Instrumental Emmett #2
“You tell me to,” Emmett repeats. The words come out calmly, but they know how strange it sounds.
Delilah reaches over with her free hand and laces their fingers together.
“You can give me orders now, Ruth, and I have to obey.” They take a breath.
“Jacob told me to leave you behind, take myself back to where he made me, and undo it. You, as Jacob’s child, can tell me not to. To do something else instead.”
Ruth’s lips part in surprise. Finally, she says, in a small, uncertain voice, “Is it just me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it just me, or could Noah or Dana give you orders too?”
Emmett tilts their head, considering. “They could. If they wanted to.”
“Noah wouldn’t,” she murmurs, more to herself, Emmett thinks, than to them. “But Dana—” She wrinkles her nose, chewing her lower lip, then looks back at Emmett. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. I’ve got it.” She takes a deep breath, shaking on the inhale, but her voice is steady when she speaks.
“I want you to live, Emmett,” she says, and she sounds so grown-up, so strong and clear and kind, and Emmett is so proud of the person she’s become, so grateful for this chance to see who she keeps becoming.
“I want you to live like we get to live—like a person. A real person. I want you to make your own decisions. For the rest of your life. I don’t ever want you to obey another order again, unless you want to.
I want you to choose what you do next. To choose what your life looks like. Even if it means we’re not in it.”
It’s Emmett’s turn to stare at her. They feel—something. Strange. Confusing. A tingling in their fingertips, pins and needles. Their voice comes out in a whisper when they manage, “What?”
Ruth grins, waving a hand in a flourish. “Genie,” she says in an entirely different tone, wiggling her fingers, eyes sparkling with mischief and joy. “You’re free.”
Delilah lets out a sharp, disbelieving peal of laughter, but Emmett barely hears it.
They’re too caught up in a sudden swell of sensation through their body, everything flooding with heat and cold and color and light and pain and pleasure and life, real life.
They stretch their hands out in time to watch the patches of stone soften and melt into smooth skin, the aching tightness disappearing along with the stone, leaving an almost dizzying lack of pain in its wake.
The feeling keeps going, spreading from their fingertips to their toes.
It feels like the wind whipping through their hair when they sat behind Roscoe’s wheel, the open road stretching out into endless possibilities.
It feels like slipping their feet into the clear, fresh water of a natural spring.
It feels like Delilah’s fingers tracing their bare skin, coaxing them to life in a thousand sweet, brilliant, unexpected ways.
It feels like watching Delilah fall apart beneath their fingers, their mouth, their own body shining like the sun as it finds a path to hers.
It feels like staring up at the stars, watching the universe swirl above them, breathing the scent of Delilah’s hair, the pressure of her weight against their side.
Emmett’s heart pounds and their skin shudders and their lungs expand as they suck in a huge, shocked breath, fumbling for Delilah’s hand, twisting to look at her with wide, clear eyes, breathing, breathing—
And Delilah looks back at them, her eyes full of tears, amazement and awe and overwhelmed delight on her beautiful face.
“Did it work?” Ruth demands. “Emmett? Did it work?”
“It worked,” Emmett breathes. They drag their gaze away from Delilah’s face to look at Ruth. “It worked. I can—” They let out a laugh, light and bubbling. It’s the youngest, sweetest sound they think they’ve ever made. “I feel real.”
Ruth lets out a sob, touching her fingers to her lips. “Baruch HaShem,” she says, with a sincerity Emmett hasn’t heard from her in years, and then, with far less reverence, “You absolute asshole, you scared the shit out of me. Noah is going to kill you when I tell him about this.”
“Seems a little counterproductive,” Emmett says, but they’re grinning so hard it hurts, dizzy with the understanding that they can say that, that they can say anything they want, that they can keep talking, keep listening, keep being.
Another squeeze of their hand makes them glance back at Delilah.
She waggles the phone very slightly, indicating that Emmett can take it and have some time alone with Ruth, if they want.
They give her a grateful smile and reach over to claim it.
Delilah beams, darts in to kiss their cheek (Ruth squeaks out a “What?”), and then ducks out of the car.
The door slams closed behind her. Emmett only realizes they’ve pressed a hand to their cheek, fingertips covering the still-warm impression of Delilah’s lips, when Ruth demands, “Emmett Stein, who the actual hell was that?”
Emmett laughs so hard they cry, light and safe and free. They don’t have to chase after Delilah, they don’t have to rush this conversation, they don’t have to do anything, not unless they want to. They have time. And no one else can tell them how to spend it.
Smiling, they lean back in their seat, cupping the phone in both hands, and tell their sister everything.
Everything is foreseen; and free will is given.
—Pirkei Avot 3:15