Page 340 of Off Limits: The Firsts

“No.” His voice is barely a whisper.

“You don’t want inside my head, Grant. You don’t want to know what’s in the dark places there. It crippled me at one time. It sits there and waits for its moment to come forward and cripple me again. So, I shove it away. I don’t talk about it. I try not to think about it. Because if I do, then I can’t function. I can’t be the woman you see when I live in the shadow of what happened to the little girl I was. That past doesn’t exist to me. It can’t.”

I walk away from him, needing to process my outburst, my confession, and how I can still seem strong to him when suddenly I feel so damn weak. Looking out at the city, Grant at my back, I cross my arms over my chest and dig my nails into my biceps. I welcome the bite of pain. I use it to calm myself and bring me back to the woman I pretend to be.

“Emerson.” He says my name again. It’s a plea. A request. It’s pity. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t get it do you?” His apology only serves to aggravate me further. To remind me of all those shrinks and their sympathetic eyes and the pity in their tones. The one sound I never wanted to hear again. My temper rages quietly beneath the surface, and I’m not sure if I’m mad at him for pushing me or mad at myself for what I said.

It takes all my effort to make my voice even and calm—unaffected—when I turn to look at him and speak, but there’s still a bite to my tone. “Look, I’m sorry you can’t talk about the little girl because it’s police procedure, but that doesn’t give you the right to start poking into my past. Into my life. I don’t need to be saved.”

“I’m not talking about her because it’s police procedure, Emerson.” He throws his hands up and laughs but there is nothing amusing in its sound. “Don’t you get it? I’m not talking about her because I can’t. I’m not talking about her because I don’t want to upset you! A lot of fucking good that did me.”

I startle at his words. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t want to upset you,” he says softer this time, his voice vulnerable, his body defeated.

“After everything I’ve been through, I assure you, you can’t upset me.” And I truly want to believe that, but I already know it’s an untruth. Grant Malone serves to be the one person capable of hurting me the most.

“I can’t? How is that—”

“Nope. Nothing does,” I lie, hoping he leaves it be and doesn’t call me on the fact that I just admitted differently moments ago.

He angles his head to the side and stares at me. His silent scrutiny unnerving.

“So, if I told you I think Keely’s dad is abusing her but I have no proof to go on, you’d be okay with that? What if I told you I used our rock secret? That I stop by there more often than I should to make sure there is no rock painted like a watermelon, which is her signal to tell me she needs help. You’re telling me none of that triggers anything for you?”

I stare at him with my head shaking and my mind rejecting everything he just said, even the stuff I don’t understand. All I can think of is that beautiful little girl with the tear-stained face and the haunted eyes and wonder if that was what I looked like to everyone who saw me.

“No.” I whisper the word, but my body burns with shame as I dig my nails deeper into my flesh.

“No?” he shouts, finally losing his cool. “How, Em? How is that possible?”

“Because it is, okay?” I yell back, itching for a fight to cover the emotions overwhelming me. “Screw it. Just take me home.”

“No.” The muscle pulses in his clenched jaw as his body visibly vibrates with anger.

“Yes.”

“Why?” he demands.

“Because you make me feel, damn it! You make me feel when I don’t want to feel, Grant. And being numb is how I deal, so please,” I say, my voice breaking and almost turning into a sob, “take me home.”

I see the minute my desperation hits him. His anger dissipates. His shoulders sag. His eyes fall vulnerable. And then he walks to the driver’s side of the truck and climbs in, doing as I asked without saying another word.

“Why are you out here?”

I shrug as I look over to Grant on his BMX, gloves on his hands and motorcycle helmet on, and know he’s pretending he’s competing in the X-Games. “Just cuz,” I say, not wanting to tell him it’s because my mom just got called into work for a patient and I’d rather be outside.

Outside is safe.

Outside is where I can hide.

“Whatcha doing?” He lays his bike down on the grass and begins to unbuckle his helmet as he walks over to me.

I look at the rocks in front of me, and my cheeks burn because they didn’t turn out as pretty as I thought I could make them. The dog I painted on one looks like a big blob of brown. The smiley face I painted on the other is yellow, but the eyes are weird, and I couldn’t fix them. Embarrassed, I take what’s left on the paintbrush and just draw lines on the rock in front of me.

“Nothing. Just being stupid.”