The Damned

by Jennifer Snyder

Butterflies flapped their tiny wings in the pit of my stomach at the touch of his lips across my skin. My parents were in the next room. They could walk in at any moment and see him on his knees in front of me, brushing his perfect lips against my shins, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to do more than that, even in this messed up situation.

  The warmth from his lips lingered against my cool skin long after he had pulled away to resume staring at me. “Explain to me why you do it, Emory. Let me in.”

  “You’ll think it’s stupid.” I closed my eyes and hung my head back against the soft suede of the couch.

  “I won’t, I promise.” His breath was a featherlight whisper against the skin of my knees.

  I chewed my bottom lip, debating where I should start, how I should word it. Had I always secretly been this way, or was there some pivotal moment that pushed me in this direction? It wasn’t about my lack of eating; everything ran deeper than that. I couldn’t remember how it had begun.

  Running my fingers through his hair, I gazed into his eyes. The hunger I had witnessed in their depths the night I’d unintentionally undressed in front of him burned brightly still. He would still want me even after I told him everything, I was certain of it. Trusting this, I explained everything to Cole as best I could. Each word floated past my lips, sharp and jagged, like the newly broken pieces of my soul.

  Cole’s eyes darkened with emotions as the words I unleashed lingered in the air between us, the truth of it all. It all boiled down to one thing. As petty and stupid as it might seem to someone on the outside, to me this one thing was all that mattered, because it was my motivating force through life—I wanted to please everyone as best I could, always.

  In that desire to please—that addiction to the attention of making someone happy or proud—I found that I had to be the best at everything because that was the only way to do so. Maybe this was partly because of my mother’s perfectionist traits I had inherited, I couldn’t be sure, but that was what was wrong with me.

  I was a people-pleaser.

  Tests, projects, essays, homework, I finished it all first and gained my teachers’ admiration. I was the smartest in class, the best notetaker, and the most organized. It was something I couldn’t shut off no matter how hard I tried.

  While I had my moments when I studied insane amounts and worked until the early hours of the morning to get something as perfect as I could, there still came a time when it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t pinpoint it, but I knew it was there. It existed in the recesses of my mind. A little seed that somehow or another had been watered by an emotion or situation until it bloomed into the flower that it now was, steady and strong.

  As I stared into Cole’s eyes, I realized I had failed. In my struggle to be the best, the prettiest, the thinnest, the smartest, and to cause everyone in my family the least amount of worry, I had slipped up along the way and failed. My mother’s soft sobs from in the kitchen supported that.

  I wanted to hole up and die. I wanted to grab hold of all the words, heavy and pulsating with the power to change people’s views of me, and push them back down my throat. All because the look in Cole’s eyes was not one of want anymore. The hunger had dimmed to something sympathetic, something soft and concerned, something that made me want to bury my face in my hands and cry.

  Before and after.

  Perfect and then not.

  All right until it wasn’t.

  “We’re the damned, Emory,” Cole whispered. I shifted my eyes to his, wondering what he meant. “We’re damned if we do talk about the things we’ve been through, the things we’ve done to ourselves, and damned if we don’t. There is no in between, no right or wrong. It just is.”

  The lines that puckered between his eyes as he said this made him look slightly angry and had me wanting to reach out and smooth them away, but more than that, I wished I could smooth away the harsh truth of his words. He was right. We were the damned no matter how you twisted it.

  Something unfurled within me, making the realization that he had just related himself to me—his scars to mine, even while one was on the outside and the other was in—lighten the horror I felt at having such sympathy for me reflected in his eyes.

  “At least we can be damned together.” Reaching out, I gripped his hand as a smile stretched across my face. I prayed my words would be enough to cast away the dark cloud hanging above our heads, to make him forget about the truths I’d revealed, but they weren’t.

  The sympathy, the pity, the level of brokenness he thought I harbored reflected clearly in his eyes still, but it had hardened. Was he disgusted with me? The weight of the moment crushed me.

  I had let everyone down. I had failed. I had made everyone upset with me.

  Even Cole.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  COLE

  Listening to Emory’s answer tore at the edges of my heart and made me feel things I wanted to run from. Her words were clear, yet distant sounding, as though she were talking about someone else.

  They made me feel sorry for her, which was the last thing I wanted.

  I knew she wasn’t saying them to get sympathy from me. In most cases, sympathy wasn’t something those of us who suffer from such issues wanted from anyone, let alone the person they finally choose to confide in.

  I struggled to rein in my facial expressions, to paste on an indifferent mask. In doing so, I was sure I looked cold and unaffected by what she was saying, but it was better than letting her see how her words were affecting me. How they released emotions I wasn’t good at feeling. How they made me want to reach for my secret vice—the lighter in my pocket, the razor in my room at Julie’s.

  I was drowning in emotions for her.

  The weight of the silence pressing through the room suffocated me. The pleading stare Emory was giving me—as though she were waiting for me to say something, to respond in some way to the honesty she had just given me—made my heart palpitate in my throat.

  Of course, I had responded, but calling her the thing I had always thought of myself as was not what she wanted to hear. It wasn’t what she’d expected, and the smile on her face as she tried to turn being one of the damned into a good thing made me realize how much she didn’t understand what she had been doing. I opened my mouth to say something more, to elaborate, but was cut off before I could even begin.

  “What could we have done to prevent this?” Her mother’s voice sliced through the silence, giving me room to breathe. She was standing in the archway between the living room and kitchen, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle as though she was holding the two halves of herself together—the half from before she knew and the half from after. “Was there anything we could have done differently?”

  I leaned back, waiting for Emory to answer her, if she wanted. My spine dug into the coffee table behind me, but the pain of it felt good, comforting even. I pressed harder, hoping the pain would ease the emotions that still refused to dissipate, the ones that still lingered inside of me.

  When Emory’s eyes locked on mine, guilt crept through my insides. She had flayed herself in front of me, exposed everything that was raw and true about herself, and yet here I was, still using my go-to vice to numb everything I was feeling. I was as sick as she was, if not more.

  What did that say about me?

  Emory opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t utter a single word until she had dropped her eyes from mine. “I don’t know.”

  I stood, brushed a hand across her knee, and walked out the front door.

  Her dad had wanted me to help her, so I did. Sort of. I’d gotten her to open up about everything—even though I knew her family was standing where they could still hear the two of us if they wanted.

  I walked toward the backyard, to the place I’d left my board and scooped it up. My hand reached into my pocket, groping for the pack of cigarettes there. I pulled them out with the intention of smoking one, but the circular scar on my forearm stared back at me.

  I was selfish. I had been s
elf-indulgent. There was truthfully nothing wrong with me. Not now.

  The cancer that plagued me—the whore for a mother and home life of torment—had been removed. I was in a better place. Julie and Nick had made sure of that. Why the fuck was I still wanting to hurt myself, then? There was nothing to escape from anymore. The emotions I felt while listening to Emory were normal. They were a human response.

  I wasn’t truly sick, not like her. Everything I felt, the emotions I swore had been drowning me, were not the same ones I’d dealt with before. They were diluted fractions, and they were normal.

  For people like Emory, their situation had gone to a point where it was now at the cusp of being beyond their control. While some could look at my mutilated body and tell me I had long ago reached that point, I knew I hadn’t. In this moment, I truly knew I hadn’t. What I had done to myself had been my way of surviving it all.

  I shoved the pack of cigarettes into my pocket and started toward the back door of Julie’s place. It was time I told her everything, from the beginning to the end, and all the places in between.

  A smile tugged at the corners of my lips because I had Emory to thank for my sudden dash of bravery. I wouldn’t remain silent anymore about what I was feeling, about the sharp-edged truth of my story. Telling Julie everything would be the first step in letting myself know that I had control over my emotions, over my demons, without having to hurt myself, and that I was finally free.

  EPILOGUE

  COLE

  ~ NINE MONTHS LATER ~

  I sat in the seat assigned to me with sweaty palms, not just from the situation, but also from the heat and the energy of those surrounding me. I was boxed in completely, waiting for my name to be called like the rest of them. This should be a happy moment. The one moment in my eighteen years when someone called my name for a good reason. My nerves were getting the best of me though.

  Inhaling sharply, I trailed my eyes over the back of the heads of those sitting in front of me, taking in the matching maroon squares covering the top of each.

  Graduation day. Who would have thought that I, Cole Porter, would make it this far?

  I sure as shit hadn’t. In fact, it had never occurred to me—never even had been a thought inside my head—until Emory and moving to Baycrest.

  Today would be the day that a single slip of paper would be given to me that signified I had done something right for a change. I was graduating. I didn’t turn in my seat, but suddenly, I could feel the eyes of those who would clap for me from the stands burning into the back of my head. I bounced my knee as the nerves I’d been feeling gripped me tighter.

  My eyes locked on Emory. She was in the sixth row, fifth seat in. I’d counted the moment she sat, so I would be able to find her again easily. My nervousness almost equated to a feeling of nothingness the moment I settled my eyes on her. We had been through so much together this year that this moment should count for more than just a standard graduation for us. It stood for us surviving, not just high school—which was a feat all in itself—but for surviving situations and overcoming obstacles most in this group couldn’t imagine having to deal with.

  Emory had taken a month-long sabbatical, as her mother enjoyed calling it, spending the entire length of time in a clinic somewhere near Charleston, South Carolina, to recover from her issues away from everyone, even me. During that time, I hadn’t been allowed to see or talk with her. While it had been the longest month of my life, I knew it was necessary. It was during that month that I allowed Julie to help me battle my demons.

  Emory still wasn’t one hundred percent better, but then again, neither was I. Battles and demons the magnitude of ours take time to heal; this was something we both had come to accept.

  “Emory Montgomery,” the principal said.

  My mind snapped to the here and now, to this chunk of time, wanting to soak in every detail because of what it stood for.

  Emory glanced over her shoulder, searching for me. The second she found me, the widest smile spread across her face, just before cheers and shouts from the stands erupted. Her parents were both up there; they’d somehow managed to work out their differences and save their marriage during the last nine months. Chelsea had attended rehab at the same time Emory went to the clinic, and this time it stuck with her. I think she knew her sister had true issues, and she needed to finally stop screwing around and straighten up because they all needed to focus on Emory, to support her. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder when Emory reached the bottom of the stairs to the stage, not only was her family on their feet, but so were Nick and Julie.

  My lips twisted into the hint of a smile at the sight of them. My sister was clapping her hands frantically, and Nick was pumping his fist. God, I loved them.

  Shifting in my seat, I watched as Emory started across the stage in her silver heels. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were wide with a mixture of nerves and excitement, but she had never looked more beautiful. I clapped and whistled as she shook hands with the principal and gripped her diploma.

  Before I knew it, my name was being called, and it was my turn to traverse across the stage with everyone’s eyes on me. The same people who had cheered for Emory were now standing and doing the same for me. When I reached the bottom of the steps, I paused for a split second to glance at them. A new face beside Nick and Julie caught my attention. I squinted as I started up the first step, trying to figure out who was standing there.

  Logan.

  My brother had somehow made it to this. I had no idea he even knew about it, but there he was, standing beside Julie as though he was supposed to be here all along. A woman carrying a little kid on her hip weaved over to his side.

  Warmth slipped through me, widening my smile. I continued toward the principal, thinking how this moment was amazing.

  After every name was called, and we all did the standard cap toss—which I had always thought was stupid, but ended up feeling totally freeing—we filed out of the building. I found Emory first, and then we searched for our families. Logan was the first one to come into view for me, his head towered above the others.

  “Damn, look at you. You clean up well, little bro.” He grinned. “Slacks and a button up. Hot damn.”

  Marissa slapped him on the chest and narrowed her eyes at him. “Language.”

  His eyes grew wide. “Oh, right. We’re trying to watch what we say now that little ears is getting bigger.” He nodded to the little boy still clutched in Marissa’s arms.

  My nephew.

  “You always did cuss like a sailor.” I smirked and wrapped my arm around Emory’s waist. I wanted her near me, as close as she could get. I needed to feel that she was a part of this pivotal moment. “This guy is where I learned every bad word I know.”

  Logan laughed. “That is most likely true.”

  “Oh, I know it is,” Julie added.

  “I think I even learned a word or two from him.” Nick grinned.

  “And is this Emory?” Logan nodded to her as she stood tucked into my side.

  How did he know her name? The questions from earlier tumbled through my mind again. Why was he here? How did he know to be here?

  “Yeah.” I ran my hand up and down her arm. “Emory, this is my older brother, Logan, his wife, Marissa, and their little boy, Tyler.”

  She gave them all a little wave. “Nice to meet you.”

  “It’s nice to finally meet you too.” Logan took Tyler from Marissa’s arms and bounced the little wiggle worm around. His laughter was the cutest thing I’d ever heard. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Oh yeah? All good I hope.” Emory’s voice trembled enough for me to know she was nervous. I gave her a gentle squeeze.

  “Of course.” Marissa jumped in. “All good things.”

  Those three words were enough to send a weird ripple of awkwardness through our little moment. Marissa knew a lot; you could tell from her sympathetic tone. My eyes flicked to Julie. Had she been talking to Logan and Marissa all along
? To the couple who couldn’t bother to take me in? Informing them of things as they happened? Talking about me?

  “Emory, there you are.” Carol gripped Emory’s shoulders as she came up behind her. There was a wide smile on her face as she cast her eyes around my little family. I expected some level of judgment to sweep across her face, but there wasn’t any. “Can I steal her for a minute?” she asked me.

  “Sure.” I let Emory slip out of my grasp as her mother carted her away.

  “She’ll be right back,” Carol called over her shoulder. “I want to snap a few pictures of her and Chelsea standing at the trees.”

  “Can I talk to you?” Logan’s voice startled me. I hadn’t realized he had moved so close to me.

  “Okay.” I crammed my hands into the front pockets on my slacks. My fingers brushed against the lighter there, and the craving for a cigarette rippled through my body. I hadn’t quit, yet, but I was trying.

  Logan handed Tyler back to Marissa, and we walked a few feet away from the others. My heart hammered inside my chest. The only thing I imagined he wanted to talk about was how he had turned me away that day. It wasn’t something I cared to discuss. Not today. This was my day. Today was my beginning, the day I finally accomplished something people would recognize as an achievement.

  “I just want to let you know how proud I am of you,” Logan started. “I know you had a shit ton stacked against you growing up in that house, we all did, but you managed to overcome it all. I’m so freaking proud of you for that.”

  “We all did. Didn’t we?” I wasn’t sure where the words came from, but they were true. In our own way, each of us had overcome our horrible home life.

  We each had the scars on our souls to prove it, but I also had mine on the outside.

  Logan nodded. “Yeah, we did.” He sighed. “I don’t want to get into it too deep, but I have to let you know how sorry I am for that day. I don’t know what I was thinking. I should have told you yes; I should have said that we would be there to get you the next day.”