Love Me Like a Rock Song

Instrumental Emmett

Instrumental

Emmett

Emmett is not, and has never been, an angel—but the words make him smile all the same.

He gets carefully to his feet, brushes dust from his trousers, and pats at his sides, checking to ensure that he didn’t lose anything in the fall before he looks back down at the sidewalk.

The girl—woman—is still on the ground, looking at the street.

People flow around them, unbothered, as if they’re invisible.

Emmett is often invisible, or, at least, unnoticed.

He wonders if the woman has been folded up into his own well of inconspicuous existence, or if it’s just this city—so full of people and movement and chaos and noise—that makes it so easy to disappear.

“Jesus,” she says after a moment, shaking her head. She looks up at Emmett. Her sunglasses had been knocked askew, and now she fixes them back into place with one hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even thank you.”

Emmett rubs his hands together, dislodging grit and gravel from his palms. The dirt seems almost reluctant to leave his skin, but he wipes it away anyway. The tiny tears left behind are gone before Emmett extends a hand down to the woman on the ground. “It wasn’t any trouble. Are you all right?”

She makes a sound that’s nearly a laugh, high and a bit manic, and shakes her head, accepting Emmett’s hand and letting him draw her to her feet. “I’m having a hell of a day, but I guess you just stopped it from being worse. So I suppose I can’t complain.”

She’s the first new person Emmett has touched in years, and his fingers tingle slightly as hers curl around them.

With calluses on her fingertips and chipped polish on her nails, her hands remind Emmett of Ruth’s, and the years she spent complaining about how easily she ruined her manicures.

Emmett had learned to paint her nails for her, carefully holding the tiny brush between his inexperienced fingers.

The memory sends a pang through Emmett’s chest, heavy and aching in the place where his heart should have been. He lets go of her hands. “I apologize for grabbing you,” he says. “It didn’t seem like you were going to stop.”

“I probably wouldn’t have,” she agrees, with a wry little smile that makes Emmett wonder if she’s saying something more with those words than the obvious.

She looks around on the ground and then bends down to pick up her phone, clucking her tongue as she wipes the screen against her sweater.

As Emmett watches, the wind sweeps a few curls of dark hair from the knot gathered on top of her head.

“Like I said, I don’t think I can complain.

Given the circumstances.” She slips the phone into her bag and looks up at Emmett again, propping the sunglasses on top of her head and revealing a pair of large eyes the color of newly turned earth at springtime, framed by dark lashes and darker makeup.

“You weren’t hurt, were you? We hit the ground pretty hard. ”

She’s very pretty, Emmett thinks. He pushes the thought away as quickly as it comes into his mind, the phantom snap of Jacob’s sharp rebukes so vivid he almost flinches. You know better than to look at women like that. You should not be noticing them. I didn’t make you to be lecherous.

Jacob is gone. He’ll never give Emmett a command ever again. Still, his words linger.

Emmett clears his throat. “I’m fine,” he says. Even if he had been, it wouldn’t have hurt him for very long. Nothing that hurts him can hurt him for very long. A blessing, Jacob would have called it, and who was Emmett to argue? “What about you? Hurt at all?”

“Tragically, no,” she says. That’s confusing, but then, new people always are.

“Not that I wouldn’t have deserved it. This is probably why they say you shouldn’t walk and text at the same time.

” She gives him a smile, but it stops short of her eyes, which are tired and sad.

Emmett wants to ask her why, but the memory of Ruth’s voice chiding him about normal social interactions makes him think it would be an invasive question. “Oh shit, is that yours?”

Emmett blinks, trying to keep up with the change in subject.

Spending his entire life in an insular community where he knew almost everyone’s personalities and habits and expectations and could plan his responses to meet them had always seemed like a useful way to live, but now, if less than one conversation with a stranger has made him feel this unbalanced, he’s not so sure.

Trying to shake away the discomfort, he turns to follow her pointing finger.

He’d dropped his backpack without thinking in order to get a last burst of speed to pull the girl away from the curb.

The bag is still lying where it fell, but the zipper he’d opened partway to check the directions to the bus station seems to have opened the rest of the way, sending the contents spilling across the pavement.

“Yes,” he begins, but she’s already moving, bending down to collect a few of the scattered papers in the greatest danger of blowing away on the chilly October breeze.

Emmett hurries to follow her, scooping up Jacob’s leather-bound journal and tucking it carefully back into the bag, then scanning the sidewalk to be sure he didn’t miss anything else.

“Here,” the girl says, handing him the pile. She nods at the top page as he takes it. “Going on a trip?”

Emmett looks down at the bus ticket Ruth printed out for him a few days ago.

“Yes.” Jacob always said not to offer details to strangers, but she’s still looking at him, eyebrows raised slightly as if in genuine interest. Emmett scans her face, but doesn’t see the impatience or irritation that he’s used to. “I’m going to California.”

She looks horrified. “By bus?”

“I don’t like flying,” Emmett says.

It’s true, in the most literal sense of the word “like.” He’s never tried flying, so how could he know if he likes it?

Emmett can’t lie, but he’s been at this long enough to know how to find a way to make the truth fit into what he’s willing to say.

Or, more frequently, into what he needs to hide.

“How long does that take?” she asks. “By bus, I mean?”

“About three and a half days.” Give or take.

“Yikes,” she says, and shakes her head. “You’re a braver man than me.”

Emmett blinks. “Thank you?”

She looks at him, and then smiles. This time, it crinkles her eyes around the corners. Real, Emmett thinks. Real, and lovely. Something about the truth always is. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

Emmett shakes his head. “Not.”

“Okay, well, you’ve got a poker face for the ages.

If you haven’t considered gambling, maybe you should.

” She glances at her phone again, grimaces, and then sighs.

“I’d better—I have to get back on the road, I think.

But thank you, again. What time is your bus?

Can I buy you a coffee or something? I feel like I owe you something for keeping me from turning into roadkill, and I need another cup anyway.

I could give you a lift over to the pickup stop after, if you need a ride. ”

“I—” He shouldn’t. Jacob would hate it. Would be furious. It is not appropriate for you to be alone with someone. What would people think if they saw you?

But again, Emmett can’t help but think, Jacob isn’t here. Jacob will never be here again. Emmett isn’t free—he still has one final order to follow, one already pulling him unerringly westward—but after twenty years Emmett is nearly as good at finding loopholes as he is at shaping the truth.

“I’d like that,” he says, a truth he doesn’t have to bend at all, and the girl’s smile lights up her face like the sun. He clears his throat. “I’m Emmett.”

“Delilah,” she says. “Nice to meet you, Emmett.” She holds up her phone. “Just one thing first—do you mind if we take a picture?”

Text message from: Delilah Cohen

Found a friend to keep me company! xoxo D

[attachment: 1 photo]