Track 25 Delilah #2
At last, Emmett says, “What do you mean?”
Delilah chews the inside of her cheek until she tastes copper, then goes back to the van.
She opens the passenger side door, pulls out her songwriting journal, and pushes it into Emmett’s hands, keeping her gaze firmly on the ground so that she doesn’t have to see the look on their face. “See for yourself.”
She turns away before they can say anything.
Reaching back into the car for her backpack, she leans back against Roscoe’s bumper.
She unzips the front pocket and digs around for the pack of cigarettes she bought the first day of the trip, before Emmett changed everything, and lights one with shaking hands.
The smoke is acrid, and she coughs once, out of practice.
She doesn’t know how much time passes before the bumper creaks, Emmett adding their leaning weight to hers. Delilah pointedly doesn’t face them. “Those things’ll kill you.”
Earlier, she thought she’d heard tension in their voice. She could almost laugh. This is tension. More than that—it’s a coiled spring of anger, held tightly back. Delilah exhales smoke. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
“Delilah.”
She bites her lip and doesn’t reply.
“You lied to me.”
She closes her eyes, swallowing. Three drags in, and her throat already hurts. “I know.”
“You promised you’d—” Emmett draws in a shaking breath, lets it go. Their knuckles are white where their hands rest on their knees. “I don’t care that you weren’t looking for a way to stop this. But you said you’d keep it a secret. You promised me.”
“I know.”
“Then, why—”
“Because it was a good story, okay?” Delilah gives up on not looking at them, twists around so that she can meet their eyes with a glare, as if she’s got any right to be angry.
“Because the only story I had going for me was being the sad fat femme from nothing who somehow still managed to get the girl, and then the girl got smart enough to realize I wasn’t worth sticking around for.
Nobody needs another angsty breakup album, I don’t care how much people say that gay misery still sells because people hate the idea of us being happy, and I’m not good enough to somehow make that story something nobody’s heard before.
But then there you were, all magic and mystery and tragedy and fate and free will, and that shit does sell, if you can put the words together the right way.
And that’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at. ”
She waits for the anger, the absolutely justified hurt at the way she’d betrayed their trust. And for a brief, almost gratifying moment, she sees it: a flash of fury in their eyes, a tightening in their brow, a narrowing of their lips.
But as quickly as the expression comes, it drains away.
As they look at her, Emmett just looks tired, the kind of bone-deep emotional weariness Delilah recognizes all too well.
It’s a look that says, I didn’t expect anything, but you still let me down.
She tightens her grip on the cigarette until it snaps in half.
She catches the burning end in her lap and pinches it off, not flinching at the sharp heat. “Are you going to say anything?”
Emmett shakes their head. “What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.” She contemplates lighting the remaining half of the cigarette, then shoves it into the pocket of her cardigan instead. “That I fucked up. That I’m an asshole.”
“Why do you need me to say it, then?”
Delilah clenches her hands into fists inside her pockets, digging her fingernails into her palms hard enough to sting. “Will you just get angry?”
Emmett’s eyes darken again, the lines of tension around their mouth tightening to something pale, and Delilah thinks, Good. “Why? It’s not enough for you to hate yourself? You need me to do it too?”
Delilah flinches.
“You don’t believe in your own story, your own voice, so you took mine. Fine. It’s done.” Emmett turns away. “I’m not going to yell at you just so you can get another dose of self-flagellation. It’s my fault for thinking you saw me as something—as someone real.”
“Emmett, no.” Delilah sounds as horrified as she feels. “That was never—That’s not what this was about. You have to believe me.”
“No, I don’t.” They look back at her, sharply now. “I don’t take orders from you. I get to say that much.”
Delilah finds the part of her cheek she bit earlier and worries at it with her tongue until it hurts again. “I didn’t mean—I wasn’t going to say that.”
“It doesn’t matter.” They rub their chest with a shaking hand, pressing against their sternum. They look so, so tired. “It’s done, Delilah.” Their lips twitch, the barest hint of a bitter smile. “Maybe it’ll even sell.”
“I’m not going to sell it,” she says. Too little, too late, and she knows it, but—“I’ll tell Alex to delete the demos I sent her. Okay? I’ll—I can fix this. Just—”
“Don’t. You got what you wanted, didn’t you? You might as well make the most of it.”
She feels sick. “Emmett…”
They shake their head. “Leave it.”
For some reason, it’s the defeat in their voice that makes her temper flare again. “Fine,” she snaps. “What are you waiting for, then? If you’re so ready to fuck off into the desert to die, just go. I’m not keeping you here.”
Emmett gives her a hard, flat look. “I’m not leaving you on the side of the road.”
“Because you’ll do such a good job protecting my virtue when you turn into a statue?” She pulls her hands out of her pockets and crosses her arms, lifting her chin with as much defiance as she can muster. “I can get a tow out here in an hour. I don’t need you to babysit me.”
“Don’t you?”
Delilah grits her teeth. “No.”
Emmett’s eyes narrow. Delilah holds their gaze. Nothing’s ever made her more successful at fighting her suicidal impulses than spite.
For a long moment, she thinks Emmett will put their foot down. But there’s only exhaustion in their expression as their shoulders slump. “Fine.”
Emmett pushes away from the bumper and lets Delilah’s notebook slide to the ground.
She picks it up, curling around it protectively, as Emmett slides the door open to retrieve their jacket and backpack, shrugging into the former and slinging the latter over their shoulder.
They reach into their coat pocket and withdraw Delilah’s sunglasses, holding them out to her. “Here.”
She shakes her head. “Keep them.”
They give her a bewildered look, confusion breaking through the dead-eyed resignation. “Why?”
Delilah waves a hand at the endless landscape around them. “It’s bright out.”
Emmett stares at her, then huffs out a breath and puts the glasses back in their pocket. “Thanks.”
Don’t thank me, she wants to say. “Where are you going to go?”
They shrug. “Does it matter?”
“Emmett—” Her throat feels tight. She clutches the notebook. “I’m sorry.”
The smile they give her is a pale shadow of the one she’s gotten so used to. Amazing how easy it is to get attached to something, and how quickly it can be taken away. “Good luck with the album, Delilah.”
She wants to go after Emmett. Wants to beg Emmett to stay, to let her try again, to do it right this time. To give them the chance to live, even if it’s not with her, because she knows that at least they want to, and they deserve to at least try.
Delilah forces herself to watch them walk away—not, as she’d expected, directly out and into the desert, but following the highway back the way they came.
They move slowly, a little stiffly, as if each movement hurts, and she has to resist the impulse to run forward and brace their weight, to at least offer them a shoulder to lean on, to at least bear witness, so that they don’t have to do this alone.
It’s one of the few things that ever stopped her, the fear of being alone.
But they want to go, and she’s done enough damage. She watches, and watches, and watches, until they disappear over the crest of a hill and out of sight, and only then does she loosen her grip on her notebook and reach for her phone.
She scrolls through her contacts until she reaches a number she should have deleted days ago, then sets it aside to light another cigarette. She takes a few fortifying drags, then hits the button to dial.
“Hi, Sam,” she says. “I need you to come pick me up.”