Broken Rules(30)

I want to be more sympathetic. Softer to him right now while he’s stressing out, especially knowing he might still end the night with Vivian against my wishes. The last thing I want to do is make him think I don’t care and then send him off to her while he’s angry and questioning our relationship. But I can’t seem to break through this wall I have about the two of them. It’s overpowering everything else inside of me.

“I just have a terrible feeling about it is all,” I try again, softening my tone. I walk over to him and try to take his hand in mine, hoping to stop our argument. “Just please let me come with you. I promise I won’t let things get out of control like last time.”

He considers it for a moment and then looks away. “I don’t know,” he mutters under his breath. “I’m so exhausted. I don’t even know if I’m up to talking to her tonight. I just don’t know what else to do.” He looks at me again, his eyes distant in thought. “I think I’m just going to go to bed. I’ve felt so tired and lost all day. Let’s figure all of this out tomorrow, okay?”

He tries to lean in for a quick dismissive peck to my forehead, but I flinch back. “What are you talking about?” I ask in an accusing panic. I know he’s not going to go to sleep. This is just to keep me at bay so he can go see Vivian. Maybe it’s paranoia, but I can’t convince myself of anything different. “Stay here,” I plead with him, trying to pull him close to me again. “My mom won’t bother us for a while,” I add suggestively, standing on my toes to lure him in for a kiss.

“I just said I was tired, Ophelia,” he groans. “I’m not in the mood.”

My heart sinks. He’s never refused me—not since we started this up again. The only time he has ever refused me was when he was still with Vivian.

“Are you lying so you can go see her?” I ask against my better judgment. I know it’s only going to make him mad and push me away, but I can’t stop myself. He feels like sand slipping through my fingers, and I am desperately trying everything I can to hold on. “Or is something else going on? Something you’re not telling me?”

“No!” he whines, pushing me away. “I’m just fucking tired, okay? Let it go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Please don’t go,” I mumble too quietly as he walks out the door. I don’t want him to hear me. Not really. At this point I know he’s going to leave anyway, and I want to save some shred of my dignity. If there’s even any left.

“Wait!” I barrel after him, unable to hold myself back, yanking him back into my room.

“Ophelia, what are you doing?” he groans.

“Please just hold me,” I plead with him. “Just for a moment. This doesn’t feel right. I need to feel close to you right now.”

“You’re always close to me.” He sighs, pulling me to his chest.

“It doesn’t feel that way right now,” I confess. “I’m scared something else is going on with you and you won’t tell me what it is. What am I supposed to think?”

“I need to go,” he insists, pulling away, leaving my arms suspended and reaching for him in midair. He doesn’t look back once as he leaves.

If he would have just made love to me, it wouldn’t have fixed everything, but I wouldn’t be left feeling so empty and unwanted. It feels like a big red flag waving mercilessly in my face, begging for me to accept what is right in front of me. Something has to be going on with Vivian. Before, he couldn’t see that she’s the best possible suspect in his sister’s disappearance, and now I’m positive he’s sneaking off to see her without me.

I fall to pieces as he slams my bedroom door shut. I’m too embarrassed to even go downstairs with him while he says goodbye to my parents. Everything about this feels wrong, and no matter how hard I try to redirect my thoughts or explain away his behavior, all I can see is Vivian’s snide face in my mind, looking pleased as she puts her hands all over him.

Not knowing what else to do, I race to my laptop and begin scouring social media. I look at every chat platform I can to see when Emmett or Vivian were last active, if there’s any correlation. After making up a million different scenarios in my mind and imagining them all in painful detail, I finally collapse onto my bed in tears.

This isn’t like me. I have never acted so crazy over a guy. And I hate myself for it because I know everything I’m doing is exactly what will drive Emmett away. I decide that no matter how mad this is driving me, I have to at least make it appear as if I trust him. I open up my phone to send him a text message.

I’m sorry for everything. I love you. Please get some rest. Talk to you tomorrow.

I pray for some kind of instant response that will calm my runaway thoughts, but there is nothing. The longest hour of my life goes by without a single word from him. I finally tell myself I’ll just go to bed, but once the lights are out and I’m under the covers, all I do is toss and turn restlessly. I have to talk myself out of going for a late-night run…which would really only turn into me stalking different places around town to see if I spotted them out together.

The worst part is that Emmett has literally tortured me in the past, abused me emotionally and physically. And not only did I manage to forgive and still fall in love with him, but this honestly feels worse than any of that. At least then I could try to hate him. This new territory just makes me hate myself.

Every time I think things are getting better, everything goes horribly wrong again. Maybe that’s just how relationships are supposed to be. The ebb and flow. The ups and downs. I had always heard that, but I never knew it could hurt this bad.

At first, I check my phone every five seconds, terrified that I won’t hear the ding of a new message. But quickly it fades to every thirty minutes. Then maybe every hour. When I wake up the next morning with phone in hand, and see that nothing has been sent since I fell asleep, I decide all at once that I’ll never hear from him again.





13





Chapter Thirteen





I’m a complete wreck by Monday morning. Everything’s gotten so much worse than I would have expected. Not only did Emmett not text me back Saturday night, I didn’t hear from him all day Sunday either.

Part of me is convinced beyond a doubt that he met up with Vivian Saturday night. They decided to give it another go and haven’t left each other’s sides since. When he arrives at school today, he’ll be back to the old Elite Emmett I once knew, tormenting me with Vivian at his side.

I am so certain of this scenario I have made up in my mind that I flinch back with a shriek when a pair of arms wraps around me in the hall.

“Jeez, you’re awfully jumpy,” Emmett says casually as he tries to pull me in for a kiss.

I’m so angry now that he’s actually in front of me, I can’t bring myself to say a single word. I fling him off of me and keep walking.

“Ophelia!” he calls out. “What’s going on with you?”

“What the fuck do you mean what’s going on with me?” I hiss back through clenched teeth, trying to keep my voice down so everyone else doesn’t hear. “I haven’t heard from you since you stormed out of my room Saturday night. Do you think I’m an idiot!?”

I try to march off again, but he chases me down and grabs my arm tightly enough that I can’t run away from him anymore.

“Of course, I don’t think you’re an idiot,” he huffs. “Your text made it sound like you understood how upset I was…So I thought you were giving me some space, which is what I needed.”

“Bullshit.” I try to hold back my tears. “You expect me to believe you didn’t run off to see Vivian anyway? And tell me Emmett…how did that go? Has she told you exactly where Bernadette is yet?”

“I promise you…I didn’t go see her. I haven’t talked to her at all,” he insists. “I was hiding out in my motel room making some calls and trying to see if I could track anything down online. I haven’t found anything yet, but I didn’t say a word to Vivian. You asked me not to. I thought we could talk to her together today.”

I want to believe him, but I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours working myself into a frenzy, and it’s not so easy to just snap out of it now. But he wouldn’t invite me to talk to Vivian with him if he had already seen her or if something else was going on, would he?

“I thought you didn’t want me with you when you talked to her again?” I throw in his face bitterly.

“Whatever I have to do to make you happy,” he says, trying to pull me in again. “I do think it’d be better if I talked to her alone, but if you’re not comfortable with it, then I won’t do it.” He holds his fingers up in a mocking scout’s honor.

I’m silent and stewing, feeling dangerously close to caving in. I want to believe every word he’s saying and just let this whole mess be over with. I’m tired of feeling jealous and threatened, but I can’t get over his strange behavior on Saturday, or the way he just disappeared and shut me out afterwards.

“I just can’t handle your mood swings,” I sob. “One minute, you’re madly in love with me and saying all these perfect things. The next, you won’t even touch me and you’re storming off from me.”