by Hart, Rebel
Lily doesn’t even flinch as it plays. She keeps her eyes squinted shut tightly, as if she’s trying to stay in some mythical space where Emmett’s feelings are real, and she’s not about to be arrested. I am overcome with pity. I knew Vivian obviously still had feelings for him, or maybe she just wanted him back to restore some sense of her social status. But I couldn’t see Lily’s affections for him boiling beneath the surface this entire time.
Coach Granger nods to me before following the police out as they put Lily in their squad car. Emmett and I are left alone in shock, but I don’t even know what to say to him. I’m almost more afraid of him now than before. I want to feel above Lily, like I am somehow better and could never be so delusional, but am I? Is this just what Emmett does to girls? Who knows how far he took things with Lily during their little prank, knowing he was with Vivian the whole time? I am becoming paranoid that all of the Elites are going to jump out from behind the curtains and announce that what he and I have is really just a prank, too.
“Did you have any idea Lily felt that way?” I gape at him from across the room, wishing I could run into his arms.
He shakes his head no, staying silent. He looks lost as his dark gray eyes dart hopelessly around the room and back to me. He looks like he’s trying to decide if he can talk to me right now, if he can bring himself over to me. But his feet are planted firmly. He won’t come to me, and he won’t go.
“Emmett,” I start, my face lifting in desperation. “There’s so much I need to say. I…”
He holds his hand up firmly to silence me, and just like that, he turns to leave. I don’t know why he came here in the first place, but he was exactly who I wanted to come bursting in after me. But now that he’s gone, I don’t think he was coming after me at all. Why else would he have left me?
I look around the empty room, feeling suddenly vulnerable and afraid to be here alone, not knowing when Malcolm will return or if he will at all. I don’t want to risk it. I walk out of the house, hoping maybe, by some chance Emmett was unable to leave. Maybe he’s waiting for me by my car. I don’t see him when I get out there, so I linger for a while, thinking maybe he’ll come back. But there’s no sight of him.
I remember my thought about the security cameras and turn back towards Malcolm’s one last time to see if I spot anything, but there are no cameras that I can see. Even if there were, I probably wouldn’t have a clue how to retrieve the footage. Someone like him surely has every measure possible in place to protect people from getting into his system.
Feeling no closer to convincing Emmett the photo was fake, I reluctantly climb into my car and drive home. Lily’s voice and face haunt me for the rest of the night. I’m beginning to question my ability to judge the character of a person. To think she was so desperately in love with Emmett the entire time, and I had no idea! Even when she paired off with Vivian, even after what she did to me, I never would have thought she’d be capable of something like what she did to Coach Granger’s son.
After everything I have been through, I am grateful that I still have so much to come home to, which is more than I can say for everyone else. Emmett seems to have lost his entire family. Lily has been arrested. Malcolm’s been forced into hiding. The rest of the Elites are under investigation. I almost feel sorry for them, no matter how awful they all have been. They were raised to believe they could do whatever they wanted. That people like them never faced consequences for their actions. And now all at once, their worlds are crumbling down around them.
My world may feel like it’s crumbling without Emmett, but I still have the warmth of my loving family to come home to. I give my mom and Brendan extra-long hugs after dinner that night, and think of Coach Granger and his poor family as I fall asleep. I hope that maybe he can find some peace now that he knows who sabotaged his son’s recovery and ended his life.
21
Chapter Twenty-One
I am dreaming about being on a sinking ship. Alarms begin to sound when the water levels grow dangerously high, but I ignore them. I carry on with ordinary things while the ocean rushes in. People around me rush past in a panic, heeding the warning of the alarms, but I refuse to move. My dream self has decided to go down with the ship. It’s a strange moment when real life and dream life bleed together. The alarm of my phone leaks into my dreams as the alarm on the ship, and I choose to ignore it and stay asleep.
The Elites taught me about pain. I thought I knew all about it from running—pushing past the burning ache of my muscles to get in another mile and then another. But I didn’t know anything about pain until I met them. Until I saw what Emmett was capable of. To still desire a person even as they are scaring you and physically harming you—that is a pain running could have never prepared me for. Just like this seizing feeling in my chest is something I have never felt before. I’ve seen what Emmett is capable of in both good and bad ways now, and the thought of losing him is still paralyzing.
I sit up in bed feeling a new kind of emptiness. A big, wide, gaping hole where Emmett used to be. At least when I asked him to give me space, it was a choice, one that I felt like I could take back at any time. Now the choice is his, and any attempt to chase after him will just look desperate. And before I asked for space, there were times when I wanted him, but the reality of him was so awful that I prayed that he would just leave me alone. And yet he invaded my life anyway. Always there when I wished he wouldn’t be. Never in the way I wanted him.
I tell myself this is my way out. This is my chance at freedom. I should take it and run. In fact, I really should run. I should go out and run until I can’t anymore, shedding away everything about this whole nightmare with Emmett. And maybe, by the time I’m done, I won’t want him to text or call me anymore. I won’t want him at all.
I imagine I can feel him next to me, lying in my bed, smiling at me from the pillow next to me. It may not be something I’ve had much here in this room, but I’ve experienced it enough in his motel room that I can picture it so vividly.
There’s no telling where Malcolm is, or if he’ll be back now that he’s wanted by the police. I let out a scoffing smirk to myself as I stretch out in bed. Malcolm will probably find some way or another for his dad to fix all of this for them. They have enough money and power to do that sort of thing. Either way, there’s no hope of Malcolm helping me prove the photo of us together is fake. If Emmett won’t come to believe me on his own, then it’s hopeless.
A frightening reality sets in. What if I never do convince Emmett of the truth? What if he never believes me, and everything we’ve shared is lost because of whoever made that photo and sent it out? I try to picture life without Emmett. Now he has become so ingrained in me that it’s hard to imagine. Even when he was still acting under the influence of his father and the Elites, he was still devouring my thoughts for better or worse.
I think of his warm, tan skin and how the touch of it sets me on fire. It feels like home. I try to imagine never feeling that again, or seeing the spark in his icy gray eyes. My chest tightens. Feeling like it all might be lost forever only makes me want him more, even if just for a few minutes. Just to feel him against me one last time, to see his grinning face or to hear his laugh. Even his screaming fits—I’d take those at this point, too! Any part of him is better than none of him at all. But maybe that’s the exact same kind of longing that drove Vivian and Lily to where they ended up.
During fourth period, a terrible noise blares through the classrooms and halls, jerking me out of my anxious daze. The fire alarm bellows relentlessly as the teachers quickly shuffle us out into the school yard. There are whispers and murmurs through the crowd that someone has pulled it as a prank. There are no signs of smoke or fire. As everyone gathers out front, I still can’t see Emmett or Malcolm anywhere. As I’m looking around for them, something catches the corner of my eye. I turn, and swear I see someone who looks like Bernadette walking off to the side of the school.
“Bernadette!” I scream out instinctively, as
everyone backs away and looks at me like I’m crazy. I take off running in her direction, ignoring the teachers around me who yell for me to stop and stay with everyone else.
By the time I reach the edge of the building, she is nowhere to be seen. I don’t see anyone at all, not even someone who looks like her. Just like that, she’s gone again. Like a ghost that’s vanished.
The sighting leaves an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I try to call Emmett, wanting to tell him about it, but of course he doesn’t answer. The rest of the school day feels strangely calm. I don’t know if any rumors are circulating yet about what Malcolm and Lily did, but things seem to be back to normal. At least as normal as it ever gets around here. But I am still feeling distracted and out of it, and find myself racing through empty halls to catch one of my classes when I hear crying coming from behind the stairs.
I know I should keep going, but something makes me stop. I peek around the railing and see Vivian standing in a corner with her head tilted back. Her eyes are closed as she sobs quietly, hiding away by herself. At first, I feel nothing, thinking she deserves whatever tears she has to shed and then some. But for some reason, I can’t bring myself to just leave her there like that, even though I know I should.
“Hey…you okay?” I ask from around the corner. My tone is apathetic, and I’m hoping she’ll just say something rude, giving me permission to carry on.
“No,” she laments.
Shit. Now I have to talk to her. Actually, I don’t have to—she deserves nothing from me, but no matter how hard she tried to paint me as a monster to Emmett, I do have empathy. Even some left for her it seems.
“Wow…no biting remarks,” I shoot back as I crouch to join her behind the stairs. “Now I know something must be wrong. Is this about Lily being arrested?”
“No.” She rolls her eyes. “I knew all about what she and Malcolm did.”
I want to hound her for that fact and make her feel as guilty as possible, but I try to push past that. “Is it Emmett?”
“My parents,” she sobs. “The investigation into the sex trafficking ring is coming to a close. Trey and Vincent’s parents are being sent away. Our lawyers say my dad is going to go away for a long time, and my mom will, too, because she knew about everything and helped him. There’s going to be a trial.” Her breath catches through sniffles. “Our family name will be completely ruined. The lawyers say there’s nothing they can do for them and that they should just plead guilty. And then there’s the sentencing.”
I knew things had to be hard for her because of what’s been happening to her parents, but I am still taken aback. I guess it just never occurred to me that Vivian would even care. That’s how heartless she seemed to me. “I’m sorry, Vivian.”
“I didn’t know about what they were doing,” she assures me, looking at me with deadened eyes, blotted with runny makeup.
“Really?” I reply, sounding too shocked.
“Don’t act so surprised,” she snips. “I know I’ve done some fucked up things. Made your life hell. But I’m not a monster, Ophelia. Neither is Emmett. Our families are just so fucked up.”
“I’m realizing that pretty quickly,” I grumble shrewdly. “And you all run around doing to others what has been done to you.”
“I just feel so alone. We may have had to do fucked up things to stay on top, but that’s what was expected of us,” she explains in a wavering voice. “But I had my friends and I had Emmett. Then everything just crumbled down overnight.” Her arms fly up dramatically. “I held onto Bernadette, even though my parents told me we could never speak to any of the Jamesons again. And we both realized what was happening to us was similar to what happened to Lily…We felt bad for her. Tried to take her back in. I even thought I could get Emmett back and things could sort of go back to how they were before. At least at school. Then I realized Emmett didn’t love me anymore and that he was with you. Then Bernadette ran off. Now Lily is gone, too.”
“I never realized you cared so much, Vivian,” I offer sincerely. “I thought you were just a cold, heartless bitch.”
“Well, that’s how I’m expected to be,” she barks. But then with a sigh, she relaxes. “Ophelia, I really was worried about Emmett’s mom the other night,” she explains gently. “I know I tried to make things hard for you and Emmett because I was jealous, but I was just so scared of losing her, too. She’s like a second mother to me. And with my parents going away and everything else that’s going on…I just panicked when I thought she might be gone, too.”
“I had no idea, Vivian. I’m sorry.” It had never occurred to me that Vivian’s emotions at Emmett’s might be genuine. No wonder he got so angry and I ended up looking like a bitch. I was the one being heartless. But who could blame me after the way Vivian has treated me?
Worse, it pokes holes in everything I thought I had figured out. I was convinced that Vivian called Emmett and me over to wail about his mom just to distract me. That everything went as she had planned, putting me right in Malcolm’s arms so Lily could take that picture, doctor it, and send it to everyone.
I figured she must have thought that after all of that, Emmett would be hers. It would have made perfect sense, and maybe part of it is still true. But regardless, Vivian was legitimately upset that evening. Afraid of losing one of the few familiar parts of her life that were left.
I think over all of her words, and then it hits me like a ton of bricks. “Wait a second…what did you say a second ago? Did you say Bernadette ran off?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I said.” She waves me away dismissively. “I feel like I haven’t slept in weeks.”
I want to press her about it, but Emmett has already talked to her and is convinced she knows nothing. I am done sticking my nose too far into this thing with Bernadette. He asked for my help, but everything I’ve tried to do has only ruined things more.
“What will you do now?” I ask finally, willing to just let her slip go. Emmett’s not even talking to me right now anyway. “After your parents’ sentencing?”
“I have an aunt in New York,” she states plainly. “I could go stay with her. Change my name. Try to start over and finish high school somewhere else.”
“I hate that you have to do all of that. All because of what your parents did.”
“Maybe it’s for the best.” She perks up her chin with a deep, optimistic breath. “This way I won’t have to keep up this ridiculous charade. Treating everyone like shit just to protect some familial social status. It couldn’t have lasted forever, anyway. No one gets to stay on top forever after treating people the way our families had.”
I’m blown away by her humility and self-awareness. I’d always figured if the Elites had any understanding of the damage they caused to others, they must get off on it. I thought they were so entitled that they relished in other people’s suffering. But now Vivian claims it was all just a farce, which matches what Emmett always claimed to be true.
“Want one?” Vivian asks, pulling a pack of cigarettes out from her bag.
I shake my head. “No, emphysema and lung cancer are kind of a runner’s worst enemy,” I joke dryly.
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes as she lights up.
“Won’t you get in trouble?” I ask as she barely cracks the window to catch the wafting smoke. “We’re not exactly in hiding back here. The teachers will smell it.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Her eyes spark at me. “We can do whatever we want, Ophelia. Even with everything that’s happening to my parents, I’m still one of the Elites. Whatever that means now. The teachers aren’t going to say a fucking word to me.”
I purse my lips, not wanting to question her. I’m sure she knows better than I do.
“You could take advantage of some of that, too, you know,” she adds. “Now that you have Emmett.”
“I don’t have Emmett,” I remind her. “That fucking picture. You know it was fake, right?”
She studies me intently.
I realize she didn’t know it was fake. Her insistence with Emmett the night it went out was genuine. She truly was just looking out for him, convinced that I had cheated on him.
“I didn’t know.” She flicks her ashes onto the ground. “But it doesn’t surprise me.”
“What do you think will happen with Malcolm?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she blows out a long stream of smoke. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I offer finally.
“There’s nothing someone like you could do,” she scoffs. “You can never really understand all of this. What it’s like to grow up here, the way we have.”
“I might understand more than you think,” I insist. “I’ve caught myself saying and doing all sorts of things over the past couple of weeks that I never would have thought I was capable of.”
As Vivian swings her bag over her shoulder, the sleeve of her sweater slips, revealing a number of nasty, bright red, stinging cuts up and down her arm. I try to look away, but by the time my eyes move upwards, she is staring straight at me. She knows I saw them. We’re frozen like that for a moment, our eyes locked together. Not only is Vivian not heartless, she’s wounded. This really has done a number on her, maybe even more so than me.
“Do you need to talk someone?” I offer lightly, not knowing what else to say. “Someone other than me, I mean.”
“Just another side effect of Jameson,” she says casually, her eyes dark and haunted. Her tone turns to a warning. “Get out of this place if you can, Ophelia. Even if you think you’re on top of everything, it can all change in a heartbeat. And it will eat you alive. Just look at Lily.”
“Vivian, I have to ask.” I stop her, knowing it’s probably pointless, but I can’t stop myself. “Are you sure you don’t know anything about Bernadette? I know Emmett said he talked to you about it…but…I’m desperate. I have to hear you say it myself.”
