but it would be nice if you’d admit none of this was my fault and i couldn’t have done anything differently to stop it. i know better than to think i can control what anyone else does…but it would feel good to hear you say it. the way you went out and got another woman pregnant because you think i’m broken? crushing. i’m still working on my heart about it. it’s baffling how you can think you know someone…and not know them at all. maybe not even a little bit.
are you coming back to town anytime soon?
do you miss me sometimes?
He didn’t sign her name. The do you miss me sometimes? hovered there at the end, unpinned. Sent.
Tallie and Joel weren’t Facebook friends, and there wasn’t much on her page, but under “work and education” it read TLC, which Emmett thought was pretty cute. Under “family and relationships” her brother was listed: Lionel Clark. Emmett clicked on his profile, read Lionel’s announcement for a big party he was having on Saturday.
It’s time for the Annual Clark Halloween Party again! Best costume wins $2500 with another $2500 donated to the charity of the winner’s choice!
Emmett scrolled through Lionel’s page until he found photos of Tallie. A guy tagged Nico Tate had his arm around her in one, and she was smiling a different smile. Blissful. Emmett felt a twitch of jealousy. He clicked on Nico’s profile. Half of his page was in Dutch, some French, a bit of English. Flipped through photos of him kayaking and rock climbing. He was a tennis coach, and there were links to his website. Photos of him on the court with his students, at fund-raising events with Roger Federer and Serena Williams. There were also more pictures of Tallie: Nico and Tallie on a tennis court, Nico and Tallie at a wedding. A younger Tallie, scarfed in an orchard with her head thrown back laughing, a bright blurred apple in her hand. The picture could’ve been a movie poster—an autumn romance with a happy ending. Emmett leaned closer to the screen.
He was careful to sign out of the new fake email account, deleted the photo of Tallie he’d saved to the desktop. He deleted everything in the browser history that revealed his snooping, clicked through sports news, looked at the box score for the baseball game he and Tallie had watched together. Closed the laptop, set it on the coffee table.
Emmett got his phone from his backpack and entered the new email information so he’d know when Joel had responded. And if he didn’t, who cared? Nothing mattered. He stepped to the window, wishing the moon was out. Would he ever see it again? The forecast called for rain off and on all weekend. If this was really it for him, no more moonlight. Felt like years since the last time he’d drowned himself in it. Day or night, he loved looking up at the sky, being out underneath it. He’d taken so much for granted.
He lay on her couch, covered himself with the blankets she’d brought out for him, felt himself sinking. He still had the nightmares from time to time—his own metallic voice screaming, detached. Demonic. Every dark, demented horror of all he’d seen and been forced to do. The violence and loneliness stabbed at him, left invisible gashes for the soul leak.
But thinking about the future was a comfort to him as he drifted off, everything ending soon. Sleep being so much like death. No nightmares that night. He slept in the cardigan with the weight of Tallie’s hand-knitted blankets on him in what felt like smooth, zipped-up, dreamless darkness, like he’d never been awake.
PART TWO
Friday
TALLIE
In the morning, Tallie saw a text from Lionel—a reply to a question she had forgotten she’d asked before the haze of Emmett excitement. The thought of I let a strange, unstable man spend the night had tapped her on the shoulder and woken her up long before her alarm had a chance to.
Same thing every year, so quit playing. I’m not telling you my costume. It’s a secret, her brother had written before dawn, the forever early riser he was.
i know you never tell, but i like asking…to annoy you! Tallie texted him back.
Annoyed. You got your wish.
aaand you love me.
That, I do.
Her cats purred down by her feet like two fuzzy engines. Tallie held her breath, attempting to listen for Emmett moving around out there on the couch. Had he bolted in the night? She tiptoed to her bedroom door, unlocked and opened it slowly. From there, she could see Emmett’s hair, set like a red-gold paintbrush against her pillow and the lavender fabric of her couch. She closed and locked the door, went into her bathroom. As a way to self-soothe, Tallie took baths as hot as she could stand every night when she got home from work. Usually, she steeped herself like tea until she was blushed and loose, limbs limp from the heat, eyelids heavy. Since she’d skipped her ritual the night before, it was time for a shower. She undressed and stepped into the white-tiled coolness.
* * *
Afterward, she took her time brushing her teeth and washing her face. She used her apple toner, her hyaluronic acid, her caffeine under-eye treatment, and moisturizer with sunscreen. Squeezed the skinny tube of coconut lip gloss onto her finger and swiped it across her lips. She liked coconuts in the morning and mint at night. She didn’t change or shorten one thing about her morning skin-care routine. The glass serum bottles and smells soothed her. Joel used to ask, But what’s it do? as he inspected the teeny print on the labels. He liked to claim skin care was a scam, but he didn’t understand that she used it to organize her mornings and evenings. It wouldn’t even matter if her routine did anything or not. But it did! Her skin had been clear, soft, and smooth for almost the entirety of the two years since she’d started paying more attention to it and taking time for herself. The fertility drugs she’d been prescribed had reconfigured the precious science of her body and, in turn, wrecked her skin. She needed the exfoliators, boosters, ampoules, acids, and essences. Eye creams, sunscreens, and night creams. Retinol and sheet masks. Morning and night, the ritualistic three or five or ten steps she could control when she couldn’t control anything else.
* * *
Careful not to make any extra noise, Tallie walked past Emmett camped on the couch with his backpack underneath his knees. She stood in her kitchen, replied to texts from a couple of her girlfriends. Texted, i love you, miss you, to Aisha, knowing she wouldn’t see it until Sunday. Tallie took her laptop to the kitchen table and checked the browser history—sports websites and articles. Emmett certainly hadn’t googled how to murder the woman who bought you coffee last night.
She walked into the living room, got on the floor across from him. She was eager for him to wake up so she could gauge his mood, to see if he was feeling better. His head was turned toward her, and she resisted the urge to get closer. To lean in and inspect him more, to see how he smelled as he slept. To whisper Who are you? into his ear so he’d dreamily open his mouth and scatter his secrets across the morning light.
EMMETT
He woke up to Tallie trying to be quiet in the kitchen and the smell of coffee, bacon, eggs. He had a full-blown, throbbing red-wine headache. He took himself and his backpack to the bathroom first thing.
“Hi, Emmett, good morning. I hope you’re feeling well. I put a new toothbrush on the counter for you. You probably see it,” she said from the other side of the door after tapping on it.