Page 47 of Borden 3

We called our hide-out Neverland, like Peter Pan because Theo loved the thought of being a Lost Boy. And, stars in my eyes, I liked the thought too except, “I’m a Lost Girl.” Theo had smirked at that, ruffling my dark hair. I liked when he did that.

“You have to stop hanging around those hooligans,” Officer Young said to me on the ride back home. He made me sit in the back of the car for the effect of it. He wanted me to feel like a criminal. He thought it would spook me, but the only thing that terrified me about prison was being away from Theo and our Neverland. “They’re not good for you. You got a good grandma at home, Emma. She cares about you, don’t you know that? You ever think of the hurt you’re causing her?”

I shrugged, saying nothing.

It wasn’t that I was heartless. Granny’s affections weren’t fake, but they weren’t welcome. I didn’t want her to touch me, or tell me she loved me. Those were things my mother did, and look what happened to her. It was so easy for adults to make promises and act like you were their world. But it was easier for them to also think about themselves and leave the world behind without thinking about what it would do to us.

Granny was old, and she would leave the world probably soon. She shouldn’t have taken me in knowing she would only devastate me with her loss. I resented her for that. She could have easily put me in foster care, and that would have been better for her mental health. Now, I had to keep hearing how I would be the cause for her early death, and fuck that, but I never asked her to take me into her home in the first place.

That dark cloud had consumed me when he took me back, delivering me to the damn home that smelled like jasmine and cookie dough. To my granny in her flower dress, her face loaded with pain and worry. Her brows were pulled together, and for once, she didn’t give me that wise up child look as I strode into the tiny house. The stupid porch light was on, too, and that just…ugh, that just felt like another punch in the chest. Every time I was gone, she put that damned light on. Like she was beckoning me back home with a beacon of light.

I heard her thank the officer. They spoke for some time. Officer Young mentioned Theo, murmuring, “Still trying to figure out where he’s from, but every time I get close, he vanishes again.”

I hurried to my room, knowing she was going to follow me. She did. She shuffled down the hall, still quick on her feet, though she had a slight limp in one of her legs. I heard it in her walk, and I fought the stupid lump in my throat when I heard it.

“Emma—”

I slammed the door shut on her face. She knocked, and I ignored her. I turned on my mp3 player (Theo won it for me in one of his fights) and put my headphones on. I fell into my messy bed, kicking my shoes off as I closed my eyes and rocked my head to the beat of a rock song I didn’t even like, but Theo liked it, and I felt closer to him listening to it.

When I cracked open my eyelids, Granny was in my room. She wasn’t having a go at me, though. She limped around with a laundry basket against her hip, gathering the dirty clothes I’d strewn on the floor. When I caught the bereft look on her face, filled with mourning and pain, I shut my eyes back and pretended she wasn’t there.

“Emma,” I could hear her say. “Emma, I need to talk to you.”

I raised the volume louder.

“This can’t go on, my darling. It needs to stop. Don’t go back to those kids. Stay home with me, please. Let’s talk more. We can bake together. You love my sausage rolls.”

I hate them, I wanted to say. Stop baking them. I hate them. I hate them so much. Stop baking them because I hate them—

Her arms wrapped around me, and this time I tried to open my eyes. My vision was blurry from the tears I’d shed unknowingly. My emotions were bursting out of me. She had a tendency to do that. She pulled off my headphones, and the scent of her hit me strongly.

“Why do you keep trying?” I asked angrily. “Why won’t you just stop, Granny?”

“Because I love you,” she answered in her doting voice. “I will always love you.”

She held me, but I didn’t hug her back, determined to keep her out. I couldn’t give myself away to anyone. Couldn’t stand to be vulnerable. I hated the world, and I hated myself, and I hated anyone who tried to stand in my way to offer me help. Help was for the weak, and I wasn’t weak.

I didn’t need anyone.

???

“I’m not going to listen, Granny,” I said the next day when I was eating her delicious sausage rolls in the kitchen for lunch. I knew there was mud cake waiting for later, though I wouldn’t show my delight. “I like being with my friends. I won’t listen to you when you tell me to stop.”

Granny set another serving of pastries for me, and then she closed the tupperware, glancing at me wearily. She said nothing as she disappeared down the hallway. The second she was gone, I leaned over, opened the tupperware and snatched a few more sausage rolls. I wrapped them in a napkin and snuck them into my backpack on the empty stool next to me. I closed it just in time for her return.

“I know you won’t stop,” she finally said with an exhausted voice. “I know, Emma.”

She surprised me by coming to my side. She didn’t come too close, like she knew her boundaries. I tried not to look at her, but curiosity got the better of me. I twisted my head, watching her open a small, long box. At first, I thought it was a jewellery box. Was she seriously going to give me a bracelet? There was no way.

My breath went thin the second I peered inside. No, it wasn’t a bracelet. It was a knife. The kind that snaps shut. I looked up at her in surprise. She looked back solemnly, her dark eyes hard to read.

“Take it out,” she demanded. When I slowly pulled it out, spinning the brown handled knife in my hands, she sighed. “I can’t stop you from doing what you want. If you’re going to be leaving the house often, take this knife here and put it somewhere nobody will find. Always arm yourself. It’s a dark world, and you’re too beautiful for it.”

I played around with the knife all afternoon. I put it in my pocket, but it bulged in my tight jeans. I thought about hiding it in my bag, but I didn’t always carry it. I considered my bra, but I didn’t have a lot of womanly assets at 14 (nearly 15).

If Theo didn’t come to me, I went to him.

We were so close.

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