Protect My Heart

by Judy Corry

  The blood drained from my face. “Are you sure you heard right?” The Winter Ball was the boy’s choice dance coming up in two weeks. It always had a theme to it, and this year’s was a masquerade. I loved the idea of a masquerade and hoped to get asked . . . just not by Brian. I actually hoped Arie would ask me, but I wasn’t about to blurt that out right here and now.

  “Yes, I’m sure. He said he’s asking the birthday girl tonight.” Maya made air quotes with her hands. “You’re the only birthday girl here that I know of.”

  “Oh no! What am I gonna do?” I jumped up from the swing, wanting to run and hide.

  Arie just relaxed in his seat and laughed.

  “He was looking all over for you. I’m amazed I found you before he did,” she said. “We better think of something fast.”

  I started bouncing up and down, shaking my hands at my sides. “Umm . . .” I tried to think.

  “Hey, I got it!” Maya said. “Sit down next to Arie.” I sat where I’d been earlier. “No, closer.” Maya motioned with her hands as she spoke. She turned her head to look at Arie. “Now, Arie, if you wouldn’t mind placing your arm across Emma’s shoulder.”

  Arie smiled and draped his arm around me. “Like this?”

  “Yes, just like that. Now Emma, you’ll need to cuddle up a little closer.” I did as she said, feeling my face heat up and heart rate increase. I hoped Maya wasn’t just playing some kind of sick joke on us. “Okay. Perfect. I don’t think Brian would dare ask you after seeing you all cozied up with Arie.”

  I hoped this would work, because I didn’t have any other ideas of what to do.

  We all turned our heads when the back door opened again. To my dismay, it was Brian. Maya was still standing in front of Arie and me, so we pretended to be talking as he came to stand by her.

  He studied Arie and me on the swing. There was no way he’d continue with his plans after seeing such a display.

  “Hey, guys,” he said.

  “Hi, Brian,” Maya answered for us all.

  Silence.

  “Soooo.” Brian rocked back on his heels with his hands behind his back. Was he trying to think of some other reason to be out here? After giving Arie a cold look, he took a deep breath and looked straight at me. “Emma, as you know, the Winter Ball is coming up in a few weeks. Since we had such a great time on our last date, I was wondering if you wanted to go with me to the dance?”

  My mouth went slack. What could I say to that? Even though I wasn’t interested in going on a second date, I didn’t have the heart to turn him down, not when he had an audience and I didn’t already have a date.

  Maya shook her head at me, probably knowing I was about to cave.

  I couldn’t help it, though. It was scary to ask someone out on a date, and rejection felt horrible. I opened my mouth to respond, but then Arie cleared his throat.

  “Sorry, but I just asked Emma to the dance.” He scooted even closer to me. “She already said yes.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Was he serious? He squeezed my shoulder, answering my unspoken question. I focused on Brian again and answered, somewhat hesitantly, “Yeah, Arie and I already made plans to go together. Sorry.”

  Brian looked down at his shoes. “Well . . . I hope you have a great time together at the dance.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I hope you find someone to go with soon.”

  Brian checked the time on his phone. “It’s getting late.” It was only nine thirty. “I better get home. I forgot I needed to walk my dog tonight. Happy birthday, Emma. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.” His voice sounded dead.

  “Thanks for coming. I’ll see you at school on Monday.” I tried to sound cheerful, but I really just pitied him. Maybe I should have said yes before Arie spoke. It was awesome of Arie to help me out, but I felt bad for Brian. I could’ve endured a few more hours at a dance with him. I hated hurting people’s feelings.

  Brian left, his shoulders slumped.

  “Whew! That was close,” Maya said after the door closed behind Brian. “Quick thinking there, Arie.” She took a few steps toward the door. “I’ll just leave you two to discuss your plans for the Winter Ball. It’s so nice you guys are going together.” She winked, then headed back inside.

  “Thanks, Maya. I’ll be inside in a sec,” I called before she shut the door.

  Arie and I were alone again, still cuddled up on the swing. I didn’t know whether I should move back to the end of the swing where I’d been before or stay put. I didn’t want to move. He was warm, and strong, and smelled amazing. Maybe I would just stay put for now. I’d move if he acted like he wanted me to.

  “Thanks for saving me there. I kind of froze and didn’t know what to do.” I played with the sleeves of my jacket. “I didn’t think he’d ask, not after seeing us like this together.”

  “No problem,” he said, his breath in my hair. “I could tell you didn’t know what to do.”

  “I feel so bad, though. It’s scary to ask someone out. I’d die if someone turned me down in front of others.”

  “We’ll just have to really go to the dance together, so he won’t know he was being rejected for real.”

  I liked that idea. I probably liked that idea a little more than was healthy. I tried to sound cool about it, but I was bursting with excitement inside. “If you don’t mind.” Then, just in case, I added, “But if you were planning to ask someone else, we could stage a fight in front of Brian or something. I don’t want to ruin your plans.” I turned to read his face.

  His lips twitched like he was fighting a smile. “No, I hadn’t planned on asking anyone else. Really, I don’t mind.” Then he paused before saying, “Unless you were hoping to go with someone else.”

  I shook my head. “No, there’s no one else.”

  Definitely not!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ARIE

  I WAS glad I’d been outside with Emma when Brian came out to ask her to the dance. I’d heard about the dance coming up, and the thought of asking her had crossed my mind—especially since she was eighteen now. I’d decided against asking her initially because it wouldn’t have been appropriate under the circumstances. But the opportunity had presented itself, so I was more than happy to take advantage of my luck.

  If Jason or Sophie had a problem with it, I’d tell them I was doing my job of staying close to her. They couldn’t argue with that. Plus, hadn’t Jason suggested I ask her out when we went to Salt Lake anyway?

  “Has anything out of the ordinary happened since Wednesday night?” I asked Emma as we sat, still close together on the swing. I hadn’t had a chance to talk with her about it since dropping her off in front of her house that night.

  “No, but I’m kind of nervous about going to work again.” She sighed. “I need the money for college, so I can’t just stop cleaning the office.”

  “My offer still stands,” I said. “I’d be more than happy to go with you to work. I could help keep an eye out.”

  She thought about it for a moment. “If you’re sure . . . then that would be great.” She turned and placed her hand on my bicep. My pulse quickened. “I mean, who’d want to mess with these guns.” She giggled.

  I knew I was in good shape, but Emma had never seemed to notice before. I didn’t know whether I should be flattered or embarrassed. I decided to go with flattered. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said.

  “Does Emma know anything more about those guys from Wednesday night?” Sophie asked me at breakfast the next morning.

  “Not really. What about you and Jason?”

  “We talked to the different businesses in the building. The only one who noticed anything was the girl who works at the front desk of the adoption agency. She said the front door was unlocked when she got there Thursday morning.”

  “What? That can’t be good.”

  Sophie shook her head. “We can’t know for sure, but it’s possible the men were searching for certain records from eighteen years ag
o.”

  I went to work with Emma that afternoon. At first, I sat on a chair in the office she was cleaning at the time and flipped through a magazine. That got boring fast, so to make the time pass by, I grabbed a rag and started dusting things around the office. Emma tried to stop me, but I insisted that I wanted to do it. After all, cleaning was much better than hiding behind a dumpster for a couple of hours. She relented, and we were able to finish in about half the time it usually took her.

  We hung out at my house the rest of the day. It was a nice evening and the weather wasn’t too cold, so I suggested I just walk Emma home when it was time for her to go.

  It was relaxing, walking down the sidewalk with Emma. Her hand was only inches from mine, and I was almost certain she’d let me hold it if I tried. All it would take was a brush of the hand. I forced those thoughts away and instead focused on how the slight breeze blew leaves down the sidewalk, swirling them around for a moment before pushing them farther along the path. Emma started telling me about some of the interesting vacations her family had taken when she was a child. Apparently, her dad was super outdoorsy and had once made her family go on a week-long camping trip where they had to live off the land and catch their dinner in the lake.

  “Thankfully, Mom went behind Dad’s back and packed a cooler with food. My dad was thankful for that since we all ended up being much worse fishermen than he’d thought.” Emma peeked up at me and smiled.

  Hearing Emma talk about her father made me think about my own father. He was definitely a different kind of man than her father seemed to be. And hearing her talk about the fun things they did as a family made me realize all the more how many things I had missed out on.

  My heart still clenched each time I thought of him, but the fear no longer crippled me as it had when I was younger.

  “Sorry to talk so much about my dad; I forgot for a moment that your dad passed away a few years ago,” Emma said, probably because I’d been too quiet.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t be sorry. You were telling me about your life. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  She nodded, then spoke in a quiet voice. “Can you tell me what happened to him?”

  My family and my past wasn’t something I ever cared to talk about with people. But for some reason I wanted to tell her. I needed someone else to understand and maybe even tell me it was okay to feel the way I did.

  “Well.” I cleared my throat and looked down the dimly lit street, not really seeing anything but my memories from six years ago. “He died in a car accident.” That’s what I usually told people, leaving it at that. But I needed to be more transparent with Emma. I had lied to her about so many things already I wanted to be fully honest in this at least. So I stopped walking. She noticed my sudden halt and turned back. “Actually, he drove himself off a cliff.”

  Emma’s light-blue eyes grew big, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “An accident?”

  I shook my head. “We’ll never know for sure, but I don’t think it was an accident.”

  “I’m so sorry. That’s . . . that must have been so hard!”

  I nodded, remembering the details of that evening long ago and the way I’d felt when I heard the news. “At first I was shocked, too numb to really feel anything at all. We all were—my mom, my sister, and me. But after the initial shock wore off, all I felt was . . . relief.”

  I surveyed Emma with careful eyes, anxious to see her reaction, worried about what she’d think of me for being relieved my dad was dead. I always felt so guilty for feeling that way. I had to be super twisted and messed up to be like this. But Emma didn’t look like she was passing judgment; she simply waited for me to explain.

  “Things were hard at first, as we tried to figure out how we would pay the bills now that my dad was gone. But after my mom found a job, life got easier. I no longer had to worry about whether my dad had a good or a bad day at work. I didn’t have to listen to him yell at my mom anymore. I didn’t have to constantly be ready to jump in and protect her from his swinging fists.” It was so ironic that my dad was a judge who had sent people to jail every day for doing the very things he’d done at home. But no one in the community would have believed us if we’d told them what he was really like. He’d practically been turned into a saint after the crash.

  “Did he hit you, too?” Emma asked after a beat.

  I bit my lip and nodded. “My last memory of my dad is of him chasing after me with a baseball bat.” I’d never been more terrified in my life than that day when I was fifteen. “I was so grateful my mom and sister weren’t home then, because I was able to jump our back fence into the neighbor’s yard and escape, instead of sticking around to take the brunt of my dad’s anger in order to protect them.

  “I came home hours later to find he’d taken his anger out on our dog. It was horrible digging Brutus’s grave, but I was also thankful it hadn’t been me in his place.” We didn’t find out until the next day that my dad’s car had been found at the bottom of a cliff. We never found out whether it was an accident or suicide. Given the circumstances of that night, I’ve always leaned toward suicide—thinking his guilt over everything he’d done to our family through the years had finally gotten to him.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Emma stepped closer and squeezed my arm. It was such a sweet gesture, and for some reason, it did make me feel better. “I can’t imagine going through that and how confusing it must have been when he died.”

  I swallowed, trying to stifle the wave of emotion attempting to come over me. In all the years since that time, I never imagined I would receive this reaction. Emma didn’t think I was a monster. “I was pretty messed up for a while and had my time of rebellion for a few years.”

  She stepped back and gazed at my face, looking beautiful in the moonlight. “You’d never even know it.” She smiled, as if she found something amusing. “I still can’t believe you were some troubled teen who was sent away to be reformed by his aunt and uncle.”

  She looped her arm through mine, and we resumed our walk. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” If only I could tell her the truth, that I hadn’t been sent here for that reason. Sure, it was true I’d gotten into some trouble after my father passed, but I’d turned things around years ago.

  We walked the rest of the way to her house in comfortable silence. I had so many thoughts running through my mind. When I took this job, dating someone was nowhere in my plans. I hadn’t thought I would ever open up to anyone the way I’d opened up to Emma tonight. And now that I knew she wasn’t easily scared off, I ached to tell her more.

  What did she think of me? Did she want to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss her? Was she wondering why I hadn’t? I hoped so, but at the same time knew I shouldn’t. I needed to keep my distance if I wanted to keep my job.

  Sometimes living this lie was so confusing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EMMA

  IT WAS PRETTY CRAZY, what Arie had told me about his dad. No wonder he was so built. He’d probably needed that extra muscle when defending himself. It was so hard to believe a father could treat his family like that. How did anyone go off and beat up his wife and kids? I couldn’t imagine doing that to someone I hated, let alone the family I was supposed to love and cherish.

  I knew he had worried about telling me about his past. That was probably why he’d always gotten a little weird around me when I asked him personal questions. I hoped he would feel comfortable enough to confide in me whenever he needed. I was finally to where I could trust someone again, and I wanted to be trusted as well. That was really the most important thing in any relationship. If you couldn’t be honest with each other about everything, then you were doomed.

  The Saturday before the Winter Ball, I went dress shopping with Maya and Kathryn. Kathryn, of course, was going with Conner to the dance, and weirdly enough, Maya had been asked by Derek. Even weirder was she’d said yes. I always thought they hated each other, but apparently, it was one of those love/hat
e relationships.

  It didn’t take long for me to find the perfect dress. It was practically love at first sight. A lavender, floor-length formal with beaded flowers on the bodice and skirt. I loved the lace-up back, which reminded me of the corsets women used to wear long ago.

  After we found our dresses, we drove to a costume shop to look for masquerade masks. In the display case was the perfect silver Venetian mask. It had to have been laser cut because it was so intricately designed.

  While we shopped, my phone beeped with another text message from a blocked number. It read, “Why would you want to go to the dance with a stalker and a liar?”

  My brow furrowed. What the heck? Who was sending me these texts?

  “What is it?” Kathryn asked.

  “I’ve been getting these weird texts lately,” I said, handing her my phone.

  She read the text as Maya came over to see what we were doing.

  “What’s up?” Maya asked, slipping between Kathryn and me to look at my phone. Her eyes scanned the message. She turned to me. “Who sent that?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. This isn’t the first text they’ve sent, either.”

  “Someone’s harassing you?” Maya said a little too loudly before realizing she was drawing attention to us. She cleared her throat and spoke in a quieter voice. “Did you tell your parents?”

  “No. I figured someone was playing a prank.”

  Kathryn shook her head as she handed me back my phone. “It sounds like whoever is sending you these isn’t a big fan of Arie.”

  I took my phone from her outstretched hand. “That’s what it sounds like, but Arie isn’t a stalker. Sure we’ve been spending more time together, but it isn’t considered stalking when you want the person to be hanging around you.”

  I shook my head as I deleted the text from my phone. These texts were so ridiculous it was annoying. The first text I’d received had scared me because I was already suspicious of Arie and his possible player-type behavior. But now that I knew him better, he was not like that at all. He was a cool, normal guy who would never lie to anyone. Joke around, of course. But purposely deceive with the intent to hurt? No way.