27. Emma
27
EMMA
“ M om, please, if you would just let me explain?—”
“Explain?!” Dad roars, slamming his fist down on the table and causing the glasses and vase to skip slightly into the air. “There is nothing to explain! Never in all my years have I been so utterly humiliated or so completely ashamed of the disgrace you’ve become!”
Tears immediately spring into my eyes and I clutch at my own fingers, tightening my grip until my knuckles ache. If only they would let me speak, even for a minute and then I could explain everything.
“You’ve broken my heart,” Mom weeps as if the pictures they’d been sent had physically harmed her. My pictures. Somehow, the pictures I took of my time with Asher, Caspian, and Finn had found their way to my parents, and I had no idea how.
“If you could just tell me who sent them?—”
“Enough! I don’t want to hear your voice, not right now. Not ever!” Dad lifts his fist from the table and begins to pace up and down while he seethes with rage. His face pulses red and the vein below his ear stands out so far that you could snip it with clippers if you dared. Keeping the table between us is probably the right thing to do, given the explosive anger I’ve witnessed from him in the past.
“I can’t believe you,” Mom weeps, clutching tissues to her chest. She rocks back and forth where she stands about a foot away from me.
I can barely think. I can’t process it. I’d fled Caspian’s apartment the moment I got the text and driven here with only one goal; find out who sent the pictures. My parents are less than forthcoming with information.
“Please,” I try again as Dad falls silent. “Can I just?—”
“Asher?” Dad yells loudly, spinning sharply on his heel. “Out of all the men in the world, somehow you end up fucking Asher ?”
My spine recoils slightly upon hearing my father speak so callously and my pounding heart vibrates just below my jaw.
“Do you have any idea how many people saw that picture? My work email is monitored!”
His work email? Someone sent it to his work email. As clues go, I have no idea how that helps me but at least it’s something.
“We should call the police,” Mom whimpers. “And the school. Report him. This surely breaks so many rules. We trusted him, he’s supposed to be a friend and instead, he’s out here defiling our daughter!” She collapses into another round of sobs while a strange static invades my ears. All their words are fuzzy because despite my pain, despite my shame at facing down my parents like this, one thing is clear.
Asher doesn’t deserve to take punishment for this.
“No,” I snap, allowing some of my frustration to leak through. “Asher’s done nothing wrong, don’t you understand that? We’re all consenting adults and what we get up to in private is none of your business!”
“He’s old enough to be your father!” Dad yells and he slams his hand into the side of the wall unit this time. All of the precious china inside jumps at the shock, as do I.
“You can’t report him. There’s not even anything to report,” I continue hurriedly. “I don’t even want to be at that school. I don’t like writing. I don’t want a stuffy job in an office writing for some shady company just because you both want me to. I want to take pictures of beautiful people doing beautiful things and you know what?”
My voice rises louder and louder.
“I’m good at it. I’m fucking great at it. I’m an amazing photographer and I’m amazing at making people feel at ease and relaxed. I have a talent for it and I want to pursue it. The only reason I gave a shit about that school is because you both forced me to?—”
My mother’s palm collides forcefully with my cheek, silencing my anxious tirade as my head snaps to the side. A deathly silence falls and heat blooms out from the point of impact. My heart stops briefly in my chest and a new pain swells in my chest. It grows louder and louder, taking up so much space that I can barely breathe. When I swallow, an iron tang coats my tongue. My stomach ties itself into knots, and my knuckles scream from the strength of my own grip.
Then, there’s rapid knocking at the front door and my father strides away to answer it.
“No,” Dad growls loudly. “Not you, get the fuck out of my house. Hey!”
The door of the lounge flies open, and Asher stumbles in, his eyes wide. I glimpse him out of the corner of my eye, a wobbly mirage through the tears spilling over my lashes.
“Emma!”
“You!” Mom gasps and she turns away from me. “Get out before I call the police!”
“Emma!” Asher’s warm hand brushes my bare elbow and his touch is molten. I can’t move. I’m held in place by the pain blooming from my mother’s strike and I’m too ashamed to let him see me like this.
“Caspian called me. He told me what happened and that you left. I knew you would come here, but you shouldn’t have done it alone.” Asher’s voice is low and soft, as if sharing a secret, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing I can do.
My life is falling apart around me.
“Get your hands off my daughter!” Dad roars and he charges forward. He doesn’t reach Asher. My mother intervenes in time and holds him back.
I lift my head. Asher’s brown eyes brim with concern, then his face hardens as his gaze lands on the flaring pain across my face. His touch to my elbow becomes a grip and he turns to my parents.
“You hit her?”
“How I discipline my child is no concern of yours,” Mom spits like a hissing snake. “Because she’s a child, did you forget that?”
“She’s twenty-two,” Asher snaps back. “And perfectly capable of making her own decisions. We both are. She is a gorgeous, wonderful, kind and caring soul with a heart of gold which is why it was so easy for me to fall for her. I don’t know what you’ve seen or what you think you know but Emma is cared for deeply, and if you have any inkling of compassion in your heart for your own child, that is all that would matter.”
“You have no right!” Dad yells. “No right to my daughter!”
“A right?” Asher snorts dryly. “She’s not a piece of property. She’s a person and she’s happy. How dare you stand there and try to act like you have some moral high ground after you’ve assaulted her!”
Their argument rages back and forth, but oddly it seems far away from me. Like it’s in the distance and I’m watching from afar. My chest hurts. My face hurts.
I don’t want to be here.
“She’s an ungrateful little bitch. That’s what she is,” Dad snarls. “Paying for her to go to a good school, setting her on a good career path, and instead, you’ve dragged her down some terrible path of sin with pornographic pictures and?—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence because I will not be responsible for what happens next,” Asher snaps back. “I came here to tell you how loved your daughter is but I see now, nothing I can say will change the opinion you already have. You don’t care about her or her happiness, you just care that your mold is broken.”
“Why you little?—”
Asher slides his arm around his shoulders and when he coaxes me to move, my legs obey.
“If those pictures, or news of those pictures leaves this house I will have you charged with assault, do you hear me?”
“Us?” Mom screeches. “You’re the one sleeping with our daughter!”
“This isn’t the end of this!” Dad yells and his voice cracks slightly.
Asher removed me from the house and brought me to a nearby diner where Finn and Caspian were waiting in a booth. Coffee was ordered but I can’t bring myself to drink it. Even the warmth from the cup was too much for my hands, so instead, I sat on the edge of the seat, bouncing one leg and wringing my fingers together.
“Emma,” Finn says softly. “Are you alright?”
“Of course she’s not alright,” Caspian mutters. “No one would be alright after this.”
“You know what I mean,” Finn replies.
“I’ve never seen him like that,” Asher says, leaning back into the booth with a deep sigh. “I knew he had a temper, even back in college but he was ready to strip the paper from the walls.”
“Fucking psycho,” Finn mutters.
I know they don’t mean to talk about me like I’m not here. They’re just nervous. Concerned. Our secret is being leaked and no one knows who will find out next. My cheek throbs painfully, even as I continue to toy with the split inside with my tongue. I can’t leave it alone, and in some strange way, the sharper pain is calming.
“I don’t know who would do this,” I say eventually, staring past them to a spot of nothing beyond the windows. “I don’t know who I’ve upset enough that they would do this.”
“You said it got sent to your father’s work email, right?” Asher says. “That’s publicly available so maybe it’s not someone close to you?”
“People close to me don’t have my dad’s personal email either,” I point out. “So that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Security is still pouring over the tapes from the night those pictures were stolen.” Caspian drains his mug. “And for my studio.”
Right. Caspian’s studio.
Warmth builds behind my eyes but I have no more tears to shed. Over and over I run through people in my mind that could have done this, but I don’t know anyone this cruel. I don’t think so, anyway.
“Is there anyone you’re in a disagreement with?” Finn asks softly, his eyes on me even as I stare out the window. “Anyone with a vendetta from your past that would want to hurt you?”
“No way this is random,” Asher agrees.
“The only person who hates me…or hates what I’m doing with you three is Meghan. She…she accused me of cheating when I was seeing all of you and you didn’t know. Then when we agreed to try things out with all of us, she called me a whore. Blamed me for getting drugged at the club because she thinks I was asking for it.”
“Asking for it?” Caspian snaps suddenly. “Who the hell says something like that?”
“She’s…she’s from a conservative background,” I reply tiredly as if that explains anything. “She has a lot of views to unlearn.”
“Hardly an excuse,” Finn remarks.
“But she’s not…cruel. Not like this. At least I don’t think so. I don’t know.”
I don’t know anything. From the car break-in until now, it’s been one exhaustive thing after another, and with exams in a few days, I have no clue how I’ll keep my focus through it.
What if my parents make good on the threat and call the college? What if Finn, Caspian, and Asher all lose their jobs because of me? I’ll get kicked out of Finn’s class, maybe not even graduate.
I’ll be so completely alone.
It’s too much and the large, crushing weight in my chest grows further. I have to get out of here.
“I have to go.” I stand slowly, and all three of them move as if to follow. “No. I…I think it’s best if we stay away from each other for a little while.”
“Emma…” Caspian’s voice aches like the inside of my chest, but I can’t bring myself to look at them. I know if I do, I will crumble and a few minutes of comfort won’t be worth what could happen if anyone else saw us together.
“I’m sorry. I just…until things calm down, we shouldn’t see each other. It’s for the best.”
My head agrees while my heart crumbles in my chest.