Words we never say, p.15
Words We Never Say, page 15
“That was really amazing what you did with the girls, Emery,” Helen told Emery as she was getting ready to leave. “I haven’t ever seen them eat broccoli willingly.”
Emery smiled to herself, pleased. “My mother used to do that with me and Jaxx. It took me longer to catch on than it did for Jaxx, but to this day I still love vegetables.”
Helen reached out and surprised Emery by wrapping her in a hug. “She’s sounds like she was a wonderful woman. Thank you for coming tonight. It really was so great to finally meet the girl who got Grayson to start smiling again.”
Emery felt her heart skip a beat as she looked over to meet Grayson’s eyes. He gave her a half-grin and shrugged.
Grayson and Emery said their goodbyes to Grayson’s family and walked outside.
“Do you need a ride home?” Emery asked, hoping that he’d say yes. “Maybe we can watch a movie?”
“Um,” Grayson started as he looked down at his phone. “One second.” He typed rapidly for a moment, and then waited. His phone buzzed and he only looked at it for a moment before returning to Emery’s curious gaze. “Yeah, that would be great, Em.”
As Emery began to back out of the driveway, Grayson said, “I told you they’d love you.”
Emery lit up immediately, feeling electricity pulsing through her veins. “They were all so amazing. I loved having a family dinner like that. It just felt so—”
“Right?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
It took a total of five minutes to get to Grayson’s house from his aunt’s. When Emery got out of the car, Grayson was by her side in seconds. He looked nervous and was rubbing the back of his neck. “Seeing you with my family tonight. Seeing you every day. I just—I have to say that—” Grayson shook his head, swiveled away from her, and then stepped back, closer this time. He took Emery’s face in his hands, gently grazing her cheeks with his thumbs. “I love you, Em.”
Emery was left stunned before her heart rate skyrocketed. She started shaking her head and laughing giddily before she just pulled his face down so she could kiss him.
He loved her. Grayson loved her. She felt like she was floating as he kissed her back. They were running their hands over each other’s bodies, so hungry for one another. Grayson’s hands traveled through her hair, down her back, held her waist. Emery held the back of his neck, touched his solid chest, and eventually left one palm on the right side, feeling his erratic heartbeat. She felt his lips softly move from her own down to her neck. It made her feel high with the sensation of it all, but it wasn’t just her body that was buzzing. It was more than she had ever felt in any relationship. It was passion, longing, more than just physical touch. Each kiss felt emotional, an unseen link between them, pulling them together. She wanted more of him. Emery wanted all of him.
Before she knew it, they were inside, taking their shoes off in the dark, Grayson, helping her out of her coat. She had to say it before they did anything else. Emery needed to make sure that he knew.
She stopped kissing him and held his face, looking into his eyes even though she could only see the outline of his face. Emery could feel the wide smile spreading across her face. “I love you too, Grayson.”
The light switched on and bright spots filled Emery’s vision as she blinked them away. She looked at Grayson’s lips and saw red lipstick smeared across them. She would have laughed hysterically had it not been for the dark figure standing in the hallway.
Emery almost screamed but somehow was able to hold it together.
Grayson, on the other hand, simply looked confused. “Eric?” he said and Emery felt relieved.
Eric stepped into the light and Emery blinked a few times, thinking that she was imagining it. “You,” she said without thinking. She tried to rectify the strange greeting. “I mean, I saw you at Café Rev almost two months ago.” Emery was baffled that the man standing in front of her was the same man in the picture in Grayson’s bedroom. Eric looked, skinnier. He looked more like a shell than an actual person.
Grayson didn’t look back at Emery as he continued to speak. “I thought you said you were going out?”
“I lied,” Eric said. His voice was deep and slurred. He was holding a half empty beer bottle in his hand.
Eric was watching Emery and it made her very uncomfortable. This was the man she saw in the café when she met up with Matt. Just like he had then, he kept staring at her now. Hadn’t Grayson told her that he was away on business? He didn’t really talk about his uncle that much, so Emery couldn’t be sure.
“Emery,” Grayson said, taking a deep breath, “this is my uncle, Eric. Eric, this is Emery.”
Emery reached out to shake his hand and Eric gave her a small smile. “We did see each other at the café. I knew Gray had been hanging out with a girl, but he never said who.” Eric pulled Grayson into his chest and ruffled his hair. Eric was most definitely drunk.
“I thought you stopped drinking?” Grayson asked as he pulled away from his uncle. All Eric did was shrug. “C’mon, Em,” Grayson said as he grabbed her hand and led her past Eric.
“It was nice to meet you, Emery!” Eric called down the hallway.
Emery looked back to see him staring again as he took a swig of the beer in his hand.
As soon as they got into Grayson’s room, Emery turned on him. “Grayson, what is going on? You said he was on a business trip, didn’t you? I saw him two months ago in the café. You obviously didn’t want me to meet him. Why?” Emery’s whole entire mood had deflated and she shook her head. “Come here.” She couldn’t take him seriously with the red lipstick smudged across his face. She took a makeup wipe—courtesy of Zoe—out of her purse and wiped his face. She wiped her own lips for good measure.
“Em, I’m really sorry. I have a lot to explain.”
“You sure do,” she said with her arms crossed. She was so utterly confused. Why would he lie about something like this?
“Can you just come with me? Real quick?” Grayson reached out for her hand.
She sighed and took his hand, letting him lead her back down the hallway and out the back door.
They had a small fenced in yard with a shed the size of a large bathroom perched in one corner. Grayson stopped at the door to the shed.
“Eric hasn’t been on a business trip,” Grayson started.
“I gathered that much,” Emery replied, not able to hide the agitation in her voice.
“He’s been in rehab.”
Emery’s head whipped back in surprise. “What? Why? How long?”
Grayson was holding both of Emery’s hands in his own, looking down at them. “I never really told you when my mother died, but we actually buried her a few days before your mother and brother’s funeral.”
That was a lot to take in. Emery couldn’t wrap her head around that sentence. This whole time that she’d known him, she’d been grieving and trying to heal when he had been trying to do the same thing. He was so normal—it just never occurred to Emery that his mother could have died around the same time as her own mother.
“Her death really hit Eric hard,” Grayson continued. “They were really close when she was alive, so when she died, he just sort of... gave up. He started drinking a lot like your dad, but unlike your dad, Eric never stopped. We sent him to rehab until he checked himself out two months ago.”
Emery was silent for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me your mother died so recently? This whole time I’ve been—I—”
Grayson shook his head and held her face in his hands. “Because I’m okay.” He let go of her face and reached for the door to the shed. “That’s why I wanted to bring you out here.” Grayson opened the door to the shed and led her inside.
The earthy pine scent that was so common on Grayson was extremely strong in the shed. It made sense to Emery now why he always smelled like the forest. Wooden figurines just like the ones in his room lined the shelves on the walls. There were dozens of them, all different. Grayson led her to the back where one lonely carving sat on the ground. It was of a boy wearing a hoodie, hugging his knees.
Emery reached down to touch the lonely hooded boy. “Is this you?”
“Yeah. I did it after my mom died.”
“How do you do it, Gray? How can you stand it? How do you deal with your mom being gone?” Emery looked up at him pleadingly.
“Jeez, Emery,” he said as he ran his fingers through his hair, “I can never deal with it. It hurts so much every day and I hate admitting how much it hurts.” He reached over to Emery’s hand and touched the spot on the hooded boy where her fingers were. “I just, well, one day, I was out here carving this. I carved until my hands were raw and blistering. I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat, I just... carved.
“When I was finished, I looked at the carving—really looked at it—and something snapped inside me.” Grayson reached around the carving and turned it to where the boy’s back was facing them. A jagged scar ran down the boy’s back. “I wanted to break something. I wanted to destroy this carving of myself because I hate feeling like this.”
Emery grabbed his hand and looked up to meet his eyes. “So, what happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened. I still feel like this almost every single day.” Grayson looked down at their intertwined fingers, his thumb rubbing circles on her hand. “Except when I’m with you, Emery. I want to be strong for you. You make me feel okay.”
Emery stared into his eyes, so afraid of losing him that it nearly tore her apart. She felt uneasy and she didn’t want to admit to herself why.
“Anyway,” Grayson said with a smile, the heavy feeling lifting from the air. “I wanted to give you something.” He walked over to the desk in the corner with all of the carving tools. He reached up above the desk where dozens of wooden carvings were hanging from the ceiling. He took one down and walked back over to Emery.
It was a beautiful bird, wings outstretched as if in flight. Each wing was so carefully detailed that Emery could count the feathers. It had a small ring screwed into its back with a red ribbon looped into it.
“Just say you like it,” Grayson said sheepishly, still holding it out to Emery.
Emery took the small bird into her hands and held it delicately. “Grayson, it’s so beautiful.”
“I’ve been working on it for a while,” he said. “I wanted to make sure it was perfect before I gave it to you. My mom always said that I was a perfectionist with these things.”
“You carved all of these?” Emery asked as she looked around.
Grayson nodded. “I started when I was about twelve on smaller figurines. Every birthday or Christmas I would beg my mom to get me tools, blocks of wood, anything that I could use. I mean, what kind of kid asks for blocks of wood for Christmas?” He shook his head and smiled to himself.
“Has anyone else seen this?” Emery asked, gesturing around the shed. She still felt like she was in shock from all of the information she had gained that night.
He shook his head. “Not even Eric.”
“Why me?”
Grayson stopped looking around then and went back over to Emery. He held her chin and tilted her face up so that she would meet his eyes. “Because I love you, Emery.”
She searched his eyes for a moment, looking for any indication that would justify how she felt at that moment. “I love you, too,” she said when she couldn’t find anything. She held the small bird in the palm of her hands, feeling more trapped than the bird that was encased in wood. “Thank you,” she finally said.
Everything was piling on all at once and Emery didn’t have any time to process it. It felt impossible to discern between what was the truth and what were the lies. She trusted Grayson, though. She trusted him with every fiber in her body, which made it so hard to have the doubt growing against him. Something just wasn’t right.
Emery still wasn’t smiling. She couldn’t. Something inside of her prevented her from doing so. It was the same something that was screaming at her that Grayson was still hiding something. Something, she thought, that had to do with Eric.
Chapter 30
Emery hadn’t slept at all that night. Questions just kept spiraling around her mind. She felt like she was going crazy and it was all because of one stupid, insignificant conversation with Matt. It wasn’t like she wouldn’t have been suspicious of Eric if Matt hadn’t said anything—she definitely would have since Grayson had been hiding him—but now everything she doubted about Eric was amplified. She just wanted all of the doubt about Grayson and his uncle to be erased from her mind. She wanted this to be over.
So, she got dressed at ten o’clock that morning after her sleepless night and quietly walked to the front door to grab her keys. Emery didn’t have time to talk to Hugh. She also didn’t think she could lie to him about where she was going.
Emery drove all the way to the police station in silence. Even if she tried to turn music on, the questions swirling around in her head kept trying to get her attention. When it was silent, the questions were only a dull drone, but as soon as the music came on, it was like Emery’s brain had to compensate. The louder the music got, the more insistent her doubt became. So, no music.
She pulled up and parked at the police station. It was basically empty and she suddenly remembered that it was the weekend. Luckily for her, the station stayed open until noon on Saturdays, so she still had a little time.
As soon as she walked into the station, the receptionist was already standing up and walking into the back. The young woman had come to know Emery and what she wanted after Emery had come by so many times. Emery kind of felt bad for a few of the past times she had stopped by. She had been so hysterical. It probably scared that poor receptionist to death.
The young lady came back with Officer Frank, the officer who was in charge of the case.
“Is there any news? Anything?” Emery asked, hoping, begging, praying that they had some lead. That they had something that would point away from Eric. From Grayson.
“Ms. McQuain,” Officer Frank started, “I don’t want to be blunt, but it is very unlikely that this case will ever get solved. Hit-and-runs often have very little evidence to go on and it’s like tracking down a needle in a haystack.” He was looking at her sternly but somehow still empathetically. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“But it’s been—” she started, really thinking about the date. Emery looked up at the officer and noted his firm expression. She couldn’t get hysterical again. She couldn’t let the darkness back in. “I understand.”
Emery hurried out of the police station and got into her car. Had it really been that long? Had she really not noticed how much time had passed? She opened her phone to check the date:
Saturday, 11:05 AM, November 23
Emery dropped her head back against the seat. Six months. It had been six months since the accident. Six whole months without Jaxx. Without her mother. Without everything that used to make her feel whole. It hurt so badly. It hurt to the point where Emery felt like she couldn’t breathe.
She backed out of the police station and left without another look back, refusing to let the pain or anxiety back in. Even though it was getting harder and harder to do.
At the cemetery, Emery took her three bouquets and went to her mother and brother’s graves. As she knelt in between them, she noticed the fresh flowers already there. She reached out and touched them thoughtfully before placing her own bouquets down.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Emery told them. There wasn’t anything else she could say to them. Their lives had ended too soon—far too soon—but there was nothing that Emery could do about it now. Nothing except say how sorry she was that they couldn’t live, too.
Emery put her hands down in the grass, one on Jaxx’s grave and one on her mother’s. She imagined for a moment that they were there, that they were holding her hands just like she was holding the grass. Emery closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She smiled as she could picture the field in her head. Six months ago to the day, they were all sitting under the stars, blissfully unaware of their own futures. Emery had sat next to her mom, laying her head on her shoulder. Jaxx had been making circles around the blanket, constantly adjusting his telescope to get better angles to view the stars. They were happy. They were all so damned happy.
Emery wished she could stay in that moment forever. At least her mother and brother died with those happy, beautiful last memories. At least Emery was left with those happy memories to remember them by.
She smiled and stood up, leaving their graves behind. Emery looked down at the remaining bouquet in her hands. She had bought it as a last minute thing but felt that it was only right to bring flowers for Grayson’s mother.
Searching the cemetery for Grayson’s mother’s grave wasn’t hard. Emery simply had to take a few steps and turn in a slow circle, looking at each of the plots. Grayson’s mother’s headstone had several wooden figurines surrounding it. When she walked over to the grave, she felt a little anxious to be where Grayson’s mother was buried. It almost felt as if she were meeting her for the first time. It was when she looked at the headstone, though, that she really started to feel the anxiety beginning to choke her. The headstone read:
Lillian Andrews
Loving sister, mother, and friend
There was another line below her epitaph. Emery began gasping as she read the last line because it was the last line that made her question everything. It was the last line that showed the date of Grayson’s mother’s birth and the date of her death. Lillian Andrews died on the same day as the accident.
Emery dropped the bouquet on Grayson’s mother’s grave and ran.
Emery practically drove home in a daze after that. She didn’t know if she was speeding and, frankly, she didn’t care. Everything around her seemed wrong. This didn’t prove anything to her. It didn’t tell her that Grayson was lying, or that he was hiding something. He had, after all, told her that they buried his mother only days before her own mother and brother’s funeral. So, what did this tell her? It told her nothing. It was just a coincidence. That’s all.
