by Rebel Hart
“I wouldn’t give you all such a hard time about it if I didn’t have good reasons,” I urge him. “You just have to trust me. Call it a gut feeling or whatever you want. I just think it does more harm than good to accept Theo’s help.”
“But if it gets you into college and into a position where you can focus on running,” he pleads. “Or whatever else you may decide you’re into in a year or two from now, then wouldn’t that really show him? To really make something of yourself so you never have to take anything from him again?”
I groan and slam my head back down, desperately wishing that I could just bring myself to scream out that Theo is a murderer and a liar. They think those few days I went missing was me and Emmett just being irresponsible and running off together. But really it was Emmett trying to save me from Theo in the only way he knew how. Without him, Theo would have kidnapped me. And I might not even be sitting here today if that had happened.
Taking deep breaths, my fingers trail up to the running shoe charm hanging from my neck. I rub it gently, wishing more than anything that he could be here right now to tell me how to handle this. He’s one of the only people who really understands Theo the way I do. And he’s so good with people. He could think of the perfect thing to say on the spot.
“Sorry,” my mom chimes as she slides back into her chair.
“I need some time to think,” I blurt, feeling like I can’t sit at this table for another second. “Is that okay? I’m tired from the drive and I kind of just want to be alone for a little while.”
“Of course,” my mom tilts her head. “We didn’t mean to spring all of this on you. But I’m glad it’s all out in the open now. You go ahead and think it over.”
I race from the kitchen table, desperate to escape the pressure of accepting Theo’s help. Taking a car or a phone or even sitting down for the occasional dinner is one thing but signing up to be intertwined with him and dependent on him for at least the next four years is more than I can bear. I lock myself away in my room and pull out my phone to call Emmett.
“You get it, right!?” I fume after I’ve caught him up on everything. “He’s no good, Emmett. Guys like him never put it all out there in the open. There’s always some ulterior motive in hiding, waiting to come out. If we give him an inch, he’ll take a mile. He’s already done that! First, dinner. Now all this.”
“Mm-hmm,” he grumbles, listening carefully. “No, no. I know. I get it.” His silence is not the reassurance I was hoping for.
“You know him, Emmett,” I press. “I can’t give him that kind of power, right? He’ll find some way to ruin everything for me. I just know it.”
“Maybe if he could just give you one lump sum of money and be done with it,” he suggests. “So you’re not forced to run to him for every little thing you need.”
“Then he’ll still have something to hang over my head. No, I just can’t do it, Emmett. I know my mom and Brendan are stressed, but the easy way out isn’t always what it seems,” I explain. “He’s just trying to prey on their biggest fears about providing for me. It’s their weak spot and he’s using it to weasel his way back into our lives.”
He’s quiet for a moment longer. “What do you think he wants? Why try so hard to get to everyone?”
It’s a reasonable question, but not the one I want right now. Because it leaves open the possibility that I am just being paranoid and that all Theo really wants is a chance to be the father he should have been all along. As much as he knows how to be.
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “I just know things never end well with him.”
“I’m sorry, Ophelia,” Emmett says slowly. “I feel…guilty…or responsible in some way.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, assuming he thinks his little deal with Theo might be part of the reason he’s still lingering around.
“If my family hadn’t cut me off from everything,” he continues, sounding pained. “I could fix all of this. I would have more than enough money to take care of both of us through college.”
I try to be open and appreciative to his words, but it just makes me want to scream into a pillow. I feel like some helpless damsel from the 18th century. No one seems to think I’m capable of working and keeping up with track and school enough to take care of myself. But the guilt of knowing everyone I care about is stressing so much over their ability to take care of me just makes me feel stuck. It’s too much pressure on me to do whatever it is they think I’m going to accomplish. And now I’m falling deeper into this rabbit hole of worrying so much about how everyone else feels, my own desires and dreams seem to be falling to the backburner.
“It’s not your responsibility to pay my way through college,” I tell him curtly. “It’s nice that you would, but even if you had the money…I couldn’t have accepted that kind of help from you.”
“Sure you could have,” he insists. “We’re a team, Ophelia. Partners. Your problems are my problems.”
Part of me wants to melt. The idea is so sweet and tempting, but something about it makes me feel like a big hand is closing around my neck.
“I know,” I reply half-heartedly. “Listen, I’m exhausted. I’m going to go to bed. Goodnight. I love you.”
“I love you, Ophelia. So much. Goodnight.”
I crash down on my bed, laughing at myself. Now I look like some corseted damsel too, fainting across my bed like this. Poking out from under my bed where I stashed it last, Marissa’s diary calls to me. I pick it up and flip through the next few entries. She talks about a feeling of having no say or control over her own life, but all of that fades away when she officially meets Thomas. He’s good-looking, charming, and the kind of guy she would want to be with even if she had a choice.
It’s frighteningly relatable. Being surrounded by pressure on all sides, everyone telling you what to do and how to do it. Then the charming knight sweeps in and makes you forget you ever wanted anything different.
Chapter Ten
BOOK 3
I knew it was going to be a bad day when I woke up to the ding from my phone. It’s a special notification that only sounds off when the dreaded Elites app of shame has been used. It’s a special thing they designed and use to torment blacklisted students or anyone else that’s crossed them in some way. I myself have been a victim of the app more than once, which texts every single student at WJ Prep.
But this morning Emmett is the victim. I open the message to see Emmett’s drooping face looking incredibly sad. There’s a caption that reads: What a poor rich boy looks like when he loses all of his daddy’s money.
I look at the photo closer and realize it was taken the night that we cornered his mom, sister, and the Hendersons. For weeks, we thought Bernadette was missing, but she had been hiding out at the Hendersons’ manor the entire time. Their mom soon joined her there. It was all a ploy to drive Emmett mad so they could set it up to look like he had lost his mind after his father’s death. Then they held me at gunpoint and forced him to sign all of Jameson Automobiles over to them. His family cut him off and took every penny left to his name.
The sting of this mass text and the words along with it is, of course, that Emmett wasn’t hurt because he lost all that money. He was hurt by the principle of it. That his mom and sister were so cold, ruthless, and greedy that they would squander his inheritance just because they could. It was a power play. They could have taken the company and left him his trust fund and he would have had enough to live off of. He would have surrendered everything else and let them carry on with their corrupt little business deals while he lived in peace.
But no. His mom and sister cared so little for him, and even hatefully resented him in a way, that they would rather leave him with absolutely nothing. Completely cut off and cast out from the only family he has simply because Emmett had something they didn’t. Empathy. And an inability to prioritize money and power over human lives.
For me, it was a good experience. I thought it was better for Emmett to be left to make his
own way without any ties to his evil family. It also proved to me that Emmett was different from his family. That he had a heart and the ability to be good.
I’m thinking it all over as I get ready for school. Even with my own car, Emmett still picks me up some mornings and this is one of those days. I peak anxiously out the window every few minutes to see if he’s pulled up, wondering how he’ll feel about the latest blow from the Elites. Whether it can be seen as good or bad in the long run, that night was when Emmett lost what was left of his family. Even if they weren’t good people, it was hard for him. And now the Elites are using it against him to try and humiliate him. Definitely not a great start to the day.
Just as I’m sliding into a hoodie and throwing my shoes in a gym bag for practice, I hear the gentle honk of his car as he pulls in to park. Even though Emmett seems like a changed man these days, many parts of me aren’t over the trauma of how he was before. I know he has a temper and I’m not looking forward to seeing how he behaves with the Elites adding insult to injury.
It’s cold enough outside that I don’t even bother hesitating to read how he’s feeling before I jump right in and begin blowing on my hands, warming them against the heated vents. But within seconds I notice the tight, blank expression on his face. He’s stern and silent as he jerks the car into reverse. He handles turns with a sense of agitation, but he drives slowly down the streets. As if he’s putting off arriving at school as long as possible.
“So…I guess you saw it?” I ask gently after a long and heavy silence. He nods with nothing but a grunt, obviously not wanting to talk about it. But everything in his expression and body language tells me it’s eating away at him.
“Fuck them,” I offer with a shrug. “Way worse things have been sent out over that app about me.”
My comments only make things more tense and awkward. Especially as I am left remembering how it was Emmett who once stole my phone when I was the old Elite’s number one target. I find myself instinctively inching closer to the car door as the memories flood over me. The vile things he sent me, both sexual and predatory all at once. The nude photo they found of me and sent to every single student and teacher in the school.
I’m lost in all these things I’d rather forget as Emmett puts the car into park at school and waits. I start to unbuckle and grab my things but freeze as I notice him not moving at all.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“No,” he huffs. “I’m going back home today.”
“Then why did you pick me up? How am I going to get home?” I ask in confusion.
“I picked you up because I promised I would,” he explains tensely. “And I’ll be here to pick you up after school too, just like I said I would be.”
The tone of his voice sounds almost condescending and resentful, making me angry. I could have driven myself to school and maybe would have preferred that if I had known he was skipping today.
“Is this because of the text?” I ask with a sigh, tired of dancing around it.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he grumbles through clenched teeth. I can see his knuckles turning white as he tightly wrings his hand around the steering wheel, causing the leather to creak.
“Emmett, you can’t let them have that kind of control,” I urge him, speaking from experience. “You know better than anyone…that’s what they want. You have to march right in there with your head held high, so they know they can’t hurt you. Even if they do hurt you, you have to carry on anyway. Otherwise they’ll never lay off.”
He shakes his head and looks out his window. I can see the torment twisting inside of him. He’s humiliated, but safe hiding here in his car. Walking through those double doors puts him right into the hands of unkind, snickering assholes who will use the text as ammunition. Messages through the Elites app is like an arrow pointing to the person everyone is supposed to give shit to. Anyone who doesn’t make their best effort at pouring salt on Emmett’s wounds could become the next victim.
“Maybe we should get revenge,” he perks up suddenly. “Find something on Malcolm to put out there and get back at him. I have some old embarrassing photos of him from when we were kids.”
“It’s just a waste of time,” I insist. “Even if we do manage to strike some kind of nerve with him, it’s only going to make things worse. He’ll retaliate with something much bigger. They’ve already tried to kill me this year, Emmett. I don’t have time to wage a war against them right now. I need to focus on school and getting into college so I can get us the hell out of here.”
He’s immediately turned off by my refusal to play their games, shaking his head and growing more irritated by the second as I talk. “Well, who says you have to help at all,” he shoots back begrudgingly. “I’m not worried about getting into college right now or anything else really. I’ll go after him myself.”
That thought scares me even more. Emmett humiliated and desperate, feeling like he has nothing to lose, going after Malcolm for revenge. Two entitled, fucked-up high school boys going head to head with millions of dollars and a disregard for human life on the line. It’d be a nightmare. One in which I can’t see everyone surviving.
“What happened to what you said last night?” I argue, even though it still causes a huge lump to form in my throat. “Partners, remember? Your problems are my problems?” He softens a little but still seems insistent on clinging to all this bubbling rage. “Let’s just walk in there and get through this together. I’ll hold your hand the whole way and march you right up to your first class. Like I said, Emmett. Fuck them. Don’t let them send you running off and hiding.”
He lets out a long heavy sigh before finally, slowly turning the key in the ignition, shutting down the engine. He’s still a while afterward, gathering up all the energy he has to go through with this. Or maybe he’s just turning himself to stone. Compartmentalizing and shutting down. His upbringing forced him to become very good at detachment.
But he must still be feeling something because he squeezes my hand tight as we walk inside. When the doors swing open, it’s as if everyone has been waiting for us. They all go completely silent and turn to us with wide eyes as we make our way through. All of the students are divided up against the lockers, leaving plenty of room for us to go right past them down the middle of the hall. But it also puts us in perfect view and we’re all too aware of their growing snickers and whispers as we walk by.
I can feel the muscles in Emmett’s hands tense the further we go. His heart pounds through his wrist. The further we go, the louder and more blatant the taunting becomes. As they grow bolder in their insults, directing them at Emmett rather than each other now, the crowd seems to be closing in. The students push out from the lockers lining the walls on either side of us and put themselves in our path. We’re forced to zig-zag to dodge them, but as they close in on us, each time we avoid bumping into one of them, another is waiting just behind them.
Emmett’s hand twists in mine, growing damp and I see beads of sweat forming on his brow. Everyone is shouting at us and cackling, jumping all around like crazy people, not letting us move any further. It’s so loud and suffocating that we can barely make out their words, but every once in a while, an awful jab will stand out among the rest. Terrible things about Emmett and his father. They throw Thomas’s death in his face and blame him for it, all while making fun of him for being poor.
I’m not immune to the insults, of course. If anything, I give them more ammunition. Vivian coined me as the white trash girl who didn’t belong here and needed to go back where I came from. The fact that we’re a couple only spurs them on more. They mock Emmett for having found a poor, white trash girl just like him to fuck in whatever dirty shack we come from. The worst part is, knowing how these kids live, my little house and his little apartment are like uninhabitable shit holes to them.
As the shouting worsens and the crowd folds over us, we both begin to duck and shield ourselves with our arms as fruit and opened packets of condiments fly at us.
I feel something soggy splash against my cheek just as a packet of ketchup smears across my jacket. They sound like a mob of crazed monkeys on the attack.
I grip Emmett’s hand tighter and begin fighting our way through, dragging him along. He’s stronger and scarier than me, but I can feel the panic coursing through his veins. He’s never experienced anything like this before. Even I have to admit this is more dramatic than some of the shit the Elites pulled on me.
Finally, we pierce through the bulk of them enough for me to hear his hyperventilating pants. I shove the remaining stragglers out of the way and pull him into the closest closet, where we can find some peace. His nostrils are flaring in and out as he heaves. I grip his shoulders and try to get him to look at me, but he looks lost. I’ve seen that empty look in his eyes before. It’s from whatever scary place he goes into when he’s put into a position he finds himself unable to handle.
“Hey!” I bark, trying to snap him out of it as I firmly shake his shoulders. “Hey, Emmett! Look at me!” I try again, but he’s unresponsive. He looks in every direction, doing his best to avoid making eye contact with me, still breathing wildly.
“Stop it!” I scream again, become afraid. The shrillness of my voice causes something in him to snap and one of his hands rears back above me. I flinch, throwing my hands up and whimpering slightly, convinced that he’s so out of control he’ll actually hit me. But when nothing strikes me, I slowly lower my hands just as he starts coming back to reality.
His face softens and fills with remorse. His brows wrinkle and he looks like he’s about to start crying. He collapses against my shoulder with a breathless series of gasps. Short, shallow cries with no tears to back them up.
“I’m sorry,” he groans listlessly, clinging to my body. “I don’t…I don’t know what happened…I just…I couldn’t take…that.”