Chapter 42 – Emmett
Chapter Forty-Two
EMMETT
I look at this woman who, without a doubt, is the love of my life. She looks at me with the biggest tears in her eyes, breaking whatever is left of me. “I don’t trust you.” I take a step back from her, letting her hand go, the pain almost unbearable. “You just threw me away.”
“Never, I could never throw you away.” I inhale. “I was saving you.”
“Saving me?” she asks, confused.
“Saving you from me.” The minute I say the words, I know she deserves to have all of me. “Saving you from what I am.”
“What are you?”
“I’m evil,” I say the only word I can think of. “When I was eight years old”—I watch her while I tell her my story, a story no one has heard before—“I was reading a book with my dad in bed. Something we did every single night. A routine, or our routine. We would have dinner, usually just the two of us. I would hope it was just the two of us anyway.” I look up at the ceiling, my heart about to come out of my chest. My vision blurry from the tears, I pinch my nose and close my eyes to push them away. “We were just getting to the end of the book when we heard the sound of a car door.” I can see it in my head again like I’m back in that bed. “He stopped reading, and we both looked toward my bedroom door. We waited for what felt like forever for her to come to the door. We heard the stumbling before she even walked into the house. Nothing new for her to come home blitzed out of her mind.” I shrug. “She was a stay-at-home mom, who never stayed home, never cooked, never fucking cleaned, and definitely never took care of me.” The look on her face is horrified. “She came in, and my father told me to stay where I was. He put the book down on the bed beside me as he walked out of the room. I didn’t listen to him. I should have fucking listened to him, Lilah. I wish I would have listened to him. I wish I would have told him to stay with me. I wish so many fucking things.” I take a second to breathe. “They argued, which wasn’t anything new. He was always worried about me being home by myself. I didn’t care, to be honest. When I would get home and she wasn’t there, there was a sigh of relief, but Dad, he hated it. Hated that I stayed alone, so they fought about it.”
“Emmett,” she croaks out my name.
“She shot him,” I cut to the end of the story. “Shot him five times in the chest, while I watched from the side of the wall. Pulled a gun out of her purse and just started shooting.”
The gasp that escapes her is more than I think I can bear. “She emptied the whole fucking gun in his chest and said she was not guilty. You see, my mother blamed me.” I point at my chest. “She killed my father and left me all alone in this world, and blamed me. I put it in her. Put the evil in her. If it wasn’t for me, for having me, she would never have had all those demons in her.”
“Emmett, no.” She shakes her head, the tears like a river going downstream, running down her face.
“My fault.” My hand in a fist, I hit myself in the middle of my chest. “It was all my fault. I grew up in foster care. Who wants to adopt a kid whose mother was a murderer, and not only that, shot her husband? I’ll tell you who, no one. Not one fucking person would want to touch me.” Lilah doesn’t say anything. Instead, she just looks at me, the look in her eyes filled with sorrow and sadness. “When I was eighteen, I went to see her, and she told me I was the poison. Me. She told me that anything I touched would be tainted. That anyone I loved would be filled with the evil that I had in me. I couldn’t do that to anyone, so I made my peace that I would die alone. Until Lucy”—I smile—“and until you. Until fucking you.” I point at her. “I fell in love with you and the only thing I could do was tell myself that you deserved better than me. You deserved to have someone who could love you with everything they had, and not someone who was so fucking broken that I didn’t even know what love was.”
She puts her hand to her mouth as a sob comes through her and I go to her, holding her face in my hands, wiping the tears with my thumbs. “Don’t cry, baby,” I say. “Not for me.” I kiss her lips. “Never for me.” I swallow the lump. “I’m sorry I sent you away. I’m sorry I wasn’t man enough to tackle my demons with you by my side.” The pressure in my chest comes on full force. “I’m sorry I wasn’t the man you needed.” I kiss her one last time. “I won’t burden you anymore.” I take one more kiss from her and turn to walk out of the room to the sound of her crying. I make it to the hallway before my knees give out on me. Holding on to the wall to help support me, not seeing anything in front of me, when I feel an arm around my waist.
“I’ve got you.” I look over and see Casey there. “I’ve got you.”
“She can’t be alone,” I tell him. “She needs someone with her.” My mind worries about her and only her. “Get someone in there with her.”
We walk out of the ICU and past the waiting room that was filled not more than three hours ago when she came out of surgery, and the doctor said she was going to be fine. They forced me to go and take a shower to wash off the blood from my clothes. I left for forty-two minutes before I rushed back. Her parents were taking turns sitting with her but left when I came back. Now the only one in the room is Charlie, who springs to his feet when he sees me. “Go to her,” I tell him, and he shakes his head. “Go fucking to her.”
“I’ve got him,” Casey assures Charlie. “I have him.” He nods and rushes to Lilah’s room.
I go over and collapse in a chair. “You want to get out of here?”
“No,” I tell him, “I’m going to sit here until her parents come back.” I rub my hands over my face, feeling empty inside. “Then I’ll leave her be.”
He sits next to me not saying a word, not one word. I sit here looking straight ahead at nothing until her parents come in. “She’s waiting for you,” I tell them, getting up and nodding to them before walking out of the room and into the rain.