Page 120 of Poison Aches
It’s not particularly a good thing to know someone like Emmett well. Nor is it safe. I already know.
“That’s what happens when you almost drown to death in the middle of a blizzard storm with a boy that didn’t give a damn whether I live or die,” I say seriously, “it’s crazy how you’ll come to know someone.”
The events of the past flash in my head like a black-and-white movie playing a parody of ghosts howling like the bleak wind, and I know the same memories just flashed in his eyes.
“You remember then?” he whispers.
“I’ll never forget.”
“Neither will I.”
The silence that stretches between us almost brings me down to my knees, so I immediately break it.
“Then what do you want?” I demand, tears pricking my eyes. “This is obviously you finally here to collect while holding the latest of my transgressions to use against me if I deny you.”
To this, he actually smiles and says, “The latest? Are you suggesting there’s more?”
“As the puppet master of all my affairs, you should know.”
To this, he actually laughs. A rich, deep laugh that snakes its way down my spine, to every nerve ending in my body, and then to other parts that laugh should never affect.
I want to bask in that sound.
I want to remember that sound…because in all the years I’ve known him, including the time no one knows about, he has never laughed like this.
“Angel, you’re making me sound like the devil,” he says, his green eyes alight with something dangerously close to delight.
Or maybe I’m dreaming, unable to see the mirth that’s there instead.
“Are you any different?” I whisper.
“May I remind you that it was your proposal, your idea, and then you disappeared, running away like a little coward?”
The bite in his tone actually awakens an ache in my heart.
“I was barely thirteen,” I whisper.
“Yes. So young, naïve, and silly, and yet you still managed to single-handedly destroyed my life.”
Silence.
He just hit the nail on the head.
The thing is, there’s history between Emmett and me.
The kind of history that is unknown to everyone else but to the two of us.
Hidden and tucked away in the recesses of our watery past, only ever brought up in the confines of pressure and debt collecting between us.
I thought he had forgotten, because after almost fourteen years, he hasn’t once mentioned it…and yet, I kind of knew he would never break the vow he made that day.
“What do you want?” I finally ask, knowing I’ve been backed into a dangerous corner where I’m no doubt the prey and he’s the mythical predator that will consume me whole.
“Your assistance,” he says simply.
“That’s too vague.”
“That’s all you need to know for now.”
