Page 4 of For Emery

And somehow, I believed that too.

CHAPTER TWO

Grady - 15

I lay in bed with my arms crossed behind my head, my mind whirling with indecision. Shyanne and Miley both wanted me to ask them to the school dance. They’d been causing unnecessary scenes at school all week. And there was nothing I hated more than girl drama. Did I even want to go to some lame-ass dance? High school girls were so…different. I just wanted a girl who’d jump in the creek with me on the count of one. One who’d toss around a football without groaning about breaking a nail. One who’d believe me when I said I was gonna play football at Alabama.

Someone like Emery.

The guys had been busting my balls for the past four years about my “little shadow.” But I didn’t care. I knew the truth about our friendship. I knew the truth about her family life. I knew the truth about our bond. Besides, I liked my “little shadow” a hell of a lot more than most of them.

“Leave! Just leave!” Emery’s mom’s voice carried through the night. She threatened her husband all the time. But he never left. He just drank more.

I hated the idea of Emery living in that house. She assured me Wayne had never hurt her. And despite her assurances, I repeatedly begged my parents to call the sheriff. When they’d had enough of me asking—and I assumed hearing all the fighting—they called him. He stopped by Emery’s house while she was at school. But Emery’s mom told him everything was fine. Because of her unwillingness to report domestic violence, the sheriff told my parents there was nothing he could do.

I felt helpless.

I’d always been told if you didn’t like something that was happening, you needed to do something to stop it. But aside from killing Emery’s stepdad, there wasn’t anything I could do but give Emery a safe place to escape to.

The tapping on my window came like clockwork. I didn’t even go to the window anymore. At twelve, Emery was tall enough to push it up herself, climb inside, close the window behind her, and crank up my ceiling fan to drown out the unwanted noise. “Hi,” she whispered as she crawled under my sheet and turned on her side away from me.

“You okay?”

“I am now.”

My heart squeezed in my chest. The girl would be the death of me. “How was school today?” I asked, trying to redirect her attention from the fight.

“Same. How was yours?” she asked.

Thoughts of Shyanne and Miley fighting over me plagued my mind. “Same.”

“You’re lying,” Emery said.

“How do you know?”

“You paused.”

“So?”

“So, you pause when you’re not saying somethin’.”

I huffed. Of course she could tell I had something on my mind. She knew me better than anyone. “A couple girls want me to ask them to the school dance.”

Emery’s body stiffened and a long moment passed before she spoke. “And?”

“And…I don’t know what to do?”

“What to do or who to ask?”

“Both.”

You could’ve cut the silence in my room with a knife, hacksaw, and axe. “You could just take me and not have to worry about it,” she finally said.

I scoffed. “Right.”

She spun and faced me, anger blazing in her eyes. “What’s that mean?”

Even though she was adorable when she was angry, I knew better than to smile. “You’re twelve. This is a high school dance.”

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