Emmerson's Heart Page 19

  “Well, we should get going. You need to get some rest.” Greg let out a deep breath as he wrapped his arms around me. “I love you, Emmy. When you are ready, I will be right here.”

  “You told me that before.”

  “I mean it. I’m still waiting.” Kissing my cheek again, he brushed his fingers against my other one and sighed. “Don’t ever think that you are not beautiful, Emmy, because you are. You are something else.”

  As we watched every one leave, Rob stayed by my side as I let my tears go. Everyone had been so good telling me that I had looked just as beautiful, if not more than I had before the accident. It hurt. I was nothing but a monster to these people that had loved me so much, that cared for me. And there I was looking at them, letting them hold me, take care of me, when they had no right to do so. It was all my fault that night. It was and I knew that it was.

  “Did you want anything, kiddo?” His voice was low and soft as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders pulling me to him. He certainly was no Paul, but I liked this Rob. I did. Lately, he seemed to be like my old Paul, but that was someone that I would never see again. God, how I missed him, too. I missed my best friend. Not once had I seen him at the hospital while I was there, but if he had been, I hadn’t remembered. Some of that was still pretty foggy and there had been some people that I hadn’t remembered that were there and they would remind me that they visited. Connie mostly, but she had reminded me in such a way that didn’t make me feel like such a jerk.

  “Would you help me out to see Ben for a little bit?” I could see the questions in his eyes, knowing that I just couldn’t be out there too much right now. Connie had said that I needed my rest, but I wanted to see him. Some days, he was out the back patio doors where I could watch him and at night, he was outside of my bedroom window.

  “Let me talk to Mom and Paul and I will see what I can do.” Kissing my head, he smiled as he stood and fixed the blanket over me. I better get out and help with the chores.”

  Watching him walk out, my heart sank a little more. There was a time I enjoyed being out in the barn until I was forced to come into the house. I loved working there, loved everything, even getting dirty and stinking half the day away, but now, I wasn’t anything. How could I work out there with Paul constantly around? It was breaking my heart that he didn’t want me around at all. I just….needed him so much right now. I needed him to help me deal with the pain I held deep inside over losing Jackson.

  It still hurt so much and I just….I missed Jackson so very much. Every picture I looked at of that man, made me regret not coming home when I should have. All because of what? I was mad Paul was going to propose to Becky? He was my best friend, the one who saved my life. I should have just swallowed it and came home anyway. But what he said to me on Thanksgiving, those words he used, I just couldn’t.

  Now, I had to live with the last time anyone would ever get to see Jackson. I was the reasoning behind the accident. It was all my fault. It was something I could never forgive myself for doing. I didn’t want to come back to the only place that had ever been a home to me to face the pain of what Paul would cause. Maybe it was all because I was in love with him. Jackson asked before we had the accident, if I loved Paul with all my heart. I did. I really did. I knew that now and I could see that with everything I had been through. Paul was my world. Paul was my reason for living.

  “Emmy?” Marc’s soft voice filtered through the living room, breaking my thoughts. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks as I looked up at him, into those soft and compassionate brown eyes that I had seen every day since I walked out at Thanksgiving. He was handsome. Complete opposite of Paul with the dress pants and business shirts, but looked just as good as Paul did in his torn jeans and stained tee shirts. “I saw that Rob’s friends were here to see you.”

  What could I say? The lump was so thick in my throat I couldn’t even hammer up a simple nod without busting out into a complete storm again.

  Loosening the knot in the black tie, he slid onto the couch next to me and put his arm around me. “If I could take some of that pain away for you, I would.”

  “I….miss…him….” And that was what brought the hurricane force of tears out and the breathless cries of my heart shattering into millions of pieces again.

  “I know you do.” Pulling the tie over his head, he tossed it onto the coffee table and eased my battered body closer to him. “I was thinking today….” His hand cupped my sore shoulder as his other placed my head on his chest so he could run his fingers through my hair. “And talking to Mom. What would you think about coming home with me for a while? Do you think that would help you a little more?”

  “I…can’t…leave…him.” Letting myself fall into his chest, I cried even more feeling every bruise and every scar in my body. Nothing ever hurt this much in my life. Maybe it was a good idea for me to go back home with Marc instead of staying at the ranch. Being around Paul seemed to make matters worse and brought more pain into me with his comments. And Becky…that was another story.

  Having her around was like pouring a container of salt into my fresh wounds and grinding it in. She was really working it with helping Connie with cooking, housekeeping, and whatever she could with me, but I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand having the woman that would have my best friend hating me there and helping me. I hated her perfectionism, her peppiness, and her so caring attitude. It made me sick. And the way Paul would come in and put his arm around her. No, that should be me. I needed that to be me. I needed it to be me that he kissed, held, and loved. I needed him and she was always there to stop it. He was completely different when she was at the house and I hated her for it. I hated her so much.

  “Emmy, please. You are really breaking my heart here.” Curling his fingers deep into my hair, he let out a loud breath with a hint of sadness. I knew how he felt when I would start my crying fits. He told me, but he also held me more. A few times, I caught him on the phone breaking plans because of me when I would start in about school. Since that nasty Thanksgiving, Marc was starting to become my Paul, my lifeline, my reason for not just losing everything. “I want you to really think about coming to stay with me for a while. I know you want to be close to Jackson here, but I think it will help. With Paul’s attitude since you have come back….”

  “I don’t want to be here…..I don’t want to be here at all anymore.” Jackson was the best man I ever met and now I didn’t have him there with me anymore. He was gone along with his overbearing, loving, caring, sheltering things he did. And I did it to him. He always said I would be the death of him and I was. I really was.

  What did I do?

  I killed him.

  Jackson should be the one sitting here with his family and I should be the one that they put in the ground. These people were his family. These people loved him and needed him also. No, I took him away. He gave his life to protect me in that accident. I caused him to die. I killed him and I would have to live with that every day.

  “I will plan on taking you home with me then. I think that it will do you good.” Marc’s soft touch made me just want to cry even more. That touch used to come from Paul. Paul used to be the one I sat with on those nights I had those nightmares. He used to be the one that would sit awake and convince me to fall asleep again, but now Paul was gone. He hated me and all I had was Marc to help me through this.

  It wasn’t like the others hadn’t been supportive, loving, or caring. But I was the reason why Jackson wasn’t there anymore. I was that sole reason. And it was all because I loved Paul so much and more than I ever should have.

  It hurt so bad when he said what he did on Thanksgiving. To look me in the eye and tell me he was sorry to ever find me that night. I saw the pain in his eyes, deep in his heart. He was truly regretting following those instincts and finding me in the bitter cold full of blood. But, he said it and regretted it. And that, I don’t know if that pain would ever mend.

  Just because of that and the whole Becky thing, I decided
to stay at the college and begin pulling myself from the family. Nothing ever compared to that pain he put inside of me. But Marc was there. Marc had come over to see how I was doing and he was there to talk me through those nights when the girls in my dorm were being mean. Marc was the one that was there when I opened my eyes in the hospital, sat with me hour after hour while talking to me and telling me it would be okay.

  To hear the news about Jackson, to hear that he didn’t even make it for when the helicopter had come, I would have rather lived with the wrath of my father than to know that, to ever hear again that Jackson was gone because of me. But Marc was there. Marc had stayed with me to help me through the pain, the news, and the devastation of losing both my best friend and the only man who deemed worthy of being labeled as a true dad.

  “Emmy, Honey. Please….” His voice cracked a little as he rested his cheek on the top of my head. “You are breaking my heart. Please….”

  “I don’t want to be here. Marc……I just want….to go….I don’t want to be here.” All the memories around, the photos that Becky put around the house, they was a constant reminder of what I did to this family. I didn’t deserve to be there anymore. I didn’t deserve to be alive. Not after stealing Will’s lunches those days when I was starving, having Paul regret the night he saved my life after the torture of my own father, and not after taking Jackson away from the family, his family that loved him so much. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I couldn’t do it anymore.

  I just missed him so much.

  I sat on the couch day after day, wanting to just wake up from this nightmare and wishing it was just that. A nightmare. But when that kitchen door opened and Jackson didn’t walk in, it shatters my world more and more to the point where I just didn’t want to breathe anymore.

  “Alright, Honey. I will talk to Mom and tell her that I am going to bring you home with me for a while. I would really like to have you there with me. I can rearrange my schedule and I think that this will be good for you….”

  “I don’t want….to be….here…” The cries came out even more, burning my throat and my chest. I couldn’t do this anymore. Not having Jackson around, I couldn’t bear what I brought him to. He always said that I would be the death of him. He said that over and over. And I was. I killed him.

  Chapter 20

  ****Present****

  Paul

  The end of summer had come in and I had done my best to stay away. I stayed at my place for dinner, drinking mine. Breakfast, I drank that too. Living out of the bottle wasn’t that bad. As long as I had kept my mind numb, I could actually force myself to walk the ground that my dad once had. Even that was getting to me. Just the thoughts of how he would be if he had heard the words that I had said about Emmy when we had gotten the news…

  Sitting on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands, I felt the wave of pain coming again. Hell, the bottle of whisky wasn’t helping anymore. There was only one thing that I could do and that was to just pack up and leave. I needed to get the hell away from here—tomorrow.

  “Can I come in?” Marc’s soft voice drifted through the silent house, slicing through my chest even more. Hell, since Emmy had come home, he had moved his office into my dad’s and worked from here. Every day, Emmy was there sitting on that damn couch watching him work, at his damn heels like she had once been on mine. The way that she looked at him now was the way that she once looked at me, but what could I do about it? Punch his freaking face in and demolish my own brother for having her heart?

  “No.” The guilt and jealousy had mixed with the contents of that empty bottle, reminding me that I needed a refill if I was going to be able to make it through the night. I hated my brothers, hated my mom, hated George Andrews for being over constantly to see Emmy. I hated the fact that Becky was right and that she had become good friends with Emmy. I hated myself the most, though. Looking into the mirror, I had seen nothing but that girl’s father looking back at me. I was no better than he was to her. I just hadn’t held her down and cut her physically to see her bleed. I cut her from the inside and those wounds would never heal.

  “Mom asked me to come and check on you.” Appearing in the doorway, he leaned against it and folded his arms over his red tee shirt. He had buffed out a little, but I knew that it wasn’t from working. Nope, he wasn’t a rancher like Rob, Will, and I. His muscle came from the home gym that was in the corner of that office that once was filled with my dad. And while he worked out, Emmy sat there and watched. She watched him all the time.

  “She don’t have to. She has enough on her plate.” Grabbing the bottle, I stood, feeling the wind inside of me taking me over and pushing me back to the bed. Hell, I couldn’t even see straight. “Get the hell out of here.”

  “What are you doing to yourself?” Ah, there is was. He wasn’t dad. He wasn’t anything like that man. It had earned a drunken laugh from me as I tried to focus on him. “She misses you.”

  “I don’t care, Man. I don’t. She has you, Marc, so kiss off.”

  The loud sigh filled the room as he shook his head. “I was talking about mom, Bro.”

  “Who cares?”

  “I do!” He lunged at me and pulled me up from the bed, hard. As he shook me, his muscles in his arms twitched, and his eyes dug into me with hatred. “Do you have any idea what you are doing?”

  “Pretty sure that I don’t right now, but ask me in the morning, Brother.”

  “You’re freaking drunker than shit then, too.”

  Shaking my head, I shoved him away causing my feet to stumble out from under me. Falling back to the bed, I swallowed hard. “I don’t give a crap, Marc. I really don’t. I’m leaving anyway.”

  “How can you sit here and do this to her? Don’t you think that she’s been through enough?” His eyes softened as he withdrew his fight. It was hopeless because nothing he could say would ever make this pain go away. “I know what you said that night about Emmy, Paul.”

  “I meant every word, too.” Digging my fingers into my scalp, I tugged at the long curls. God, it hurt so damn bad. It hurt whenever I would see her in the house when I passed by the windows. I missed her so much. I missed her sitting next to me not saying anything, but just the wicked smile on her face.

  “I am actually starting to think that you do and it is making me sick. Becky would have stayed with your sorry ass if you weren’t such a drunken prick.” Rubbing his forehead, he cursed under his breath. “Why did you say it? Why did you say that it wouldn’t matter if she died?”

  “That was before I knew!”

  “Then why did you say it?”

  Picking up the bottle, I threw it against the wall while cussing as loud as I could. I didn’t mean a word of it. I was just distancing myself from the only woman that I never could have a chance with. I had to, any way that I could. Even if it meant hurting her. It was the only way and it wasn’t like I had a choice.

  “You didn’t care?” The weak and frail voice came out so painfully hurt that it had killed every inch of my body. Her eyes were on me just as she had looked at her real father. God, it was even worse than before. It was the deepest that I had ever seen inside of her. “Paul?”

  “For crissakes, Emmy. I told you that I would be back in a minute.” Marc jumped as he swung his body around, trying to block the sight of me. “You should be resting.”

  “Paul, did you say it? Did you really say that?” Her voice cracked to barely a whisper as she started around Marc to get to me.

  “I did, Emmy! Just get the hell out of here!” I couldn’t look at her. I just couldn’t. I was horrible. I was a monster. I was her father all over again. Not to count that I was already half drunk and needing, craving for more just to take the pain away. It wasn’t so much that I lost my dad, but Emmy. I could manage through my dad’s death, but Emmy was still alive, thankfully, but she was still there every day where I would have to see her. I would have to see the pain I caused her every damn day.

  “Why? Paul, why do you hate me
that much?” The whines came out so much my heart shattered into thousands of pieces. I was needing that new bottle now more than ever before. I needed it just to be able to cope with that cry from her. God, why couldn’t I just tell her? Why couldn’t I just admit to the feelings I had for her?

  It was all because of one person and it wasn’t her. It wasn’t Marc. It wasn’t anyone but that one person that I respected so much.

  “Let’s get you back to the house.” His hand came down on her arm in an attempt to comfort her, but she pulled away from him. Good. That was what I wanted to see. I wanted to see her not fall under his arm. She was supposed to be under mine, in my arms, me being the one to hold her and comfort her.

  “Paul, please. Tell me that you didn’t…say that.” The cry came out of her so fast that it knocked the wind out of me. I hated it. I hated that I had even said that. Truth was, I needed anything to keep me from going to her dorm myself and taking her anyway that I could. I needed something to stop myself from kissing her again until she couldn’t breathe. Any time that I had done anything with Becky, I kept my damn eyes closed wishing like hell that it was Emmy instead. It was the only way that I could get by without disgusting myself for the woman I was kissing not being Emmy.

  “I did, Emmerson.” My eyes had finally met hers as I watched the tears drain from them onto her sweet cheeks. “Now you can go and play with Marc all you want.”

  “Emmy…” Marc’s voice softened as his glare hit me hard. If looks could kill, he would have done it. He would have sent me right into the grave by our dad.

  “Paul, I really wish that it was me that died. I really do. Nothing can take this pain away knowing that I took Jackson from you all. I am so sorry. I am. I just wish that it had been me. I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted you to hate me this much.” Hobbling closer to me, she held out her hand and dropped something into mine. His necklace; the one that my dad had given her that he wouldn’t take off from his own neck. Hell, she never wore it because she didn’t want to lose it, but she had it around her bedpost close to where she had slept every night. “He told me that his dad had given him this. It was the necklace that kept him safe. He told me that when and if I ever found someone that was worthy enough in my heart, to give it to him. I think that’s why I loved you so much. You were just like him, Paul. You are just like him.”