Chapter 11
Knightley
Emma Jane doesn’t know this, but I am going to the police tomorrow. It’ll be good that my hot temper has a chance to cool before I storm up into the precinct to demand…
I don’t know what I’m demanding, as the reverend never got around to hurting Emma Jane, thank God. Maybe I can convince them he needs a ticket for drunken misconduct? As much as I love the law, it falls short and fails at times because of its reactive nature.
I can see the tiredness and exhaustion from the situation etched across Emma Jane’s face, so tonight, I will honor her wishes and take her home.
“There.” I close the hood of her car and rub my hands together to get the dust off. “Looks like you have a bad starter switch. I’ll get it fixed tomorrow once the parts store opens.”
Emma Jane is leaning against her car, chin lifted toward the darkened sky and hands folded across her chest. She lets out a slow breath. “And your truck is still at The Flats, right?”
I nod and reach out my still somewhat dirty hand. “Care for a nighttime walk through town?”
She looks at my hand for a second before sliding her fingers through mine. And at that very moment, I realize I’m holding her hand.
It’s what I offered her, but it didn’t dawn on me until right now that I’ve never held her hand.
This isn’t friendship. This is intimately more. So much more than holding her because she was scared of the movie. Much, much more than her straddling my body when we accidentally fell.
This is intentional comfort stemming from a place of genuine concern to make sure she feels safe, protected, and secure.
I go to release her hand, but she squeezes. I give her a questioning look, but all she does is fix me with a pleading stare. As if my touch alone is steadying her.
That’s one heck of a dangerous thought to have…
“I’m sorry I ruined your date,” she says, though her tone doesn’t sound the least bit sorry. She shouldn’t be; the reverend was completely out of line.
“You don’t have to be sorry. Mallory understood.
I’ll always be there when you need me.” Emma Jane doesn’t know that it wasn’t a real date.
Mallory and I came up with a plan to fake-date each other to see if I could boost my poll numbers.
I thought she was crazy to bring up the idea, but I thought, what the heck?
If it works, then great. If not, then nothing is truly lost.
Mallory Granger will become my official fake girlfriend in two weeks during the Town Hall address. We have a whole spectacle planned, starting with allowing townsfolk to see us out in public together.
But I haven’t told Emma Jane I’m not seeing Mallory in a romantic capacity. She wants things to go well for me, and I don’t want to let her down. Nor do I want to be set up on more dates.
We continue in silence for a minute, my heartbeat quickening every time I remember our joined hands. When we pass people on the street, I nod like nothing in the world is going on. They’ve seen us around town together plenty, but they’ve never seen me hold her hand.
Because this is a first.
I release her hand, and she doesn’t stop me this time. I don’t need ridiculous rumors floating around when I’m about to announce my “secret girlfriend” to the town.
“Knightley,” she begins as we take to the sidewalk, the sticky air clinging to every ounce of my skin. “Can I…”
I glance over at her. She’s chewing on her lip, her gaze cast down. “Go on.”
“Can I tell you something that probably sounds extremely conceited and selfish, but I promise it’s not?”
“You can always talk to me, Janie.”
Her lips twitch upward as I turn my attention back to the route in front of us. We walk alongside Main Street, passing rows of closed stores, nearing her place of work.
“Are you sure you want to listen to me fall to pieces?”
Squeezing her hand, I reply, “I’ll put you back together the way you put together your favorite puzzles.”
She lets it all out.
“I’m tired of having to be perfect all the time.
I think I’ve been tired of it for a while.
I don’t want to fake smiles for the town anymore.
I don’t want to don a dress to church only to have three other women and girls go out and buy it simply because I wore it.
There’s no room for mistakes. I can’t make mistakes, Knightley.
” Her voice cracks over my name, and I have the urge to wrap my arm around her and tug her close.
I refrain. With great restraint.
She continues before I can respond. “I made a mistake with Henrietta. Two in a row, actually. Frank Weston and Philip Elton are not good men, and I tried to set my pure-of-heart best friend up with them. How did I miss their character flaws when I’m usually spot-on at reading other people?”
“Because you’re fracturing, Emma.” My voice is a whisper as I speak my thoughts.
I meant to keep that one in my head, but when it comes to the woman beside me, I have a bad habit of blurting.
Everyone else in town treats her like a sensitive flower, while I know she can handle the truth.
“Perfection is not an achievable standard. No one can keep a mask on for that long and survive.”
I think back to Cami and the many times she broke down in my arms over this very thing.
Over feeling like she couldn’t be authentic because everyone expected too much from her.
But where Cami stood her ground and allowed herself room to make mistakes, Emma Jane is too prideful to do that. She can’t bear to be seen as a failure.
“What will people say about me when they’ve learned I’ve screwed up royally with Henrietta? We easily swept Frank under the rug, but this? This affects all of Hartfield. Our church is the only one in the town.”
I cut my eyes to her, pausing in front of a closed boutique. “That’s selfish thinking. Who cares what people think? What matters is that the scum of a man is pulled from the position so we can find a real Godly man to lead us as a congregation.”
“I know, I know.” She starts to walk, but I tug her back, staring into her steel-colored eyes.
“No, Emma. Listen to me. It does not matter what the people of Hartfield, Mississippi, think about you. It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake.
It doesn’t matter if you make a million mistakes.
Life is simply not about you. It’s not about me.
It’s about Jesus, plain and simple. All that we do, we do it for Him.
Living for yourself only brings heartache and unreachable expectations.
Living for Him brings freedom from faultlessness. ”
She groans and turns away, walking ahead with stiff, raised shoulders.
“I know that, Knightley. I do. But I forget it sometimes, you know? When I have every eye on me at church or when I walk through the community or when I’m invited over for dinners or made to host a dinner.
Papa needs me all the time, and I can’t leave him to be on my own like my sister did.
I’m twenty-three, but I feel like I’ve lived ten lifetimes. ”
“You’ve put the pressure on yourself, Emma Jane.
” I’m at my normal walking speed, so she must be speed walking for my stride to match hers right now.
“No one asked you to say yes to every dinner or to wear the prettiest outfits to church so that you can distract every unattached man in the building.”
She stops in her tracks. I grab her arm firmly and spin her around, catching her other arm. I lean down so that we are eye to eye. “No one asked you to be perfect.”
“They didn’t have to. I have to make it up. All of it.”
“Make up for what, Emma?”
“Killing my mom!”
Her words steal my breath as she breaks into sobs.
No longer caring who sees, I pull her into my arms, holding her tight and silently praying God will remove this burden from her life.
I should have known she was suffering inside, but I always chalked her attitude up to her desire to be loved by being perfect.
That’s a whole other issue; the roots apparently run deep into guilt.
We stand there for a few minutes before she steps away, puffy-eyed with a red, drippy nose.
She fishes for tissues somewhere deep in her white crossbody bag.
After taking care of her business, we begin to walk again.
We’re close to where I left my truck, which is hopefully unblocked now.
Running that half-mile from The Flats to Perry’s Seafood felt like nothing.
I had a one-track mind: save Emma Jane. But now, my legs are stiff and my chest aches since the adrenaline has worn off.
“I know your logic is broken right now, but you did not kill your mother, Emma Jane. You know that deep down. Please work on releasing the guilt you harbor.”
“I can try. I think that’s all I have to offer at the moment.”
“Trying is enough.” We round a street corner, and I catch sight of my truck, gloriously free with no other vehicles around it. Beside me, Emma Jane snickers. “Do you think people got a video of you running through town?”
“I’ll find a way to work it for the campaign. ‘Knightley’s running to continue making Juniper Grove a better place to live’ or something like that.”
“Lame. You could headline it: ‘When the city needs a hero, Knightley’s on the run!’”
“That’s so much worse.” We laugh—a sound I’m grateful to hear out of her—as we approach my truck.
I open the door for Emma Jane, and she plants one sneaker on the lift, hoisting herself up.
Just as she twists to sit down, she slips.
As I catch her in my arms, she wraps her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck as if she’s a koala and I’m her tree.
But the momentum from the fall is strong gravity, so as she clings to me, I dip down to absorb the impact, which causes those pretty pink lips that confessed a load tonight to hurtle toward me…
Landing right onto my shocked, open mouth.
My first thought is an explicit curse of pain as our teeth clank together.
My second thought knocks the breath from my lungs as if Emma Jane's fall didn't already accomplish that.
I'm kissing her. Emma Jane.
Right on the mouth.
And outside of the salty blood on my tongue, I like it.
Henry is going to kill me…