Even though I’m welcoming numb, even though I’m trying desperately to dive headfirst into it and lose myself in the blackness, an overwhelming wave of sadness hammers into me like a tanker truck and I flinch with the impact.
Olivia’s dying and if she was supposed to be in my life, but wasn’t because my mom ran... “What did I miss? With Olivia? What did I miss not being around her?”
Oz
EMILY’S KILLING ME. Tears pool at the bottom of those dark eyes and I watch helplessly as she bleeds. What did Emily miss by not living here? What will she miss if Olivia dies? Everything worth living for.
“Olivia took care of me,” I say and my own voice tastes foreign. My heart rate increases because this sharing shit, it sure as hell isn’t me. “When I was younger, my parents weren’t ready for...” Me. “A kid, so Olivia took care of me until they could. Don’t get me wrong. They love me and I love them, but Mom was working her way through nursing school and Dad had a job with jacked-up night hours. A kid made things complicated.”
Emily’s waiting for me to continue and I don’t want to continue. I’d prefer to return to the kitchen and suck down a few more bottles of beer.
Olivia had a seizure tonight.
A seizure.
She’s had them before. It’s not new, but the cancer has spread to her blood. It’s over. It’s all fucking over.
“Olivia...” My voice breaks and I clear my throat. “She raised me. The room across from the one you’ve been sleeping in? That was mine. Slept in it every night until my mom switched shifts when I was eight.”
Emily’s too damn pale and those eyes are too damn wide. Who the hell can process so much shit in such a short period of time, but because Emily’s quick on the draw, she does. “So Olivia is like your mom?”
My throat goes raw and I can only nod. Screw this. “I don’t want to play this fucked-up history game anymore. You can go to sleep if you want. I’ll take the couch.”
“Oz,” she says.
I strum the guitar again. “Can we let this go?”
She sighs and I accept the sound as her moving on from the conversation.
“Want me to head to the living room?” I ask.
Emily yawns while she shakes her head no. She’s fighting sleep and I don’t understand why. “Tell me why you’re scared of the dark.”
“If you could do anything other than work for the security company, what would you do?” she counters.
“Nothing. The security company is what I want to do.”
“Yeah, but what do you like to do? You know, in your down time, and please don’t tell me play guitar.”
“Don’t think I’m rock-star material? I took two months of lessons for this.” I play one more chorus of “Smoke on the Water.” “Why are you scared of the dark?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me what you would do if the security company didn’t exist.”
In the soft lamplight, Emily looks like a dream. White cotton shirt that hugs her perfectly, those skintight jeans and her silky chestnut hair tumbling around her shoulders. Normally, I wouldn’t answer this type of question, but Emily’s breaking down her walls and I’ll be damned if I give her an opportunity to build them back up.
“Deal.”
“First off,” she says. “I’m not scared of the dark.”
I raise both of my eyebrows in disbelief and she has enough of a sense of humor to smirk. “Technically, I’m scared of the combination of the dark and woods.”
“Thanks for clearing that up.” I pick at the strings as if I’m on the verge of playing something brilliant, but I’ve already run through my entire music catalog. Those two months of lessons were all I cared to take. “Mind telling me the story now?”
“You know how on the six o’clock news they report when a dead body was found?”
Not liking where this is headed, I lay my hand over the strings and they vibrate beneath my skin. “Yeah.”
“Have you ever considered how the body’s found?”
“Can’t say I have.” Until now.
Emily shrugs her shoulders like what she’s about to divulge isn’t a big deal. “Neither did I until I was eight, got separated from my Girl Scout troop in the woods, got turned around, fell into a hole covered with sticks and leaves, and spent the night with the next headlining story on the six o’clock news.”
I can’t breathe. “You’re shitting me.”
“Wish I was. By the way, I will totally accept your apology for making fun of me for freaking out at Olivia’s wake whenever you’re ready to give it. Your turn.”
I prop the guitar against the wall. “Fuck, no. You don’t drop that type of news then switch subjects.”
“Well.” Emily lifts the ends of her hair and twists her fingers into it. “There’s not much to tell and, to be honest with you, I enjoy talking about hanging with a dead guy as much as you enjoy talking about Olivia dying.”
Touché.
“As I said, your turn.”
Guess it is, but it feels wrong to switch the conversation to me after Emily declared something so huge. “Does Eli know?”
“No. Only a few people do. The media and the police never released how the body was found, just that it was. You don’t have to look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“As if I’m going to go spastic like I did at the funeral home. That was a special circumstance. I hate the dark and the woods so the worst that will happen is that I’ll stay up until the sun rises.”
My world narrows in on Emily. “How many nights have you slept through since you’ve been here?”
She rubs eyes that are plagued by dark circles and exhaustion. “Probably as many as you have sleeping outside my window.”
Fuck this. I stretch past her and pull down the blanket. “Lie down and get some sleep.”
“It’s been a crazy night.” She draws her knees in closer to keep from touching me, but it’s a twin bed and I fill the entire mattress on my own. “I thought I was watching Olivia die and the woods are practically covering us and it’s after four so the sun will rise soon. I’ll be okay. If you’re tired, it won’t bother me if you go to sleep.”
“I’ll stay with you while you sleep.” I prop myself onto my elbow on my side to watch her reaction. “Will that help?”