“Have you thought about going to the cops anyway?” I ask finally, hoping to catch some hint of Emmett’s truth in all of this. After all, teaming up with my father again would explain his hesitancy to go to the police. And Lily did warn me that my father wasn’t really gone. “I know your mom doesn’t want you to, but…maybe they could help.”
“So many of them were close to my father,” he says, shaking his head in stubborn refusal. “I don’t trust that they’ll have our best interests in mind. Everyone knows my father didn’t really kill himself. They just got paid off and put that down on paper. They may be against me.”
“Could they have something to do with it?” I sit up, remembering not to rule anything out when it comes to the town of Jameson and its Elites. “Are they so corrupt that they might have something to do with Bernadette’s disappearance?”
“I can’t rule anything out at this point.” He collapses next to me, burying his face in his hands. “Which is the hardest part—I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Well, what we do know is that she is missing,” I recap with intense focus, scooting away from him. “And that there are plenty of people who are upset and nervous about your father being gone and the changes happening with Jameson Automobiles. You taking everything over.”
“People strike when you’re weak and vulnerable.” He groans. “When things are changing…when you’re distracted.”
“Tell me about it.” I turn away from him, rubbing my arm sheepishly.
I was weak and vulnerable when I came here because of my sheer ignorance. I had no idea Emmett and the others would make it their sole mission in life to make mine a living hell. I want to be over it all, but it’s too soon. And I’m afraid forgetting will only open me up to more trouble.
“I really am sorry, Ophelia.” He places his hand on my knee, but I quickly push it off and move further down the bed. “I know I’ve told you before, but…everything you’ve seen of me so far…that wasn’t me,” he continues earnestly. “I was under so much pressure from my father and the other Elites. I hoped that after a little time, we could start again. That you could get to know the real me, but now, with everything with Bernadette…I didn’t know who else to turn to. Who else I can trust.”
“I’ll help you figure out what happened to Bernadette,” I say bitterly, knowing even that much is far more than he deserves. “But after that, I’m done. I told you I don’t want you in my life.”
“But you do.” He reaches towards me defiantly, wrapping his fingers across my thigh. “You say you don’t, but I know you do. That’s why you’re helping me.”
“I’m helping you because it’s the decent thing to do,” I insist, closing in on myself and rocking back and forth. “But don’t worry. I don’t expect you to understand anything about the decent treatment of others.”
He recoils against my jab, exasperated and leaving me to study him carefully. I wish I could see into his head and know exactly what’s going on inside. So much of me wants to believe him when he says I don’t know the real him, that with his father gone he can prove to me that he is a good person who has sincere feelings for me. But every time I think I can open myself up to the possibility, flashes of everything he has done to me pull me back into disbelief.
But he looks genuinely sorry as he watches me glare at him in distrust. More than that, he looks just as clueless and hopeless as I am. I have to remind myself that he is just a teenage boy, even if he is now the sole executive of Jameson Automobiles, with all the money and power that come along with that role. His sister is missing, and he has to know how big of a target is now on his own back.
“Ophelia, can we talk?” he asks with a pleading tone.
“We are talking,” I snap back, crossing my arms again.
“No, I mean…can we talk about us?” His head is down, but his eyes are burning into me.
“There is no ‘us’ to talk about, Emmett.” I shake my head in exasperation. I refuse to cave into him. “I said I would help you with Bernadette, but that’s it. And this whole thing better not be some ploy to get back into my life.”
He follows me as I rant and pace around the room. “Will you just look at me?” he begs, grabbing my wrists and pulling me towards him. “Just be still for a minute and listen to me. Please.”
“Okay.” I shrug finally, with an angry and impatient stare. “What is it? What do you want to talk about? Because as far as I’m concerned, you already said everything you had to say after the police station. It wasn’t enough then and it won’t be enough now.”
“I don’t know if I said everything.” He reaches out as if he might touch my face, but then pulls back like he’s not worthy. He steps away and looks at the floor, his shoulders slumping over his chest. “I don’t know how to explain how I feel about you,” he says slowly, unable to look at me. “It’s like…from the moment I saw you, I felt sucked in. And everyone around me expected me to torture you and do all of these terrible things to you because of who your father is, but I just couldn’t do it.”
“Oh, you did,” I retort bitterly.
“No, I didn’t,” he insists. “Not like I was supposed to and you know that. It was supposed to be so much worse. I tried to do what they wanted but…” He trails off and turns back towards me. His eyes are urgently taking me in. It’s like he started to slip off into too dark of a place in his memories and needs to see me to anchor him in the here and now. “When I look at you, I feel whole. And I think I hated you for that for a while, because it showed me how empty I was before. But now that I know what that feels like…I can’t live without it. I need you, Ophelia.”
I push through the melting feeling, trying to envision my heart hardening into stone. I can’t let myself fall for this again. Even if I can’t fully control how I feel inside, I can’t show any of it to him. I can’t get sucked in again.
“It’s great that you realized you need more in your life and that you want to be a better person and all that,” I answer coldly. “But I can’t be responsible for you in that way. What happens when I can’t be there? You just slip back into being your old self? You can’t put that kind of weight on me.”
“And what about you?” he asks sternly.
“What about me?” I respond weakly, stepping away from him.
“You don’t feel different with me? Something you’ve never felt before?” he asks daringly, his voice growing frantic. “You know you do. You need me just as much as I need you.”
“No, I don’t, Emmett,” I lie as best as I can. “I have other people in my life who love and support me. You are not my only source of love.”
“I’m not talking about love.” He shakes his head vehemently. “I’m talking about feeling alive. The rush of everything that could happen. I know you feel that with me just as much as I do with you.”
“But people get burnt out on rushes like that,” I argue softly. “The rush can’t sustain you. It just feels good.”
“It’s more than that,” he insists. “It’s more than just some temporary high.”
“How would we know? Look at what we’ve been through together…All we’ve ever had are moments—fleeting highs.” I shake my head, hating that I’m even admitting this much. “This is just too much.” My eyes begin to water, but I quickly wrinkle my face and use my hands to hide them.
“That’s exactly what it is,” he agrees passionately, rushing forward to grab my wrists again. He pulls them down and forces me to look at him, watering eyes and all. “It’s too much. But you want it, don’t you?”
“No,” I swear, clinging to every ounce of resolve I have built up in our time apart. “Too much is just that…too much. And I don’t want it. I can’t handle it.”
“Oh, that’s not the Ophelia I know,” he dares me with a coy smile. “You can’t handle it? You know damn well you can handle anything.”
“Until I met you,” I bite back.
His eyes spark at the challenge, and all at once he swoops forward and presses his lips against mine. I try to pull back, but the reminder of how sweet he tastes is the last straw. I crash back into him and lose myself completely. I don’t know what it is that snaps me out of it. Maybe it’s the way he growls against my mouth or the way his hand kneads into my skin desperately. But something gives me enough strength to push him away again.
“No, Emmett.” My chin quivers. “I told you, I can’t do this.” I look at him and wait for my resolve to break again, but somehow I am able to stand firm.
The wrestling match inside of me continues, sending me flailing back on my bed with an enraged groan. One minute I remember everything from before and have no trouble hating him, the next I am softened by something inside of him and whatever this is that keeps drawing us together. I know my desire to help him goes beyond me trying to be a decent person. I don’t owe him anything. I just want him.