His Property(21)

Maddie.

“Hello,” I said. My voice sounded cautious, even though inside I wanted to scream for her, wanted to tell her I was sorry for everything, that I was so glad she was calling me back. Everything stopped as I waited for her to say something, waited to see how she was going to respond.

“Hi, Emery! Oh my God, Emery, I cannot believe I missed your call. I was at this guest speaker lecture that I had to go to for my econ class, and the speaker said all phones had to be turned off, and then someone went around and actually checked, and I was all, ‘I need to keep my phone on because there might be an important call coming through’ but they didn’t care, they said ‘what kind of important call’ and I said ‘that’s personal” you know, because obviously I couldn’t tell them what was going on with you, and even if I could, there was no way I was going to say it in front of – oh my God, Em, why are you crying? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said, and I was half-crying, half-laughing, and I didn’t even realize it because the feeling of Maddie not being mad at me, and actually being happy to hear from me made everything else fade away.

The rude woman gave me another dirty look, then hustled her kid away.

“I think I’m making a scene,” I said, laughing as I rooted through my purse for something to wipe my nose with.

“Where are you?”

“In Vegas.”

“Vegas?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s a long story, but the bottom line is that I’m coming home.”

“Home home?”

“Yes.”

“When?” Maddie’s voice was breathless and hopeful.

“Tomorrow morning. Can you… I mean, I hate to ask you this, but can you pick me up at the airport?”

“Yes! Yes! Of course. Emery, I’m so sorry I lied to you, I just… I couldn’t not call the police. And I didn’t lie to you in the moment, it wasn’t until I got home and I was thinking about it, and I couldn’t not call them. If anything ever happened to you, God, Em, I don’t know what I would do, it would have… I would have blamed myself for not doing something.” She was choking up on the last words, and now we were both crying, but it was in relief and somehow, happiness.

It felt good to know that despite everything that had happened, despite the betrayal from my father and the loss of Liam, I could still feel happiness.

“I can’t wait to tell you everything,” I said. “You’re not going to believe it.”

“So is… is Liam…”

“It’s over,” I said. “He’s gone.”

“I’m sorry, Em,” she said, but I could tell she wasn’t sorry he was gone, at least not in the sense that he was now out of my life. She was sorry that I was upset, but not sorry that Liam was gone. I didn’t blame her.

“Yeah, well…” My heart clenched thinking about him, and just like that, the sadness and longing came rushing back. My eyes filled with tears again, this time for him, and I hated that, so I swiped at my eyes angrily with the back of my hand.

“I can’t wait for you to come home,” Maddie said. “You can stay with me for a while, okay? Until we figure out what’s going on with your apartment. We can call and find out if you can get back in. Actually, no, I think you should find a new place. I can help you. That cute complex Justina lived in last year has openings, maybe we could even think about living together? Apartment shopping!” Maddie was always trying to get me to move in with her, something I’d resisted because I didn’t want her to know about my nightmares. It was one thing to have sleepovers, or do it for a little while, but I liked living alone because it didn’t invite questions.

But my nightmares had been better lately.

Because of Liam.

My hands curled into fists and I pushed them against my thighs, hard. I could still feel his hands on me, could still feel his mouth on mine.

“Emery? You there?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’m here, sorry.”

“I know it’s a lot,” Maddie said, and her voice got softer. She’d been trying to put a good spin on things, to make it out like going apartment shopping was fun, and ignore the reason I had to do that was because my apartment had been broken into and when I went back home I would basically have nowhere else to stay. “But we’ll get through it.” I loved her so much.

“Thanks,” I said.

“So where are you staying tonight?”

I gave her the name of the casino.

“Ooh, fancy.”

“It’s not, really. Like, parts of it are, but parts of it are just really depressing.”