sleeping bags in from the storage closet and as many pillows as she could find.

  Marissa pried open the plastic
tub of ice cream and drove two spoons into the still-smooth surface. Emmie pulled a little lamp into the fort with them. It cast a golden glow around their faces.

  The bedroom door opened, and Tom O’Brien said, “Em? Are you in there?”

  Emmie split the curtain of blankets. “It’s me and Marissa.” Her father’s face was lined with worry. Something wasn’t right. “Dad?”

  “I’m glad you’re home already. I didn’t expect you for a couple hours still. Didn’t hear you come in.”

  Marissa leaned forward and waved her spoon at him. “Hi, Mr. O’Brien. Thanks for the ice cream.”

  He glanced down at the plastic tub. “Put that back in the freezer before it melts.”

  “We will,” she said.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Dad?” Something was obviously bothering him, and it didn’t have anything to do with the ice cream. The lines at the corners of his eyes were more pronounced, and his jaw was tight.

  “Fine,” he said grimly. “We’ll talk later. I’m glad you’re home safe.”

  Mr. O’Brien closed the door behind him, and Emmie settled back into the pillows. Was she safe? She still didn’t know how to take Angie’s texts.

  Marissa took a big bite of ice cream, and Emmie turned on Spotify. At first they said nothing, and the only sound was that of spoons clanking together as they both dove into the ice cream at the same time. Eventually the silence needed to be addressed.

  “Did I see you dancing with Max’s friend tonight?” Emmie asked without looking at Marissa.

  “Chris. Yeah. Only for a little bit though. He asked me to dance mid-song, so it ended pretty quick.”

  “I didn’t know you knew him.”

  “Just from when we went skating. His nose looks a lot better already, doesn’t it?”

  Emmie nodded, even though she didn’t know how Marissa could tell with the splint. The silence stretched out again.

  “So are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?” Marissa asked.

  “Which one?” Emmie responded with a little laugh. She loved how Marissa always cut to the chase. She loved how Marissa understood how hard it was for her to admit weakness. It was like Marissa had verbally wrapped an arm around Emmie’s back and was going to help her walk barefoot across hot coals.