by Laila Blake
“Emmy!” His voice rang in her ears and he shook his arm in an attempt to get away, but, at times, Emmy was strong, and this was one of them.
“You’re hurting me!” he spat out, struggling, leaning back from her as far as he could manage, the toes of his sneakers rising up off the pavement, rocking back on his heels.
“I’m not bloody hurtin’ you!” she hissed, far more conscious of Aaron’s presence than she should have been at this stage. “I would be if I let go now—Song!”
“I wanna go home!” he shouted in her face, still straining against her hold. “Right now, right now, right now!”
With a little more vigor than before, she yanked him back upright so that she could let go off him without making him land on his bottom. It was a tight fit though; all her energy seemed to have evaporated into nothing and even as she was trying, trying to come up with some kind of answer, Song made use of his sudden freedom to run back around the car towards Aaron.
The boy was sprinting blindly, but Aaron caught sight of him just before he could go careening into the ditch. He caught Song, and lifted him up under his arm like a dog, smacking the hood closed.
“Lose something?” he asked Emily, though his gaze went somewhere over her head, past her, back down the road; it wasn’t a searching look, just blank.
“Sorry...” Emily stuttered, narrowing her eyes dangerously at Song. “Sorry. I’m... wait was that it?”
“What?” Aaron lowered Song to the ground more gently than perhaps was warranted, and kept his hand on top of the boy’s head for a moment, as if steadying him on the pavement.
“Uh, the car,” she elaborated before her eyes went back to Song who was staring mutinously back at her.
“No, but there ain’t much else I can do,” he replied, curt, rubbing a hand through his hair before lifting the other from Song's head. “I gotta go—you know, be right back.” Before she could answer, he headed towards the trees off the side of the road, crunching through the last of the snow.
Song huffed, scuffling his feet on the ground with arms folded over his chest. “The van’s not gonna work,” he decided to inform her, jaw set and eyes made small and beady.
“Right, of course, is it your vast knowledge of mechanics or...” Emily stopped again and banged the back of her head against the car. “Sorry, but... baby, Aaron knows what he’s doing okay? Just... just let him give it a few more minutes.”
He shrugged. “He’s mad.”
“Boy, you can sure see it in him, can't you?” she huffed and this time she at least managed not to bang her head.
“Why are you so mean to him?” He was glaring at her then, full-on, his expression so similar to Sullivan’s when he was angry, she didn't know whether to laugh or scream.
“I’m not,” she said quietly, and far too late.
“Yes, you are,” he countered, digging in easily. “You’re mean to everybody.”
“Song.” It was both dangerous and pleading in a way that made her feel wholly inadequate. She could feel that sense of vertigo run through her body, the heady sensation of finally facing up to some undying truth—until she managed to catch herself and steel her jaw.
“You are!” He had locked into it, and though Song rarely poked at Emily’s soft spots, he was capable, and clearly he'd been watching more closely than she’d given him credit for. “You make him quiet and not want to play and you do that! Don’t you like him?”
There was that internal chant of don’t cry, don’t cry and, at least where Song was concerned, Emily was usually rather good at following through. But this time, she could feel her eyes swimming almost immediately.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Song,” she said in quiet, deliberate syllables. “He’s an adult, he doesn’t always want to play, okay?”
“Because of you!” He seemed entirely too satisfied having gotten her teary-eyed. “You’re gonna make him leave!”
“He was always gonna leave, Duck...” Emily shook her head, her inhale sounded wet.
“Why? Why is he leaving?” His eyebrows were drawn together and jaw set hard; it was easy to forget he was a little boy sometimes, and even easier to forget he was capable of tantrums that would put the angriest three year old to shame. “What did you tell him?”
“I...” This time her eyes narrowed. “Baby, it’s enough now. Get in the car.”
“But I like him, you like him, and he likes us, so why is he gonna leave?” He sucked in a breath, two, working up to a rage in the way only he could. “That’s not fair, everybody leaves and I want him to stay!”
Emily cast a worried glance towards the trees where Aaron had vanished and finally she dropped to her knees on the asphalt and held her hands out to Song.
“I do want him to stay,” she whispered. “But it’s complicated, okay? It’s stupid grown-up stuff but it’s complicated and Aaron’s gonna do what he has to do.”
“You hafta tell him to stay.” He was panicked, flushed, and struggled against her. “I’ll never stop being mad if you make him leave. You make everyone leave.”
The tears in his eyes spilled over and, despite the angry words he’d just spat out, he was clinging to her again, sobbing into her shirt. All Emily could do was to hold him and to try her hardest not to join in. It wasn’t a time to try and reason with him, not a time for logical arguments, and she couldn’t have found one with a bloodhound and a searchlight anyway. She just held him and then carried him back into the car as best she could.
“Everybody leaves,” he sobbed, gathering her shirt into his fists and pulling at the fabric. “Everybody leaves and I don’t want people to leave anymore.”
He dragged in a ragged breath. “You’re supposed to not let him leave.”
“Shhh, I know...” she crooned, running her fingers over his hair, already sweaty with exhaustion just when he was a toddler. “I know...”
Song nodded with another strangled sob, but his body relaxed, a little, bit by bit. It seemed like hours had passed, but the outburst had to only have been a few minutes, as Aaron returned, rubbing his hands absently on his jeans while Song clung to Emily, spent and heavy in her arms.
She met his eyes through the window just for a second before she looked away and kissed Song’s head, humming to him until he went limp and peaceful.
“You ready?” Aaron stood at the hood, hand spread over the metal, testing the temperature, though there was little he could do. Either the van would keep running, or they were fucked. More fucked. Further fucked? Who knew?
Emily nodded wordlessly, patting Song.
“Thank you,” she managed with a watery smile for her son’s sake, taking a deep breath. “So... are we going look for oil? Is there anything I can do?”
He shook his head. “Next gas station.” His voice was strained, and he did nothing to hide it. “Guess we just hope, huh?
“We can’t get anything out of some abandoned cars?”
“It’d be just as dirty.” Aaron scratched his chin, sucked in a breath through his nose and let it out slowly. “And we need coolant, and probably a new head gasket.” He would have continued, but Song was still there, holding onto Emily, face buried against her shoulder. As far as both of them were concerned he could have said they needed a new fliberty-widget, or needed to fill up on little elves to run the motor, but Emily nodded anyway. Both them were pale and worried and trying to hide it as he started the engine again.
It started. The van ran, but the dials on the dash all jumped forward. Aaron rolled his eyes towards the sky in a silent prayer as Emily helped Song back into his seat. The road ahead stretched past the horizon, with no clear end, and the silence was filled by the sick roar of the engine as they rolled on again.
Chapter Eighteen
Undressed to shorts and a tee, Emily was still sitting next to Song when Aaron stopped the car for about the 5th time that day. He cast a glance at them in the rearview mirror, the sleeping boy and his mother, both with sweat-matted hair from the c
ranked up heating, and then jumped out the car to stretch and sent a pebble careening down the road with a hard kick.
Emily watched him with a growing frown on her face, dark gashes between her brows. They’d stopped every few miles to let the car cool down, however hard he’d blasted the heater, and where at first, she’d gotten out to catch some fresh air, too, the atmosphere had grown far too stifling since Song had finally nodded off after the 3rd stop. She wanted to reach for her things, letters, drawing paper, but as much as she loved him, she couldn’t bear listening to Song’s soft little breathing, just then. His sleeping afforded her the first opportunity to really think about his words, and the longer she sat there, recalling them over and over, the more she felt run over by something hard and heavy.
Aaron was still standing the side of the road, hands folded at the back of his neck. He couldn’t keep them quite still, slipping and sliding on his sweaty skin. Emily saw deep breaths move his chest up and down, up and down, and found herself in fantasies of landing a fist in the soft stomach below.
When a bead of sweat finally ran down her forehead only to disappear in her brows, she got up, grabbed her coat and her axe and quietly jumped out after him. She wanted to move away into the other direction, just to walk over the grass, to lie down there, even in the wet patches of snow, and cry and calm down. Wine would have done her a world of good, too. But instead, she had a scowling Southerner a few feet ahead down the road, and a raging anger that’d had a few hours to simmer down into the toxic soup it was now.
Stalking closer, she could feel the chill of the evening air as a harsh but wanted contrast against her overheated body, brushing against her sweaty legs and arms.
“Need anything?” he asked, trying not to sound annoyed, or sad, but only really succeeded in flattening his accent wearily.
Emily glanced up, unable to keep the scowl off her face. “No,” she said quietly.
He nodded, curt, and motioned at the car. “He asleep?”
“Yeah.” Another monosyllabic answer, answering scowl.
“Okay.” He looked back down the road, vanishing black in the darkness. They had a map, and yet he had no idea where they were.
Finally: “You okay?” It seemed like something he should ask, at least. Almost for that, Emily didn’t want to tell him, wanted to shove him at least or kick him somewhere painful but she took a deep, rib-cracking breath instead.
“Oh... screw you,” she finally whispered, her voice almost neutral.
“Come again?” His tone was polite as he could manage, at that time of night, at the end of that kind of day.
“Come again?” she imitated in a silly kind of voice and accent that almost shifted her anger at herself. “Let’s have it then—I know you’ve been dying to. You get one in for free—a free punch, anything you wanna throw at me, whatever you think I fucking did to you. Out with it.”
He could only blink at the onslaught, but his jaw clicked into place, and it wasn’t that difficult to tell that he was angry all at once, but too polite to show it.
“What do you want, Emily?” he asked, finally, shoulders pulling up in the direction of his ears as though she would be the one to punch him.
“I want you to fucking say something. Say something!” She shook her head and scowled. “You’ve been giving me the stink eye for days now so just... out with it. Just say it already, today’s the day for it.”
He flinched, but stayed planted where he was standing, on the slightest downslope of the road. A tense, electric sort of silence hung in the air and, for a moment, Emily actually wondered if he would hit her—and almost welcomed the idea—but, after another beat, doubted he would say anything at all.
Finally: “Whatever you think.”
“Fuck you,” she burst forth. Now she wanted to hit him but she didn’t quite dare. “Fuck you, Aaron.”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Emily,” he finally snapped, raising both hands, but up to his head, to push his fingers through his hair. “So, you know, whatever you think. Say it. I’m not gonna fight you, I’m not gonna disagree.”
She stared at him—and despite the fact that he hadn’t complied when she’d asked him more or less the same, she couldn’t quite let that opportunity pass the way he had. She didn’t have the same amount of self-control.
“I didn’t force you to fuck me, you know? You did that—and... and I’m so sick of you acting like a child about it, and getting yourself into danger over it and... and making my son fucking love you and then leave us... him...” She shook her head. She had, quite suddenly, run utterly out of steam, standing there with her head bowed, and breath shallow and fast.
Aaron froze, shoulders stiffening to the point of painful.
“I... I didn’t mean to,” he said, shuddering a little, at the cool of the night, over his own stupidity. “I... Song’s...”
Emily shook her head, then rubbed her face—it was raw and painful.
“And what is that stupid male thing you both do,” she hissed, but this time through tears rather than malice, “where all of it is my fault?”
“Emily.” He rubbed the back of his neck, staring past her at the van, hulking and grey in the dim light of the moon.
“Emily,” he tried again, finally focusing on her, but just barely. “It’s not... not you. I just—I just can’t do it, okay? Not like this.”
“Like what?” she asked, almost embarrassed by the hope that coursed through her.
He rubbed his neck, again, harshly, focusing on that pain from his rough palms against the overheated skin there. “Like this,” he repeated, and his voice had gone hollow, eyes on the ground. “I’d think I was made of stronger shit, but I guess I’m not.”
Emily opened her mouth and then closed it again.
“But you can find us some safe place and then if you’re not needed just leave again to get killed?”
“People do stupid things,” he said, and a smile almost appeared on his lips. “Guess I can’t help it, it’s what I’m good at.”
Emily snorted sadly, then shook her head. “It’s... selfish. It’s a waste. We already have no supplies left, you don’t know where gas is. You... you don’t have to play stupid independent maverick man, just because you hate me now.”
“I don’t hate you,” he said, blinking, fingers digging into the back of his neck, hand stuck in place. “I’ve never hated you. I—” It was his turn to shake his head, go back to rubbing his neck, almost compulsively.
“Out with it...” but she could only whisper anymore, half dreading, half tender.
Aaron raked his teeth over his lips, but he leveled his gaze on her. He might have been selfish, or stupid, but he wasn’t weak, and he wasn’t a coward.
“I don’t hate you. And you didn’t do anything wrong.” He breathed out, rubbed again, the rough tips of his nails scraping harshly over the raw skin while Emily took a step closer and then changed her mind. The silence hung in the air, coagulating with the black smoke that was still seeping out from under the hood.
“I... I’m sorry,” she whispered, then shook her head and propped her hands onto her bony hips. “I’m sorry I’ve made it all kind of complicated, I am. But do you have any idea how many people he’s lost already?”
A hollow almost-smile appeared on Aaron’s face. “I know. I do.” His fingers remained in place, as though that was the only way his head would stay attached to his body, or go broken and flopping in the absence.
Looking at the ground, Emily ran her hands over her arms. She couldn’t say anything, not for a long time, not trusting her voice—even when she finally did, it still shook.
“I’m selfish, I know that. I don’t want him to hate me for driving you away—but he’d stop hating me, I’m his mom. But he won’t stop missing you. He loves you. He does. And, you know, you did that, too, you were sweet to him because you wanted him to like you. Admit it.”
Aaron flinched, and looked past her again, back at the van and didn’t see the way he
r eyes filled with ever more liquid.
“Doesn’t everyone? Want to be liked?” It was a mostly-rhetorical question, and in the silence that followed, he dropped his gaze again—not to her, still not quite able to meet her eyes. “Just thought he deserved, I dunno, to still be a kid.”
Emily was hugging herself, kicking at the little pebbles in the road. The cold was seeping in again, under her t-shirt and into her shorts now that they were outside.
“I’m sorry,” she croaked, it felt like a record stuck on a loop. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that—I’m just... letting it out on you.” She rubbed her face and raked her fingers through her hair and finally, she managed to look up at him, catching his eyes before he could look away.
“I wanted you to like me, too, but I’m always making a mess of things, aren’t I?” She shrugged, then scratched her face. “But even if I was just this selfish—I still wouldn’t want you out there getting yourself killed. We have to stop letting people die, okay?”
He shrugged, but it was softened by the nod his head seemed unable to deny her, in an instinct to agree. “You guys deserve to get somewhere safe,” he added, after a beat, twisting his mouth into something resembling a sad smile. “You been through enough already.”
“And you haven’t?” she asked, weakly, tipping her fingers against his arm. “I can try... try to be less... toxic, you know?”
“You’re not toxic, Emily,” he said, voice clearly exhausted, but he didn’t move from her touch, even when she snorted sadly.
“Of course I am, look at you.” She swallowed hard and leaned her temple against his shoulder, selfishly needing the warmth and the support and finally, she slipped her hand into his. “I told you. And now you’re hurting and... you made us feel better, you know? It doesn’t mean much, I know, but... you made him feel better.” Her voice broke again: “And me too. All the time.”
