Instrumental Emmett
Instrumental
Emmett
“Don’t look now,” Derek teases, bouncing the hacky sack from his foot to his knee as he nods toward the RV, “but I think they’re talking about you.”
Emmett follows his gaze, just managing to catch Delilah whipping her head away and leaning in closer to Joyce, who’s topping off her drink where they’re sitting back at the picnic table with Megan.
The fairy lights over the little patio make the amber liquid in their glasses gleam gold.
Delilah’s cheeks are pink, and she’s gesturing wildly with her free hand, Megan and Joyce watching her with visible amusement.
“I think she just happened to look this way,” they say, turning back to Derek just in time to catch the little ball on their own calf.
Emmett still doesn’t really understand the game, but from the way the others have been hooting and cheering for them, they at least seem to be doing it right.
“No way,” Ames says, a gleeful smile on their face.
They’d tapped out of the game already, settling comfortably back against a tree with their arms looped around Libby’s waist, resting their chin on her shoulder.
“That’s Megan’s let’s talk about your situationship face. They’re totally talking about you.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Emmett admits. They bounce the ball back to Willa, who misses it by an inch and then huffs as she does a complicated series of hops through the boxes Derek scratched into the ground. “Is it a bad thing?”
“Depends,” Derek says. “Are you…y’know…” Even though it’s starting to get too dark to make out faces, Emmett can see him waggling his eyebrows. They’ll probably have to stop playing soon. “…Into Delilah?”
Emmett misses the next toss of the hacky sack. “Am I—” The no catches on their tongue, and they don’t know what to do with the sudden awareness that it would be a lie to deny the…what? Attraction? Affection? Curiosity?
There’s probably an entire language dedicated to parsing out how Emmett feels about Delilah, who’s opened them up to more in the past two days than they’ve experienced in the entire rest of their life, but they don’t know how to speak it.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Derek scoops up the hacky sack and comes over to sling an arm around Emmett’s shoulders, a casual, easy touch. Emmett instinctively flinches, but then leans, experimentally, into the contact. Derek grins and gives them a squeeze. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“It’s just…” Emmett swallows, casting another look toward Delilah. Some of her hair has come loose from her bun, tumbling around her face in messy curls she keeps sweeping back behind her ears. Emmett’s fingers itch to do it for her. “I’ve never…”
Willa joins them, looping her arm through Derek’s free one and resting her head on his shoulder. “We’ve all been there,” she says, her breezy humor giving way to a quiet gentleness. “You don’t have to know the answer. It’s okay to just let things play out. What’s the rush, right?”
Emmett thinks about the constant ache in their arm, the way the limb feels heavier than it did yesterday. The patch of stone was larger this morning than it had been last night. “Right,” they echo weakly.
The evening darkens around them. Eventually, it gets too dark to keep playing, and they spend another half hour talking around the picnic table by their campsite.
Emmett mostly listens, just happy to be included.
When Ames starts dozing off on Derek’s shoulder, Willa announces that it’s time for them to turn in.
Emmett can’t resist a look at the camper hitched to their car, raising their eyebrows as they try to determine how the four of them sleep comfortably in such a small space.
Libby catches them looking. “We get very cozy,” she says, cupping a hand around her mouth in an exaggerated whisper. Then, with a wink, “Maybe you and Delilah could try it sometime.”
“Bed for you,” Willa says firmly, tugging her up.
They share a round of good-nights, and Emmett finds themself sitting alone, unsure what to do next.
They hadn’t built a fire near their own campsite, and they’re not quite tired enough to get out their sleeping bag and bundle down next to the van.
Plus, Delilah’s still talking with Joyce and Megan, and they don’t want her to have to walk back to Roscoe alone—not that they really think the older women would let her, but still, it feels wrong to leave without her.
They’re just starting to consider whether they should go find something useful to do when Delilah’s voice startles them out of their thoughts, a cheerful “Emmett!” the only warning they get before she all but pounces onto their back. “I found you!”
“I was here the whole time.” Emmett gently eases her off so that they can get to their feet and turn to look at her.
Even in the darkness, Delilah is flushed and visibly tipsy, walking with that extra-intentional steadiness that only comes from being too drunk to coordinate one’s limbs as she tugs them along with her toward Roscoe.
Emmett stays close, ready to catch her if she stumbles. “Did you have fun with Joyce?”
“I had so much fun with Joyce,” Delilah says emphatically, leaning her shoulder into Emmett’s with a grin.
“I want to be Joyce when I grow up, Emmett. I want to road-trip with my wife and have a billion random kids and a really bitchy cat. Two cats. Three cats. I don’t care if that’s too many cats.
” She pauses, looking thoughtful. “Probably more femme, though. I want to be Joyce but with Megan’s hair. ”
Emmett helps Delilah sit down at the picnic table next to Roscoe, trying to hide their smile.
The campfire at the site across from theirs is burning cheerfully, surrounded by a small group of men talking animatedly.
It gives off enough light for Emmett to be able to see her even before they turn on the battery-powered lamp on the table. “Sounds like a good life.”
Delilah hums, resting her chin on her hand, and then purses her lips, straightens up in her seat, and looks at Emmett with concern. “Hey,” she says, sounding less tipsy than she had a moment ago. “Can I ask you something personal?”
“Yes,” Emmett says, mirroring her posture. “But I might not answer.”
“Do you have friends?”
Emmett blinks, startled. “Do I have…friends?”
“I mean—” Delilah gestures over her shoulder, toward Megan and Joyce’s RV, and then over her other shoulder, where the lights inside Derek, Ames, Libby, and Willa’s camper have dimmed almost to darkness.
“You looked like you were having such a good time out there with them. I mean, I’ve never seen you laugh like that, not once—”
“You’ve known me for two days.”
“—and you’ve never talked about anyone that makes you look like that, and it’s not like I haven’t given you a chance.
I never shut up about Iris, and that’s just one friend.
And I mean, Iris is the best, she’s so smart and pretty and knows so much stuff and has the best eyes and has never once made me feel like a shitty friend for not always listening to her podcast and always takes my side when I’m fighting with someone, and—” She breaks off, pursing her lips.
“Wait. I had a point. How did I get on how gay I am for Iris?” Emmett opens their mouth to respond, but Delilah rolls her eyes before they can say anything.
“Please, I showed you her picture, everyone is gay for Iris. You would be too, but I’ve been hiding her best pictures away to protect your fragile heart. ”
Thoroughly lost now, Emmett says, “I think you were telling me I didn’t have friends.”
“I mean, I was telling you I think you don’t have friends, and that I’m sad about it,” Delilah says. “I was hoping you’d tell me I was wrong, though.”
Emmett hesitates.
The truth is…Delilah’s right. They don’t really have friends.
Friendship, as far as Emmett can see, requires an exchange of truth-telling that Emmett has always known they could never promise.
There would always be something to hide: limitations they couldn’t explain, commitments they’d be unable to keep, obligations that would always come first, secrets they could never tell.
Maybe it would be different if there were others like Emmett. And maybe, they think, there are others like them. But if there are, they’re keeping as many secrets as Emmett is. Would they know another golem by sight? Be able to sense a connection?
If they could, they certainly never have.
“I’ve had friendly acquaintances,” Emmett says.
People at shul, other members of the communities Jacob nudged them to join, men who attended the same minyans or Torah study groups—people who were perfectly kind and perfectly friendly, who shared parts of themselves with Emmett, even if Emmett didn’t share very much in return.
“There have been some people who I might have been able to consider friends if things were different. And some who I think might have considered me a friend, though I don’t know if I deserve the consideration. ”
“Why would you think that?”
Sometimes finding loopholes is hard. Other times, Emmett can just go with the easiest yet least accurate truth—understatement wrapped in shame.
Emmett says, in an understatement to end all understatements, “I’m not good at getting close to people.”
Delilah’s frown deepens, and a worry line appears between her brows.
She’d taken her hair down at some point in the evening, clipping it loosely back instead of tying it up in a bun.
A few curls have slipped out of the clip and she swipes at them, brushing them off her face, clearly impatient. “Bullshit.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Absolute bullshit,” she says, leaning back slightly on the bench and crossing her arms. “What about dating? Have you ever…”