Chapter 15
Emmett
I’ve barely touched the plate of spaghetti.
The aroma of it clings to the air, making it feel dense.
It’s what I’d imagine the studio of that cooking show on the TV would smell like and I’m glad my mother never cooked like this in our house.
It’s too much.
“So, where’s that chaos twin of yours?” someone asks when the clanking of forks slow.
Tristen responds with a grumble, and I slink farther back in my chair, pulling my sleeves over my fists.
The rest of them go back and forth with him, calling him Thing Three, and I lift the neck of the hoodie up and cover my mouth.
If I’m quiet enough, they might not see me—
“Emmett’s too quiet for you.”
My face heats when I glance up and catch eyes on me.
All of them.
Five sets of different colors, five grins. One bouncing brow and another with scrunched up crow’s feet.
My chest burns.
“I-I-I’m—”
“I’m straight,” Tristen blurts from beside me and I yank the hoodie up higher, covering my nose. “He’s straight. We’re just friends.”
“Whoa, rude,” one of his friends says, but I don’t pay attention to who as I shrink back.
I swallow hard and stare at the pile of cold noodles drowning in tomato sauce.
There’s not much there, but would it be possible to incapacitate myself with it?
I’d rather do that than sit here any longer.
Jumping up, I take my plate to the trash and dump it. Wash it. Dry it and put it back where we found them with shaking hands.
All the while, my torso sweats beneath the thick fabric, the neck of it pinched between my teeth. I know it’s not mine to do that to, but I can’t help it.
This is too much.
My eyes burn.
I don’t belong here.
“Em?” A hand lands on my shoulder, and I jerk away from him. “They were just joking.”
I spin to face Tristen, hyper-aware of the audience staring holes through me, and whisper, “Can we go?”
The lines creasing his forehead dig deeper. “Yeah, bub. Yeah.”
“Okay,” I mumble and pull up the hood.
I’m baking in the sweatshirt but it’s better than the weight of their stares.
“Here.” Tristen holds out the key to the truck that I just stare at. “Just don’t drive off without me.”
Blinking, I snag the ticket out of here, careful not to graze Tristen’s palm, and bolt.
The rush of fresh air hits my face before I realize I’ve made it outside, chilling my damp skin and making my breath catch.
I’m shaking by the time I climb into the cab.
I don’t belong anywhere.
My knees meet my chest, and I hug them. Hold them despite how bad my ribs hurt.
I never will.
He used to tell me that and for a long time, I didn’t believe him. I thought I just needed to get out, to find the right people. The right person. Someone that could stomach being around me.
But that person never came.
And I was reminded at every turn that they never will.
So, I buried everything that I am.
I’m just the lonely boy. The broken one.
“Hey, bub.”
It’s quiet, muffled.
“Stop calling me that,” I snap back and squeeze my knees tighter.
The slam of the door proceeds Tristen’s sigh.
There’s a heavy silence that falls over the cab. Thick. Tense.
“They didn’t mean anything by it.” I rub my forehead across my knees. “They’re good people, Em.”
He goes quiet, and for a moment, I think he’s going to say something else. But then the truck cranks over, making me jump. It idles, filling the space with a low rumble that vibrates the ache centered in my chest.
I drag in a breath, but it’s short. Tight.
He lied to them.
My forehead rolls over my knees.
He doesn’t know me.
“I’m not upset with them,” I murmur once the truck starts moving.
I don’t repeat it when he asks me to.
Instead, I lean into the handle and hope that we get rear-ended before we make it to the next stop. Tristen’s seatbelt will save him, he’ll be able to walk away, and he won’t have to worry himself about me ever again.
He doesn’t know anything about me anyway.
“They felt bad. Or maybe I look like the poor kid.” The crinkle of plastic accompanies Tristen’s words, and I scoot farther into the door to get away from it. “Holy shit, this looks like a road trip bag.”
When I don’t answer, he goes back to humming along to the radio, some sad song I’ve never heard before, and drums his thumbs on the steering wheel.
Meanwhile, I tilt my head to bury in the soft fabric of his hoodie, the scent of it filling my nose and making me want to be buried in it.
The piercing trill of his phone breaks my thoughts up and my fingers twitch.
“Hey, what’s up?”
I don’t hear the response on the other side, but the air in the cab changes.
“Hatley …” Tristen drags out and the hairs on my neck stand. “Hat, what did you take?”
I swallow hard and peek out from behind my fabric barrier.
“H-Hat, just …” Tristen’s gaze flips over to me, his irises darker than normal, and my stomach drops. “Stay where you are. I’m coming. No! No. J-just stay there. I’m on my way.”
He signals his turn, but instead of going down the side street, he busts a U-turn I’m pretty sure is illegal.
The motion is quick and jerky, sending me crashing into the door and the road trip bag to slide into my lap.
I just manage to catch things as they fly out, hurriedly stuffing them back in the crinkling plastic and dumping it on the floor.
Tristen guns it through a yellow light, one of the few in Barren Ridge, and I reach for the seatbelt.
“What’s wrong with Hatley?” I ask quietly to his profile, the muscles there so tense that he looks like he’s chiseled out of stone.
Is his jaw always that square?
“He took something.” It comes out mumbled and distracted as he speeds right past the city limits sign.
It feels odd to see it, it’s proclaimed displeasure of departure from the town, and feel …
Nothing.
Even though this morning was the first time I’ve ever left the town I was raised in. Even though, somewhere behind me, my mother sits in her house with a cigarette between her fingers and utter silence surrounding her.
Somewhere behind me, my life sits on pause, waiting for my return.
Yet not a single part of that life has sought me out since I’ve been gone. Not a well wish or a visit to my hospital bed.
I watch the sign in the rearview mirror grow smaller and smaller with each mile that separates us.
And with it … something in my chest tightens up with each inch that it shrinks.
“What do you mean he took something?” I ask as anxiety and dread rolls through my stomach.
“He’s … fuck.” The truck sputters out its resistance to Tristen’s attempts to make it go faster. “He just needs me and I’m sorry, but I have to get him.”