Chapter 56 – Emerson
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
EMERSON
I look at the list of texts on my phone.
Grant and his apologies and explanations and hurt I don’t want to deal with.
Christopher and his promises that we should have loan approval in a week or two, and since he’s charging me a below the rate fee, how about I repay him by going out for a few drinks. At what point will the man understand that it isn’t going to happen?
Desi and her daily check-in to make sure I’m okay and that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.
Leo and his questions about the classes over the next few days and how to arrange staff since I’m the one who typically does it.
I scroll through them again and then toss my phone to the end of the bed before snuggling deeper under the comforter. It smells too much like Grant and so I pretend the world outside and everything that happened doesn’t exist.
I know they all think I’m out jumping. That I closed my eyes and put my finger to the map and drove to that spot. That I’m chasing the wind and being the wanderer I typically am.
But I’m not.
My car’s in the red hangar where it can’t be seen.
And I’m holed up in my apartment. Alone .
The person I’ve become fighting the urge to cut myself, while the little girl underneath screams for more of the pain she knows. The pain she needs to feel again to know she’s alive.
But I haven’t cut myself.
And I won’t.
If there’s one thing I’m going to win in this whole damn situation, it’s going to be that.
I don’t even have a desire to jump.
Grant stole that from me.
Just like he stole my heart.
My trust.
But both of them have been broken before. Both of them have wounded me, and I have survived.
The only difference this time around is my ability not to feel anything .
Because hell if right now I don’t feel everything .
So much so that it hurts.
It pisses me off more than anything because I can’t turn them off.
That I can’t run away from them when that’s all I’ve ever known how to do.