9. Liam
CHAPTER 9
LIAM
I t takes us a long time to get back to the bus. Emma’s going at about half the normal pace, and she’s hesitant to step on anything else, so we crawl out of the forest. When we reach the main path, she lets go of me and starts limping along by herself.
That doesn’t stop me from offering my arm to her anyway, and she keeps ignoring it.
A couple of times she does take it fleetingly as we navigate through some of the trickier parts of the forest, down some steep hills or over gravel sections. But every time she is careful to extract herself. It’s like she’s trying not to give me any impressions.
Not that I would get any. Of course.
We don’t say much as we go. I don’t think there is much to say.
It’s a battle with Bruno — who, as far as I can see, has been playing on his phone for the last two hours — to allow us to get onto the bus to go back to the hotel. He looks us up and down and grins. “That was fast!”
I shake my head to stop his assumption that we won. “Emma had a fall,” I say.
“Oh, no! Are you okay?” he says in that kind of voice that people use when they have to pretend that they care but they don’t really, or maybe he just sounds insincere because he’s so happy all the time; I can’t tell. Either way, it’s annoying.
“She’ll be okay,” I say, and then she interrupts me, clearly grumpy that I’m speaking on her behalf when she’s perfectly capable of speaking all by herself.
“I’m fine,” Emma says forcefully. “I just sprained my ankle and I…” she glances at me, then continues, “ we decided that it probably wasn’t a good idea to be taking the forest terrain with an ankle that won’t take my weight.”
Bruno hums as if he’s being thoughtful. “Yes, probably for the best. Did you get anywhere with the treasure hunt?”
We shake our heads. “Guess this is going to put us at the bottom of the leaderboard,” I say bitterly. It doesn’t matter — shouldn’t matter — but I can’t help but want to do better.
“Unfortunately, I can’t bend the rules just because of an injury,” Bruno says with that air of mock sympathy. “But I will give you a fat round zero rather than taking any points off.”
“Wait, you’ve been taking points off?” gasps Emma, prickling at the idea of us going negative.
“Not you. But there are some other pairs who have quite the interesting idea about what it means when it comes to playing fair.”
“People are cheating. Why?” Emma’s wide-eyed disbelief is almost enough to soften my cynical heart.
“Same reason as you would,” Bruno says like it’s obvious, clearly just as baffled by her belief in the goodness of people as me. “They want to win.”
“The prize isn’t even that good,” I mumble. I’m either so quiet that Bruno doesn’t hear me, or he simply doesn’t care because he steamrolls right on with his script.
“Well, this is the big activity for the day, so I suppose you two should go make yourselves comfortable. I’ll get the driver to take you back down the hill.”
The bus ride seems to take much longer than on the way there. The sun streams through the windows and I wonder how the driver isn’t getting totally blinded by the light. He isn’t even wearing sunglasses. He’s just letting the light shine in and squinting at it.
It doesn’t fill me with confidence.
But the light does shine golden over Emma, catching her dark hair and giving her what seems to be an aura. It makes her glow. It dances over her cheeks, makes her eyes glitter like gems, but with a depth more beautiful than I’ve ever seen.
I force myself to look out of the window because if I don’t, I’m just going to stare at her. Somehow, I don’t think she’d appreciate that too much. She doesn’t really say much, and neither do I, but every now and then I catch her looking at me out of the corner of my eye.
What is she thinking, I wonder? But I don’t ask. I can’t handle any more revelations today.
By the time we get back to the hotel, the afternoon is sinking its way into evening. The sun isn’t setting just yet, but I’m definitely ready for something to eat. I help Emma off the bus and into the hotel.
We linger in the lobby, and I decide to cut to the chase. “Want to grab dinner?”
She wavers, then frowns apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I’m feeling tired. Maybe tomorrow, though?”
“Sounds good.” Though I smile at her, I can’t pretend not to be more than a little disappointed. Still, I insist on seeing her up to her room.
“I am fine, you know,” she says as we get into the elevator.
“Humor me,” I tell her because I don’t want to tell her in so many words that I feel a responsibility for her. I have a desire to see that she at least gets home okay.
Not that this is home and not that there wouldn’t be plenty of people around to look after her if she did fall over again, but we shared something today. I don’t want to say it was something real because that makes it sound more severe than it was, but there was something there.
For the first time, I think I actually saw her as a real person rather than someone who exists to irritate me.
And it’s too late to apologize now for the person I was, but hopefully I can be someone else to her too, from now on.
Then we’re standing outside her door, and I realize I don’t want this moment to end. “Oh, well,” I say, needing something to fill the time. “Back to it tomorrow for more fun and games.”
Emma chuckles. “Oh, I can’t wait. Truly, I’ve never felt like more of a doctor than sitting in that room.”
I chuckle in return. “Finally, something we can agree on.”
“I think we might agree on more than you think,” she says. I cock my head slightly, my eyebrows furrowing as I try to understand what she’s talking about.
Maybe I’m reading into it too much, but there seems to be a subtext that I can’t decode underneath her words. Suddenly, the silence, the stillness around us is suffocating, like the whole world has shrunk in this moment to just her and me and this corridor that smells way too much of cleaning products and artificial flowers.
Suddenly, I’m getting the urge to make a horrible mistake.
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then, I guess,” Emma says, starting to turn away from me.
“Here, let me,” I say, leaning over her to open her door.
As I do, our hands brush against each other, and the way I’m looming over her hits me. I’m leaning in as if we’re more intimately acquainted than we really are, as if I have any right to be in her personal space.
And yet I don’t pull away, like there’s some strange magnetism attracting me to her. I’m being pulled in, captured, like I’m not allowed to move away. I’m caught in a web — or a trap.
If it’s a trap, I don’t know that I want to escape.
Emma tilts her chin up towards me like it’s a challenge or a concession, and the worst part of my mind hesitates, letting a fantasy of her lips bloom into my mind for a second before I can shut it down. But a second is all I need for the idea to take root, for her to stop being an annoyance to me and start being a real person.
A real woman.
One who I might even really like.
Then she pushes open the door and the moment shatters, splintering into a million pieces like glass.
I take a sharp breath and draw up to my full height, backing away from her. If she noticed my momentary weakness at all, she doesn’t comment. She doesn’t even seem fazed in the slightest.
In one fell swoop, she’s destroyed any remote hope I might have had of these feelings being reciprocated.
“Well, good night, then,” she says with a smile, her hand on the door handle.
“Good night, Emma.”
With that, she vanishes into her room, and I breathe out a sigh. What just happened to me?
For a second, I was possessed by something I don’t understand, captured by a feeling that I haven’t felt in a very long time.
In my head, the plan had been to say goodnight to Emma, then head down to the dining hall to take full advantage of the buffet and forget all about how stupid today has been. But I don’t feel like doing anything at all anymore.
Instead, I go into my own room and flop down on the bed. It’s been a long day.
I am kind of hungry, but I can’t summon the will to move. I just lie and stare at the ceiling for a long while, all the events of the day rushing around my head like a whirlpool, swimming until I can’t think straight.
That night, when I fall asleep, I dream of Emma.