Page 134 of The Wrong Side of the Law

Chapter Forty-Two

Emily

It’s time to make some decisions.

I don’t feel like getting out of bed, so I’m just going to stay here for a while longer. Decision made. Easy.

Mid-morning sunlight coming in through the window is annoying and hits me right in the eyes. I can either stay like this and deal with it, or I can roll over. Also an easy decision to make.

Now it’s on to the rest of the decisions in my life.

The changes in my baby brother over these past months have been huge, but none moreso than finding out that he’d finished his GED just before the trial. The first I’d heard of it was a month ago when he brought me a letter showing that he’d been accepted to college.

Of course, I’d probably have known a lot sooner if I’d been home more back then. But I wasn’t, and that’s just one more thing I feel bad about.

But no matter what, Frank is leaving in August, off to college and starting a new life for himself. I’m proud of him, so proud I could burst, even if a military academy isn’t the sort of place that I’d have picked out for him. But he has to follow his own destiny, I suppose.

And so do I. Once I make some decisions.

Now that there’s some money coming in again, I’m free to go back to school, too. I’ve already been accepted for the spring semester at University of Miami Law School. With my GPA, they were happy to rubber-stamp my application the minute they opened it.

But then, I could also go back to NYU. I still have friends there, even if I’d be a year behind them. Manhattan’s an entirely different world, with entirely different people. Maybe that’s what I need: distance, and a complete change in my environment. Maybe if I’m twelve hundred miles away, I won’t feel this magnetic pull that keeps dragging my heart toward someone I can never have.

After all, once Frank leaves, there’s nothing really keeping me here in Florida. There won’t be any family left except for Margaret, and, candidly? She can go to hell, after the shambles she made of everything. There’s still the rental properties, but those are all managed by other people—trustworthy ones, now, not the thieving scam artists to whom Margaret had handed everything—and they’ll mail me a check no matter where I happen to live.

I’d miss Rita, though. It was good to see her again, and it meant so much to me to have her support during the past few months. I don’t know if I could have kept my sanity without her. I’d still be able to visit, though.

I really can’t put off the day any longer. I need to go to the grocery store. There’s dishes that need to be done. I need to figure out which school I want to go to and send off my letter to them. So, I need stamps, too.

And of course, there’s the other thing I need to do. ThethingI don’t want to think about, which I need to give to themanI don’t want to think about.

The USB stick with the video of Frank’s foray into the world of covert operations hangs by a short lanyard from a thumbtack in my corkboard, over a Polaroid of me and Rita at our junior prom. If I were big on looking for symbolism in things, I’d probably read something into the fact that Rita’s face is clearly visible in the picture, while mine is hidden by the shadow of this thing hanging over it.

It’s a good thing I don’t go in for that sort of nonsense, even when I can feel the weight of it pressing down on me, threatening to grind me into nothingness. It doesn’t go away when I move the lanyard to another pin.

If I go to Miami, I could stay here. Live at home. But do I really want that? This room is a time capsule; a shrine to the memory of my sixteen-year-old self. And I’m not that girl anymore. This isn’t even that home anymore: my room is the only part of the house that’s still what I remember, after Margaret sold off—or simply threw away—everything she could.

And oh yeah: I don’t want to have Margaret for a housemate, either.

I turn that idea over in my head while I roll out of bed and pull on clean underwear, a pair of shorts, and a tee shirt and head downstairs to load the dishwasher.

The house is so quiet that it’s almost eerie. Frank’s gotten himself a job for the summer and he’s long since gone to work. Margaret locked herself in the master bedroom after he announced that he was going off to college. She’s horrified that he’s going someplace where she can’t hover over him constantly. Does she think if she hides and pretends it’s not happening that he won’t go? News flash: come August, he’s leaving, and you won’t recognize him when he comes home.

Ugh. I can’t bear to live with her if I stay here, but Icertainlycan’t go back to New York and leave her in my house all by herself. Not after last time.

Ihaveto make a decision, and Ihaveto do it today. I’ve put this off for long enough.

The more I think about it, the more I really do just want to separate myself from all the drama and all the pain and heartache here in Point Lookout. Going back to NYU really is the best thing. And this house has been such a huge part of that heartache.

I could sell it.

The idea has a certain perverse appeal. It was my mother’s house, sure, but Margaret has stripped away everything that remained of my mother’s presence here. My father’s, too. Surely they wouldn’t want this empty shell to hold me back, would they? And the market is up, too, so surely Rita could move it quickly enough.

The more I think about it, the more right it seems. I’m going to do this. I’m going to break away from all this and move on with my life. I’ve filled out all the forms for both law schools already, it’s just a matter of mailing one set of them off.

When I go back to my room for my purse and the papers I need to mail, the USB drive is still there, taunting me. I should take it with me. I’m going in to the post office anyway, and I could take that to Gabriel while I’m in town.

No. Not yet. I’m sure he’s busy right now, anyway. And besides, I want my decision made—irrevocably made—before I see him. I don’t want some lingering hope, misguided and impossible, to make me second-guess myself after seeing him. I’ll take it tomorrow. Today I’m just going to the post office, then to see Rita and start the process of listing my house, and I’ll get groceries on the way home. Or maybe I’ll take it next week. It’s not going to hurt anyone if I wait a bit longer, is it?

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