CHAPTER TEN

Kanye

It’s Saturday and I’m pulling into Emmy and Jakes parents’ house for a barbecue. Jake and Lily are heading back to Australia this week, so Ken and Barb are having a get together before they leave. Jake takes Lily back every few months. Usually, they only stay for about a week, but each time they leave, they hope to stay for at least a month. I know Lily struggles to be at her old home for too long. I can’t blame her. The memories must be torture.

I hop out of my truck and I look around and find exactly what I’m searching for. Emmy’s car. She’s here.

I walk into the house and my heart stops. I lock my knees to stop myself from falling to the ground. A soft, musical, feminine laugh, one I've only heard in my dreams for the past five years rings through my body. I lean on the wall and lower my head, clenching my eyes closed. My Emily. My Emmy’s carefree, beautiful laughter. My mind takes me on a roller coaster ride, through my memories of every time she's smiled up at me, like I'm everything in the world to her. My eyes sting and my body shakes. I need to get a hold of myself. 

"Kanye?"

My head whips up at hearing her gorgeous sweet voice say my name. Her hand rests on my shoulder. While her other arm cradles a baby, her eyes narrow on me with an inquisitive look. I quickly stand straight and regret it instantly as her hand falls off my shoulder. 

"Is everything okay?" she asks me.

I want to say no, everything is not okay because I still sleep alone at night, dreaming of how good she feels, dreaming of pulling her into my body and fighting off all her demons for her.

Emmy looks at me with the same blank face, but her eyes say everything. Every time they ghost over my features, want and need flash in her eyes, and I’m reminded me why I’m doing this, why I’m fighting for us all on my own. Emmy may not realize it, but she’s fighting for herself and I can see it’s taking all her strength. I have enough for both of us. I just wish she would realize it and let me in.

The baby in her arms starts crying and Emmy instantly looks to the child and starts cooing. Fuck. That’s what I was hearing. Her cooing a baby, not laughing. Not that it really matters; it's one-step forward. She’s holding a child and comforting it. The Emmy from a few months ago would have denied holding the child at all.

“It’s okay, Jacob. Mommy’s getting you a bottle. Hang in there, little guy.”

The baby instantly stops crying and tries to grab for Emmy’s face. I understand, buddy; she’s beautiful. I’ve stopped what I’m doing plenty of times just to stare at her.

“This is Carly’s son,” she states.

Carly is a friend of Emmy’s from high school and college. She became close to Ken and Barb while Emmy was missing. She’s married and has a daughter, Sophia, who is three and I had heard she had another baby recently.

I nod and give my girl a kiss on the temple. She doesn’t resist or tense up. It’s been two weeks since our grocery adventure. Emmy has tried very hard to ignore me and our conversations, except our phone calls. She knows how important they are to me. I need those at the end of the day as much as I require air. I have to know she’s safe and well before I can sleep.

I keep reminding her I’m not going anywhere. I turn up at our house wanted or not. And now, I kiss her temple when I leave. It’s a promise, a promise I’m here and I will be back the next day.

I stare at Emmy and see her watching the baby. He holds her pinkie tightly with his little fist. Emmy’s eyes are sparkling. It’s the happiest I’ve seen her since she came home.

“Kanye, hi!” I hear Carly say from behind me.

Emily and I both turn and spot Carly holding a baby’s bottle.

“Hey, Carly, beautiful baby boy. Congratulations,” I reply.

“Thanks, Kanye, Em is helping me feed him. He’s very grumpy and Em was the only one he would stop crying with.”

I turn to Emmy. “It’s her face. Her beauty would stop any male in his tracks.”

Emily’s head whips up and her eyes pierce into mine. I can see everything she’s thinking. Why do I keep being nice? Saying sweet things about her when she’s constantly rejecting me? But I see my girl every day. I see the hurt she inflicts on herself when she rejects me. She’s lost and trying to find her way. However, my girl is a fighter. I know she will find her way through this darkness and I won’t let her walk this road alone. Emily has never been as real to me as she has been in the last few months. Her whole world right now is about trying to protect me, give me the best life I could possibly have. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is. I’m going to fill Emmy’s life with more happy memories than bad. We are going to bury the nightmares under dreams so it hurts less and less every day. I just need her to start trusting me. To start trusting it’s her and only her forever.

I observe Emmy starting to retreat, her face closes down, and her eyes narrow. She’s calling up all her strength to reject me again. I decide to give her a reprieve this time.

“Is Phillip here?” I ask Carly.

“Yeah, he’s out back with Sophia and everyone else.”

I nod and walk past a stunned Emily, through the kitchen and out the back to the covered pergola area.

First thing I see is Jake wrapped around Lily. Her giggles filter through the crowd and most people stop to look and listen. Watching them together gives me hope. What they went through, it’s enough to break anyone, but they fought through it together and came out stronger. I know that will be Emmy and me. It has to be. I won’t accept anything else.

As I watch my best friend with the love of his life, I almost miss the flash of brown that whips past the side of the house. I focus and realize its Emmy; she has her camera. She’s kneeling on the lawn in the corner, camera lens extended and pointed at Jake and Lily.

Fuck, that breaks my heart.

Every day I walk into our house, there are more pictures of strangers. Emmy prints them out and has them sitting on the dining room table. When I asked her why she printed out pictures of strangers and have them in our house, her reply was, “They’re beautiful. They smile even though there is evil in the world, and at one point, it has or could touch them, but still they smile.” Broke my heart because when she said that and then looked up at me, her emotions were all over her face. She longed to know how they did it, how they can still smile and be happy. I can see how desperate she is to learn the secret. I want to hand it to her, on a silver fucking tray every day. If only she would let me.

***

Emily

Click. Click. Click. Click.

Looking through my lens, I stare at her smile. It looks like a puzzle on her lips that I need to figure out so I can do it too. Lily smiles effortlessly with Jake. She laughs. How? She lost everything. How does she smile at all?

I look around the yard through my lens.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

Everyone’s laughing, smiling. Happy.

My pulse is beating quickly and my heart is pounding. I drop the camera to my chest and it hangs from my lanyard. I try to calm my breathing. I want what they have. Please, I need this pain to stop. I claw at my skin, ripping at my skin. Beads of blood come to the surface and drip down my arm. See I bleed like them. I'm human. Why can I not be happy like them? Why can I not move on like they have? At some point in their lives, they have hurt. Why can they move on and I can’t?

I pick up my camera and furiously start taking more pictures. My finger gradually slows with tiredness. When I suddenly stop, my lens falls on Kanye. He’s staring at me. His face intense, a frown in place. The only other person at this barbecue who isn’t smiling. That’s my fault. I have nightmares in my mind, but I’m Kanye’s. Deep down, I knew he would never let me go. I know how deep our love runs. Now I feel like I’m in a race to fix myself so I can make him happy too. I’m so sorry God stuck you with me, Kanye.

I stand and walk into the house. I watch Kanye from the corner of my eye, making sure he doesn’t follow. I need to wash the blood away from my arm and I don’t want him seeing what I’ve done to myself. It’s nothing like the cuts on my thighs. But even Kanye seeing me just scratch myself, makes me nervous.

I close the bathroom door and rest my camera on the counter. I begin cleaning the blood off until all that is left are tiny, red swollen lines up my arms. I glance from my arm to my reflection in the mirror. My necklace catches my eyes. I wish at that moment I lived in a world with witches and fairies. Some type of fantasy creature which could send me back in time to when I had it all. I’d ask to go back and re-live my night with Kanye over and over again.

I jump when I hear the door open and then relax when I see its Lily. She looks into the room, spots me and then looks behind her, decides to come in and shuts the door.

I quickly pull my arm behind my back and say, “Hey, do you need to use the bathroom?”

I move to grab my camera, but Lily reaches out and grabs my hand. She flips it over and sees the red marks. Her eyes grow soft and she says gently, “Em, talk to me please.”

I shake my head. “I’m okay—” I stop and realize what I should be asking her. “I want to ask you something; however, I don’t want to sound rude or uncaring.”

“Em, we’re past this. You can ask me anything. I promise I won’t take offense.”

“How are you happy? I can’t feel it, joy, about anything. I want to. But I just feel sad all the time.”

What I don’t say is I feel dirty, worthless, and pathetic. I don’t want those words to leave my lips again. Each time they have, I felt like I gave them more power over me.

I watch as Lily’s eyes go glassy at my question and statement.

“Oh, Em,” Lily breathes out. “I’m happy and sad. I take each moment as it comes. I have my bad days. Sometimes, I need help from Jake to remind me why I’m still living and why I keep going. Your brother is closing the hole more and more every day with his love and support. If you let Kanye in, he can do the same for you.”

I shake my head. “What if he gets too close and realizes how damaged I am, realizes I’m not good enough for him.”

“Em, you have been through hell and back, but you are not damaged. And you are good enough for Kanye, for any man who you wanted to be with. As hard as it sounds, you need to let go of the past and embrace your future. It’s up to you where your life will go from here. Right now, you’re making decisions based on your fears. No good can come from that. I choose to see the good in the world instead of the bad which was forced onto me. And with the help of your brother seeing the good is easy, the days, weeks and months have gotten easier.”

“But all I do is hurt Kanye. I’m afraid I’ll only be dragging him down into this nightmare with me.”

“He loves you, Emily. As long as you are frozen in this nightmare, he will be too. Love means you are never alone, whether you want to be or not,” Lily says softly.

“I know,” I rush out to say. “I’m trying, I am, but I just can’t cross that fucking invisible line into happy land with everyone else,” I say frustrated, staring into her eyes, begging her to help me.

Lily grasps my hands and squeezes tightly.

“That’s because you’re trying to cross it alone. You can’t cross it until you realize you need help and that you are worth helping.”

My stomach drops as I feel the line turn into a huge chasm that may possibly swallow me whole.