Chapter 38 – Grant
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
GRANT
Sitting across the street in my cruiser, I stare at the house. The lights are on upstairs. I can see Keely’s shadow against the curtains as she stands on her bed and pretends to sing into a microphone, which is really a brush, and I breathe a little easier.
I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be stalking this family. I shouldn’t be wrapped around this little girl’s finger, but damn it to hell if something about her doesn’t remind me of Emerson and make me want to protect her.
It has to be the dream that had me driving this way without thought to where I’d end up. Even after a couple of days, I can’t seem to shake the heartbreak I’d felt in my chest reliving the moment when I told Mrs. Gellar about Em.
Of course the dream—the clarity of it all these years later—only made the file folder so much more tempting to pull into bed with me and go through.
I can’t do that to her.
Then again, wouldn’t it be easier to know what ghosts I have to combat?
Shit.
This woman is fucking with me. I don’t get fucked up by women. I date them. I have fun with them. I move on when shit gets too serious.
But Em is . . . Em is different. She always has been.
I scrub my hands over my face, and admit that Emerson is right when she teases me about having a hero complex. Is there something so wrong about that? Maybe if I can save Keely, then I can make up for not saving Emerson sooner?
Even I know that’s a whole lot of projecting.
Physical abuse is bad. Sexual abuse is horrid. A child shouldn’t have to endure either.
So, I will make sure she’s okay.
I pause and try to figure out which of the two females I’m referring to.
Needing a distraction to clear my head, I turn the engine on to leave, but I can’t help myself. I can’t come here and not look when I promised her I would.
So I’m out of the cruiser and across the street in seconds, trying to look inconspicuous as I jog up their pathway to check on the rock garden.
There’s nothing new. At all. It all looks the same, and not just the same, but there has been no new ones added. There’s always new ones added.
I’m not sure if that worries me or if it means things have gotten better.
Things never get better.
Abusers just don’t wake one morning and stop abusing.
I walk back to the car, slide behind the wheel, and watch the light in Keely’s window for a long time while I try to come to terms with all of the shit in my head.
The shit that tells me I need to see Emerson.
The part of me that needs to prove to her that her rules are going to be broken.
One.
By.
One.
Until she sees that sometimes sharing a past means you can build a future together.
It’s a bitch that the only girl I’ve ever really loved is the only one it seems I’ll ever really want.
I’m more determined than ever to prove it to her.
Her rules don’t matter.
Her past doesn’t matter.
It’s just her.
It’s just the now.
And it’s about damn time.