Page 135 of The Wrong Side of the Law

Keys and letter in one hand and purse slung over my shoulder, I open the front door.

And then reflexively slam it shut again.

There was someone standing there.

Adrenaline screams through my blood and my heartbeat thunders in my ears as I peek through the peephole, and it doesn’t subside when I recognize Gabriel Cooper.

Shit! I don’t want to see him today. Not yet.

Through the fish-eye distortion of the small lens Gabriel’s face is huge and round. His mouth opens and closes as if he’s trying to speak but somehow has lost the words. He blinks twice, and then his shoulders sag as he takes first one step back away from the door, and then another.

Okay. He’s leaving. That’s good, right? I didn’t want to see him today.

But I do. That’s the problem. That’s why I need to get away from Point Lookout. Because Idowant to see him. I miss him.

But he came to see me. What does he want? Shouldn’t I find out? Slamming the door in his face and hiding, that’s what sixteen-year-old you would have done. I may sleep in her room, but I’m not her. Not anymore. Get your shit together, Emily. Act like an adult.

Take a deep breath. Here goes.

Gabriel stops walking away when he hears the door opening again.

“Hi,” I say, slipping on my sunglasses and leaning against the doorframe as casually as I can manage.

Gabriel’s shoulders roll as he takes a deep breath, then he turns. The movement is slow, reluctant, as if he’s overcoming some tremendous inertia and forcing himself to face me.

“Hi, Emily.”

“What’s up?” I want to run to him, jump on him, throw my arms around him. But I won’t do that. I don’t want to get burned again. Stay cool. Detached. Nonchalant.

“I wanted to talk with you.Needto talk with you.” His eyes search for mine but can’t make it through the dark lenses. “Do you have a few minutes?” he asks, but the diffidence in his voice is undercut by the tense, worried set of his shoulders.

“I was just on my way out,” I say, but the disappointment in his eyes is too much to bear. “But, yes. I have some time. Please, come in.”

I open the door and take a step back inside the house, beckoning him to follow me to the living room, where he perches uncomfortably on the very edge of a chair.

“I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?”

“No, not really. I need to mail this off”—I hold up the sealed envelope addressed to NYU LAW SCHOOL ADMISSIONS OFFICE—“and then I need to go see Rita about listing…” My voice trails off as I gesture around the room with the envelope.

“Lisa said I needed to talk to you soon, if I wanted to do it at all. But I guess I’m too late, then.”

He sighs, scrubbing a hand through his hair. It’s longer than the last time I saw him. He could almost put it in a ponytail, if he wanted to. He looks tired, and there are definitely new lines on his face.

“I’m going to finish school,” I say. “And Frank’s going off to college himself, and… it just seems like a clean break is going to be the best thing. What’s in Point Lookout for me to come back to, anyway?”

“No, you’re right.” Gabriel stands up. “Thank you for your time. I should go, though, and you have things to do.”

Out of nowhere, a sudden flash of anger hits me.

“Sit your ass back down, Gabriel.”

I pull off the sunglasses, not caring that my eyes are heavy with tears just waiting to fall. I’m sick of torturing myself. I’ve had enough of this game, enough of this… this concrete uncertainty.

“The last time we saw each other,” I say, “you could barely make yourself look at me, and you only talked to me because you had to. Three months since then, and not another word from you. Threemonths. And now you’ve obviously got something you want to say, so spit it out.”

By the end of it, my chin is quivering, and my voice is raw with all the pent-up hurt that I still haven’t been able to seal away.

Gabriel slowly sits back down, but he’s not in the chair for long. Almost as soon as his butt hits the cushion he slips forward, off the chair and onto the floor, coming to rest on his knees in front of me.

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