Chapter Nineteen
Emmet
I sat up in bed, pressing a hand over my chest. My breath came fast, and so did my anger. Everything swirled in dark colors inside me. Jeremey asked me what was wrong, and I couldn’t use words. I couldn’t even sign.
I got out of the bed and stood in the center of the room. I wanted to flap and scream and yell, but I couldn’t do anything.
Jeremey was working for David. David, my enemy.
It hurt so much I couldn’t breathe.
Jeremey climbed out of bed and stood beside me. He wasn’t wearing any clothes. “Don’t be angry,” he kept saying, worrying his hands in that way I always thought of as Jeremey-flapping. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be angry with me for working for David.”
I was angry. I was furious. I wanted to shout so much it made my ears ache. “You can’t work for him. He’s a jerk.”
“David’s not a jerk, not really. He’s super nice. He’s lonely, and he’s scared, and he needs friends.” Jeremey moved to stand in front of me. He looked ready to cry.
I didn’t want to make Jeremey cry, but he couldn’t work for David. “I don’t want to be his friend.”
Jeremey stopped fussing with his hands and wrapped his arms around his belly. “It’s the perfect job for me. I’ll help him get on the bus, brush his teeth, eat, get dressed—”
“You can’t see David naked!”
My shout made Jeremey startle and hunch his shoulders. I thought he’d say okay, I won’t work for him, which is what I wanted. But that’s not what Jeremey did. “David’s not gay. Also, he can’t move most of his body. And I’m your boyfriend. This isn’t about seeing him naked. It’s about helping. I like helping him.”
My head hurt. My heart hurt. I wanted to yell, to hit, but I couldn’t. I felt so confused and frustrated. I didn’t want to hurt or upset Jeremey, but I was so angry I also did want to hurt him. I needed to leave. That would upset him too, but less than me yelling or hitting. Except I couldn’t be in the apartment. I didn’t want to be anywhere Jeremey was right now.
I went into my room and put on clothes. My Dalek shirt and black shorts and black shoes. Jeremey didn’t follow me into the room, but he talked to me through the door, begging me to listen. I couldn’t listen, and I couldn’t stay in the apartment, not if he was going to try to talk to me when I was this upset.
I picked up my keys and my backpack, and I left.
He called after me, but I didn’t answer, and he couldn’t follow me, since he was still naked. My heart raced, and I thought I might have a panic attack. I didn’t know what to do, where to go. I stood on the front steps, trying to decide if I should go onto the playground equipment or to my parents’ house, and that’s when Sally found me.
“Hey.” Sally stood in front of me but slightly off to the side so she wasn’t blocking my way. “What’s up, Emmet? Are you heading out somewhere?”
I put my hand over my left ear.
She kept smiling, and she didn’t leave. When she spoke again, her voice sounded like a teacher’s. “That’s fine. We don’t have to talk. But I can tell you’re upset, even without your Dalek shirt, and it’s my job to make sure you’re okay. Here are your choices: I can take you somewhere safe to be until you’re not upset. I can call your mom or dad. Or you can tell me where you want to be, and I can sit with you. But if you choose that option, you have to let me check in with Tammy first so she knows she has the place to herself.”
I didn’t care for any of her options. I wanted to break things. I wanted to yell.
The door behind me opened. “Emmet—Emmet, please.” Jeremey appeared in front of me, his face twisted up with loud hurt and anger. “This is a good thing for me. You’ve seen how impossible it’s been for me to keep a job. Please, I need to do this.”
Sally put her hand on Jeremey’s shoulder and spoke quietly. I didn’t listen to what she said, focusing on how she knew how to touch him, how her touch was magic. Not like me, who had to think how to do it for five minutes and talk myself into being okay doing it.
At least David couldn’t touch Jeremey.
I did my best to calm myself. A whistle told me a train was approaching, and I went to the edge of the stoop to watch the cars go by. Three engines, thirty corn syrup cars, twenty boxcars. No one interrupted me while I counted, and when the train passed, I felt better.
But only a little.
I turned to Sally. I could see Jeremey beside her, his eyes red, his breathing coming fast. I was giving him a panic attack, which made me sad, but I couldn’t stop being angry.
I had to get away. I had to get away right now.
“What do you want to do, Emmet?” Sally asked.
I wanted to make David leave, but that wasn’t going to happen. So I’d have to leave.
I went over to my parents’ house by myself. It was only a block and a half—I could see my old bedroom window from my living room at The Roosevelt. Sally tried to come along, then call my mother, but I got angry. “I’m an adult. I can visit my mother by myself.”
Sally made me call when Mom was with me, though, and she asked to talk to her. That made me angrier. By the time I handed over the phone, I went upstairs to my old room. The space wasn’t empty or anything, but it didn’t feel like my room anymore. I didn’t even have my foam hammer to beat on the bed.
Everything felt wrong. I felt wrong.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Jeremey working for David. I hurt all through my insides as I thought about David smiling and laughing at Jeremey, being able to make all the right jokes, flirt without notes and special fonts. The more I thought about it, the more I hurt and the more panicked I felt. My feelings got louder and louder, angry, sharp colors jangling in my head. My brain started playing bad pictures of David walking across campus, laughing and teasing with Jeremey, putting his arm around him, touching him the way he wanted. David getting out of his chair and flirting with Jeremey with his whole body.
Taking him away from me.
The world went tight and dark and terrible, and even in my old room, I wasn’t safe. I went to the corner of my closet—my mostly empty closet. All my things were over at The Roosevelt. I shut the door, curled up in a ball, and I cried. I felt as awful and scared and confused as I had when I was ten and everyone made fun of me at school. I was so sure I would go back to The Roosevelt and David would have stolen Jeremey, that they’d be boyfriends now.
I didn’t want to kill myself, but a dark empty space closed around me, and if I could have stayed in there and died, I would have. I didn’t die, though. I really am Super Emmet, and like the comic book Superman, I have a powerful secret weapon.
My mom.
I heard her knock on the door to my bedroom, the knock that meant she was respecting me but coming in if I didn’t respond. I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. When she came in, she called out my name, then got quiet as she came up to my closet door. I saw her shadow underneath. For a few minutes we sat together, silent.
Then, quietly, she began to sing.
“Sleep my child and peace attend thee, all through the night. Guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night.”
I shut my eyes and leaned my head against the wall. Some tears still fell, but this was our song, the one she’d sung to me since I was little. She said when I was a baby, sometimes her singing this song was the only way I could be calm. It worked okay if she played a recording, but her voice was the best. It was still as magical to me now as it had ever been, and as she sang, my anger and bad feelings went away.
When she got to the last verse, I sang with her. My voice isn’t good, but Mom doesn’t care.
We were quiet after we finished singing, but the quiet was easier now. I still felt sad when I thought about David and Jeremey, but I didn’t feel alone anymore. I remembered that no matter what happened, I would always have my mom. Even if I couldn’t be independent, I would have her. I still wanted to live at The Roosevelt and get a job, but singing with her reminded me I could still be okay.
“Jujube, can I open the door? I need to hug you.”
I didn’t want to hug her, but she’d probably used up a lot of her superpower to get here and sing with me. So I opened the door and let her in.
She hugged me tight, rocking me from side to side. She didn’t ask me what was wrong.
When she had enough hugs, we went downstairs together. She made me banana bread with no nuts, and she bought me grape Zevia from Wheatsfield. We sat out back and had a snack.
“I got a text from Sally,” she said when we were cleaning up, washing dishes together at the sink. I was washing, and Mom was drying and putting away. “Jeremey is still upset. Do you want some help talking to him? Or do you think you need a night apart?”
“I can’t stay here. Jeremey will stop wanting to be my boyfriend.”
“Why do you think that might happen? Can you explain to me what’s going on?”
I touched a bubble of soap in the dishwater, felt it pop under my fingertip. “He has a new job, helping David.”
“And why aren’t you excited about that?”
I still couldn’t say the words, but after the singing and the banana bread and Zevia, I was pretty sure I could sign them. I’m afraid Jeremey would rather have David as a boyfriend.
A lot of people would have said “oh, honey” and told me I was silly. Sally would have. Not my mom. She raised her eyebrow and signed back, Sweetheart, he’s not competition for a superhero like you. No way he can take Jeremey away.
Yes, but Jeremey will work with him all the time. And he’s a smooth-talker. Also he’s very handsome. Even signing that made my chest tight again.
Mom made a huff sound and gave up signing. “You’re pretty smooth yourself, buster. If you think David’s a threat, you keep being your awesome self and there’s no contest. I’ll tell you one thing, though. Upsetting Jeremey and running away instead of talking to him isn’t going to help at all.”
She was right. It had been smart to go away and calm down, but I had to get in there and fight and be a good boyfriend, not a jealous mess.
I picked up the dishcloth and squeezed out the water. “I’m going to research more sex. That will distract him from David.”
Mom kissed my hair and swatted my butt with a towel.