Page 77 of A Heart So Haunted
I didn’t realize I’d stopped rocking. I kept my eyes to my sandals, how my toes brushed the lip of the sole, how the wind had even quieted.
A sudden familiarity overwhelmed me. Anger, at what Emma was admitting to. Not anger for her actions, but anger that her brain had convinced her it was necessary.
“In the spring, one of the guys went around asking the girls how much they weighed because they wanted to stick one of us in that giant tire they used for track. You know the one?”
I nodded absently. “The one the football team used to flip during practice.”
Her throat bobbed. “I remember I said how much I weighed. You wanna know what he told me? He said, ‘That’s not too bad.’ ”
A hot, brittle thing stretched awake inside my gut. It clawed, inch by inch, up my ribs, until it curled against my heart and hissed, vicious.That’s not too bad, as if Emma could have done better. As if she wasn’t enough, just as she was.
“And then you started … changing, too,” she whispered.
The coffee swayed in my mug. I started rocking again. Tipped my head against the wooden rungs as her words washed over me.
“No one noticed,” she murmured. “But I did.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure at what—maybe because she hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t told me sooner. Or it was in disgust and frustration with me—for not wanting people to notice, but feeling almostvaluablewhen they did. As if they cared enough about me to only say something when I was slowly dying, inside and out.
“But I—I didn’t want you to think you’re alone,” she whispered. Still, eyes forward. When she finally looked to me, I made a point to look away.
The knot next to my heart burned.
Maybe you started it, that little voice said.You made her that way. Look what you did.
“I’m sorry, Emma,” I whispered.
“Why are you sorry?”
I shrugged. “For everything.” Everything, the last few days, for our life. For my choices. For the ones I kept making. Sorry that I’d wanted her to see me as perfect, so I’d never told her. Sorry that, even now, I couldn’t bring myself to be brave like her and talk about it yet.
Her mouth pursed. “I just hope … you know I’m here. If you ever need someone to listen. And not judge you. Because I don’t blame you for your struggles, Lan. I want you to know that.”
Emma slipped back inside. Then it was just me and the crickets.
Well past a quarter after midnight, I walked by the paneled door in the hall, a tugging sensation holding me near. I walked by once. Then again. I sat on my bed. Rustled around in the sheets. Then I got back up, walked to the bathroom and hovered there, unsure.
Open me, the door whispered.
Still, my heart raced at the thought. What would I find if I opened it now? Would another version of Hadrian be in there? Another memory he’d had? Something that would help me? The thought made me consider it. I hung on that precipice, holding the doorknob, so close to letting go. Would it swallow me whole and get rid of these emotions twirling in my chest? Would it momentarily take away Emma’s words and quiet my mind?
That gritty, heavy feeling had been festering since she’d left me on the front porch.
How had I been so narrow-minded? For years, all I’d seen were my issues.
She had noticed my struggles, but I’d never once noticed hers. I’d assumed she was perfect. All smooth edges and polished finishes, while I’d crumbled in a corner, but I waswrong.
My sister had been hurting.
And I’d turned a blind eye without meaning to.
That gritty lump in the back of my mind turned into a burning ember. Then, slowly, a fire—crackling and spitting andhurt.
I padded back to my bed and curled on my side. Tonight, the trees were still while the TV murmured.
A squeak spiked my attention. I squinted in the low light, at first thinking Emma had opened my bedroom door—when I saw the closet. The door was ajar, only a crack. No more than what Hadrian had peeked out of before.
I rubbed my eyes. “Hadrian?”
