Page 73 of Engulfing Emma

He marks both my cheeks, making me look like a fireman too. Then he puts his helmet on my head, but it covers my eyes, so I have to push it up. It falls off. Daddy laughs as he picks it up and puts it back on.

“Fits me better, huh? I guess you’ll have to wait until you get older to wear your own.”

“Daddy, girls aren’t firemen. Girls are teachers.”

He puts me down and gets on a knee in front of me. “That’s not true, Emma. Girls can be whatever they want to be. We have a girl in our firehouse. She works a different shift, but she’s tough. Just like me.” He play-punches me in the arm. “Are you going to be tough when you grow up?”

“No, Daddy. I’m going to be soft. I don’t want big muscles like yours.”

A boisterous laugh comes all the way from his belly. “You’re my little princess, aren’t you?”

There’s an explosion behind us. I turn around and see a tall building in flames. I scream.

“Daddy has to go to work now,” he says without even taking pause.

“Daddy, no,” I beg, holding onto his waist as he tries to walk away from me.

“It’s okay, sweet pea. Everything happens for a reason.”

I let go, and he runs to the building. Before he goes inside, he turns around. Only it’s not him now. It’s Brett. “Goodnight, Miss Lockhart,” he says and runs into the building.

“Brett! No!” I yell.

I watch in horror as the building collapses, each floor pancaking down onto the next until there’s nothing left.

I fall to my knees. “No!”

“Emma. Wake up, Emma.”

I open my eyes to see my mother sitting on the bed next to me. I look around the room and get my bearings. My head falls back against the pillow. Another bad dream. I’ve been having a lot of them lately.

“Sorry,” I say to my mom.

“It’s okay, sweetie. I still have them too sometimes.”

“I haven’t had that kind of dream in years. Only since…” I almost say since meeting Brett. “… the robbery.”

“It’s understandable that what happened to you would bring them back.”

I sit up on the edge of the bed. “I’m fine now. You can go back to sleep.”

“You sure?”

“I’m a big girl, Mom.”

She leans down and plants a kiss on my forehead. “Even big girls need their mothers from time to time.”

“Love you,” I say as she leaves my room, blowing me a kiss.

I put my head in my hands. I’ve lost count of how many bad dreams I’ve had over the past several weeks. But this is the first time Brett made an appearance in one. I go to my bathroom. I flick on the light and see the words he wrote on the mirror a few days ago.

GOODNIGHT, MISS LOCKHART

I can still hear those words in my nightmare.

I wad up a bunch of toilet paper, wet it down, and wipe off the red lipstick. It smears horribly, and I have to use almost an entire roll to get it clean.

I’m not sure why I kept the words there for so long. For some reason, I couldn’t get myself to remove them. Not until the nightmare.

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