22. Emerson
Emerson
The noisy campus was a welcome change from my silent apartment, even if I hated the racket. Students were all around me, laughing with each other, some of them sitting on the various grassy areas in the quad. Others were simply walking to their next class.
I knew I shouldn't be here, but I couldn't help myself.
The house was quiet without her.
Too quiet.
All signs of her were gone. Her desk at work had been cleared out, and I’d been asked a few times if I wanted to hire someone else. Cristian and Leslie looked at me funny but left me alone.
Every time I went inside my own house, I found myself looking for remnants of her. A dirty dish. A discarded sweater.
I’d sent the majority of her stuff to the address she texted me. I made myself go through the pain of boxing them myself only so I could keep a few items, foolishly hoping she would realize stuff was missing and come back. But she didn’t.
The only thing she made a point to tell me not to pack? My fucking flannel.
That hurt even more, but I deserved it.
It had been days, almost bordering on a week, since she had decided to leave.
No. That I’d made her leave. Or that I hadn’t stopped her, at least.
She would've already had her midterms, and I kept wondering how she did. If she was still staying up late. If all the studying had paid off. I could have found that out, but I didn’t want that. I wanted to hear her tell me everything.
The only connection I had to her were the bodyguards I’d hired. They were still sending me updates, so I knew when she arrived at school or left. When she went home and if she went straight there or stopped somewhere on her way.
After a while, I even started asking them miscellaneous things, like what she had for lunch or what she was wearing, and because I paid them, they indulged me, but I knew they were probably thinking I was crazy.
They were supposed to be protecting her from the stalker, but for all intents and purposes, I was turning into one.
It was pretty pathetic, but that’s the way I’d always been when it came to Pearl.
It was hard to stay in the house. I'd been neglecting my duties at the office, working mostly through my phone. I didn't like going there either. I didn't have it in me to answer everyone's questions on where she’d gone and when she’d be coming back.
Pearl had touched everyone around her. No surprise there.
I found myself wishing I could join one of her classes so I could just sit there and watch her instead of standing outside like a creep. As if watching her inside would make me less so.
Just as I thought I couldn't take it anymore, people started coming out. I ducked behind a corner as I saw her. She was looking at her phone, barely looking at where she was going, navigating her surroundings almost on muscle memory.
So I followed her. Just like the creepy stalker I was trying so hard not to be.
I wonder if the bodyguards will call the cops on me. Or tell Jax. That would be even worse.
This whole thing was my fault. Yes, Pearl had messed up, but if it had really bothered me, I would've said something the first time she had.
I didn't give a shit about her mistakes. Even Derek and Henry got a good laugh about it after the fact. Apparently, it wasn't Henry's first rodeo, and he felt a little bad scaring the obviously new assistant.
She was never meant to be my assistant. I wanted her to be so much more than that. Still, I should have taken the time to prepare her for everything. Like she had pointed out, that was my job as her boss, and I totally failed her.
But the most important thing I should have done was admit how I felt about her. It was simple. I should've just come out and said that I loved her. That's what it was. I loved Pearl Meadows, and there was no changing that.
Instead, I just let her stand there in front of me, telling me how she felt, begging for me to do it too. And then I let her walk out the door.
Everything I’d been through led me to believe loving someone was a weakness. It gave someone else the tools to hurt you. Plus, it could just be taken away in a flash, like it never happened.
No matter how many times Pearl told me she liked me or submitted to me so prettily in the bedroom, I was afraid she would reject me as soon as I opened myself up to her fully.
That’s what had happened my entire life.
I’d loved my mom, and she’d left. I’d loved my father—as a kid, you don’t know any better, do you?
—and that ended up in violence, self-loathing, and pain.
So much pain. And I was pretty sure that if I’d ever told him I loved him, he’d have punched me bloody for it.
I knew my parental trauma shouldn’t apply to my relationship with Pearl, but it had been so ingrained in my body and soul that it was almost second nature to me.
Every time I thought of saying those three simple words, panic rose in me.
It was like telling my body to take deep breaths of air, even as I was drowning.
Even though my love for Pearl was real, and I knew no other truth.
I followed Pearl home this time, the bodyguards trailing behind us.
She liked to walk, much to my dismay. It would have been much safer if she called a taxi or even bought a car.
It wasn’t like she didn't have the money.
But there was no stopping Pearl as she put her mind to something, so walking it was.
She took the long road home and stopped by her old place of work, pausing in front of the boarded-up shop, confusion spreading across her face.
Is she looking for work again?
Pearl had more money than she would ever need, but that was the way she was. She wanted to make sure she didn’t depend on someone else. It made sense to search for employment opportunities.
She turned to the side as if she were looking for an explanation for the restaurant being closed and almost saw me. Fortunately, I was quick enough to hide in the alley.
It was me, Pearl. It shut down because of me.
I hadn't told her, but after they fired her, I rained hellfire on the restaurant.
I went in there, guns blazing, only to find her dear old manager getting his dick sucked by the waitress I’d met the day I’d eaten there. Unsurprising.
What was surprising was that the piece of shit didn’t want to hire Pearl back. Not after I threatened him, not after I told him I knew the millionaire Pearl supposedly hadn’t smiled at and could get him fired, not even after I promised to make his life a fucking living hell.
So, with one phone call to the owner of the place warning him to pull out and another to someone who happened to know someone in the Health Department, I shut them down pretty fast.
I even made a point of walking by as they were boarding up the place to give him a smirk.
I never wanted him to hire Pearl back. She deserved a lot better than that fucking job anyway. But no one was going to treat her like shit and get away with it.
That’s when it dawned on me.
I did that. I treated her like shit. And she didn’t deserve any of it.
As I glanced at the restaurant again, I realized Pearl was gone. I cursed under my breath and walked in the direction of her apartment.
Fuck it. This ends now. I'm going to end this stupid fight. I'm going to say the words, and I’m going to do whatever it takes until she takes me back.
I love you, Pearl. I love yo—
My phone started vibrating with a message from Jax. It was a picture of my father at a bar, not far from where I was.
I could go get my girl or end this thing with my father once and for all.
Selfishly I wanted to go get Pearl and forget the rest of it. But for Pearl’s sake, I needed to get rid of him fast. His threat was still hanging over our heads, and I knew he could hold a grudge. It was just a matter of time before he came for us.
“Damn it all,” I grumbled and placed my phone back in my pocket before heading in the opposite direction. One look at the app told me the bodyguards were on the job and she was safe.
I would deal with this one nuisance, and then nothing would stop me from getting my girl.
They’d been waiting for me. As soon as I showed up, the guy at the front recognized me and let me in.
Even in the daytime, there were patrons inside drinking, a few dancing. The crowd wasn't small.
It worked in their favor. As I weaved through the people to follow the man leading me to the stairs at the back, all I could think was that they would all be witnesses if I tried to kill my father here.
Plus, there were more than a couple of men with their arms crossed and guns at their belts, staring at me.
I was shown to a private room a floor above the bar. The music pounded through and would drown out anything that happened up here. Meaning, I was all alone.
If I’d been worried about my father killing me, I might have felt a little bit of fear, but I was too angry for that.
He was a sorry excuse for a human being who had hurt me, but he had threatened Pearl now, and that was the final nail on his coffin.
Part of me knew this wasn’t normal. Most people didn’t dream of killing their fathers. But then again, most people didn’t live through what I had. Hadn’t had their youth painfully molded or been traumatized by someone who regretted ever having a child to begin with.
Every time he beat me up for simply existing, and then late at night when I was alone, I would fantasize about bringing him to his untimely end. Not then, because I was too small and too weak to do anything, but as I grew older, that idea grew with me.
The only reason I didn't do it was because I didn't want to be put in foster care, which would be the best-case scenario if I got away with it, and if I went to jail, I would never see Pearl again.
Most of the time, she was the only thing that made my days bearable by simply being at school and walking by.
That and… Maybe a small part of me wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t like him. That I never would be.