Tethered (23 page)

“You’re here!” Emmy said, appearing at the top of the stairs. She skipped down the stairs and crushed me in a hug.

“You’re going to suffocate me,” I laughed as I hugged her back.

“I’m so glad you found time to come home,” she said, pulling back from me.

I didn’t tell her that I turned down work to be there. I smiled and looked her over. My heart broke looking at her. There were dark circles under her eyes and her usually vibrant brown and green eyes were dull. She was at least twenty pounds lighter than she should be. I know I had only been around a few times, but how could I have missed this? How did I not hear it in her voice before she broke down to me?

We were both getting too good at keeping secrets from each other, except it had become one sided again. I knew all of hers and she still had no clue about one very big one of mine.

Sam and Fred joined us on the foyer, hugging me and telling me how glad they were to see me. Sam hated my outfit and told me how pretty I was regardless of my eyebrows. Fred wanted to hear all about work and city life. The conversations were never ending as we sat down for dinner. For a little while we were able to take the focus off of Emmy and her issues and Mayson and Tack. I wowed them with my stories of work and misadventures in the city. Some stories were retold, but they seemed to like hearing them and I was glad to oblige. I was indebted to this family. If I had to talk until my mouth was dry to make them content, it was the least I could do.

Later that night, I climbed the stairs to go meet Emmy in her room. We were going to lounge on her bed and eat junk food and drink too much Pepsi while we chatted with the radio on in the background. I knew I would later pay the price for the junk food and cola, but Emmy needed what used to be our normal, and so did I.

I stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked at Emmet’s door. There had been a time, not too long ago in my past when I had been happy behind that door. Happy, aroused, smiley, and loved. I wondered if I opened the door if I would feel all of those emotions again or if I would only feel the empty space that it was. An even more alarming thought occurred. What if I found the jars I gifted him sitting on the bed or bureau, left behind and unwanted?

I didn’t remember crossing the hallway, but suddenly my hand was on the doorknob, and I was turning it slowly. I shrunk back as if the door had burned me. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to push that door open. What if those jars were really there? It would gut me.

But I had to know.

I pushed open the door.

*~*~*

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Emmy told me for the hundredth time that day.

“Me, too,” I said, smiling at her.

“I’m going to be a better person, Donya,” she said earnestly. “I want to be like you. You’re always so damn strong and you don’t take any shit.”

I looked away from her. If only Emmy knew what kind of a person I really was. I was tempted to tell her, but she was looking at me as if I was her rock, and the last thing she needed was for me to roll on her.

“It’s so lonely here without you and Emmet,” she said sadly. “I guess that’s why I was hanging around Mayson and Tack so much.”

“They’re your cousins and friends,” I said gently. “There wasn’t anything wrong with hanging out with them.”

“Yeah,” she said unconvinced. She sighed and changed gears. “Meet any cute guys?”

I laughed. With Emmy it always came back to the cute guys.

“You are so boy crazy!”

“A little bit,” she grinned and then looked at me sheepishly as her fingers twisted the Pop Rock package in her hands. “I really like Leo.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is he on again or off again with Leslie?”

“They’re on again I think,” she frowned. Then she shrugged her shoulders. “Not like it matters either way. I really like him, but it’s no secret that he’s a slut. I want someone who wants me and me only. I want to be the first thing he thinks of when he wakes up and the last thing he thinks about when he goes to sleep.”

“You sure have some romantic notions,” I said.

“There isn’t anything wrong with that. Hell, if I was in Leslie’s shoes, I wouldn’t keep getting back with Leo. I will never be so wrapped up in a guy that I’d let him repeatedly hurt me like that. That’s bullshit. She’s a nice girl. She should be with a guy who respects her and wants her and her only.”

I nodded in agreement as I considered that. I had a guy that wanted me and me only. I blew it.

“She must really love him though,” I said thoughtfully. “If she keeps taking him back.”

“That’s not an excuse. She should love herself more. That’ll never be me, sister.”

I had no idea that many years later I would recall this conversation and remind Emmy of her words.

“Have you spoken to Emmet?” she asked me. “He didn’t make the trip to Louisiana for Thanksgiving and he skipped out of Christmas the day after instead of hanging around. I was hoping we would be able to spend some time together. I kind of miss him. Don’t tell him I said that,” she followed up quickly.

“He didn’t go to Louisiana?” I asked, surprised. I had no idea that he had not been there. No one had mentioned it.

Emmy shook her head. “He said he was spending the time with friends in Boston. Mom gave birth to a full grown cow.”

“No doubt,” I murmured, lost in my thoughts. I wondered if Emmet was with Stella for Thanksgiving and if she was the reason he skipped out of Christmas early.

“Oh, shit,” Emmy said, jumping off of the bed. “I forgot!”

I watched her hurry to her closet.

“Forgot what?” I asked, shoving a handful of chips in my mouth. I knew I was being a pig and the crumbs falling on my lap and the bed wasn’t cool, but it wasn’t often that I got to indulge in the salty snack.

“Emmet left your gift here,” she said, shuffling back to the bed.

I blinked at her. “Emmet got me a gift?”

She presented me with a small rectangle box wrapped neatly in silver gift wrap. A red ribbon was tied around it and formed a perfect bow on top. There was a small tag attached to the ribbon with my name written in Emmet’s handwriting. I held the box in my hands, staring at it with a hard beating heart and large, surprised eyes.

“I told him to just drop it off in New York on his way back to Cambridge, but he gave me an excuse so lame I can’t even remember what it was,” Emmy said, waving her hand. “Then mom thought it would be nice if you had a gift to come home to.”

“I’ve been home since Christmas,” I said pointedly, looking at my friend.

“Yeah, I was kind of screwed up on drugs,” she said defensively. “Cut me some slack.”

I wasn’t going to give her a speech about the drugs. She didn’t need a speech and frankly, I wasn’t in the mood to give her one.

“Are you going to open it?” she asked, reaching for the bag of Doritos.

I wanted to open it alone. I had no idea what to expect in the package, but I had a feeling it would be something very personal.

“What did he get you?” I asked, looking steadily at the box.

She fell silent and I sensed the change in her. I looked up, but Emmy was looking down at the bedspread.

“What?” I asked. Did he not give her anything?

“A bracelet,” she said quietly. “But I lost it while I was fucked up one night. It’s gone.”

I frowned, too, and reached over to rub her arm. There was nothing I could say. I couldn’t tell her it was okay, because really it wasn’t. She had fucked up and losing the bracelet her brother gave to her was only one of the consequences.

“Open your present,” she said, trying to rally. “I’m thinking you got the same as me.”

“Maybe,” I shrugged.

I pulled at one end of the ribbon until it unraveled and fell away from the box. Carefully I peeled away the wrapping paper. I was going to save every bit of it and the ribbon. When the paper was gone, I held a velvet black box in my hands. I was going to keep the box, too.

“For the love of all that’s good in this world,” Emmy sighed in exasperation. “Can you just open it already?”

“My gift, my speed,” I said curtly.

“Slow speed,” she muttered.

“Says the girl who gave me the gift
months
later!”

“Open the damn box, Donya!”

I scowled at her, but flipped the box open anyway. Immediately my scowl disappeared. My mouth fell open and my eyes widened once again.

“Oh, it’s…gorgeous,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Emmy said sadly. “Mine was similar.”

Lying on the white liner inside the box was a charm bracelet made of white gold. There were two charms already linked to it and I touched them gingerly. I fought really hard to not show Emmy how deeply affected I was.

“My charms were an E and a little girl with ‘sister’ printed across her dress,” she said quietly. I glanced up at her and knew that she was struggling not to cry.

“Maybe we’ll find it someday, Em,” I said, though I seriously doubted it.

“Yeah, and maybe pigs will fly,” she snorted and shook her head. “Don’t mind me. Let me put your bracelet on you.”

I allowed her to take the bracelet from the box and I extended my right arm. Emmy carefully put the bracelet on my wrist and smiled, but she looked at the jewelry with open confusion.

“I don’t get it,” she said, fingering the charms.

I shrugged like I didn’t know either, but I did know, and the knowledge made my heart both joyful and sorrowful at the same time. I had the strong urge to run into Emmet’s room and cocoon myself in his bed or his closet of clothes and wrap myself in his scent. When I went in there earlier and found a single Hershey Kiss on his bureau, I knew it was left there for me. I felt it deep inside. Emmet had not only found my jars, but taken them with him. There was a chance he had since trashed them, but maybe not.

I smiled at the charms on my wrist and lied to Emmy once again. “I have no idea what they mean.”

“Oh, who cares,” she said. “It’s a nice bracelet.”

“Yes, it is,” I said.

The white gold Hershey Kiss and diamond heart glittered in the light of the room, and for the first time in months, my heart sighed.

Chapter
Nineteen

Felix Hunter was the man of the hour. He was young, sexy, talented, and a bit of a bad boy. He even looked like a bad boy with his wild, dark hair, deep grey eyes, and his crooked smile that drove women across the world wild with desire. Felix often found himself in situations that made him look like the bad boy, too: caught in bed with the wife of a senator, bar fights, and driving recklessly on his Harley or in one of his fast, fast cars.

Felix first broke onto the acting scene as a preteen, doing bit parts in various television shows before landing a major role in a teenage prime time soap opera that ran for five seasons. Critics didn’t think Felix’s career would go much further, that he would bounce around from one failed show to another until he eventually disappeared into obscurity, but he surprised everyone. He got cast in one of the hottest action movies of the decade and proved his kickboxing skills and his acting skills. If that wasn’t enough to quell the critics, he next starred in a blockbuster drama that won him an Academy Award. The critics shut up after that.

I, along with fifteen other girls, was chosen to be in a photo shoot with Felix for the cover of
Rolling Stone
. The other girls were giddy at the prospect of meeting Felix, but I was more worried about standing out amongst the girls – not to get Felix’s attention as they all seemed desperate for – but to make sure that the photographer wouldn’t forget my face. I didn’t want to blend in. I needed to make an impression, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that.

The girls went into a tizzy when Felix came out for the shoot, dressed in an open button down shirt and white linen pants that hung low on his hips, revealing a well-defined chest with a smattering of hair, ripped abs, and a trail of hair that disappeared into the pants that barely covered his genital area. I couldn’t deny he was good looking, but I wasn’t going to trip over myself trying to get his attention.

He smiled tightly at the other girls and allowed himself to be positioned for the shoot. I was the only girl who hadn’t run up to him squealing like a stuck pig. I stood off to the side, listening for direction, watching everything very carefully until I was told to find my place. Felix was supposed to sit on a stool, looking cool and unbothered by us – his adoring, horny fans. The vision was that we were supposed to reach for him, pulling at his clothing, touching his chest, his arms, and make him look like a wanted man. Most of the girls positioned themselves at his feet or beside him. The photographer insisted I stand beside him, too. I did as I was told and we began.

The shoot was boring. Felix yawned boringly a few times and the photographer was frustrated. He kicked a couple of the girls out of the picture because in his words “You suck at life. Go suck somewhere else.”

I didn’t want to suck at life, and I surely didn’t want to do it anywhere else. While those girls were moping away and the rest of the girls vied for the perfect position, I decided to go against the grain. I stood directly behind Felix while lights were readjusted and the crew geared up to restart the shoot. Like the other girls, I was wearing a white tank top, hip-hugging blue jeans, and no shoes. I took a deep, fortifying breath, just as the photographer started yelling out instructions again. He yelled “What the hell is the black girl doing behind Felix? I can’t see you, black girl!”

I pulled off my tank top, tossed it offset, stepped onto the back rungs of the stool, elevating myself both above Felix and the other girls. Before Felix could look back to figure out what the hell I was doing, I wrapped one arm around his waist and positioned my hand on his hard stomach with my fingertips just touching the waistband of his pants. I dug my knees into his sides for leverage, splayed my fingertips across his strong jaw and gently bit down on his ear as I stared ferociously at the photographer who fortunately stopped asking questions and started taking pictures.

Felix wasted no time resting his arms on my legs and following
my
lead with poses as the other girls continued to reach for him. There were pictures with my hands twisted in his hair, my lips on his jawline, his head turned towards me as if we were about to kiss (and then he
did
slip me the tongue), and pictures of my hands all over his body. When I say all over, I mean
all over
. No matter what the pose was, I made sure my face was seen.