Chapter 9: Living The Lie

Her mother's arms were foreign things, her chest pressed so close Emily couldn't breathe properly. Pamela was whispering something into her hair. It sounded like an apology.

"Thank you." Jack shook Brandsom's hand in the foyer while Emily endured the time it took for her mother to forgive herself.

Brandsom smiled. It was the first time Emily had seen him do so and she thought it made him look cruel. "Safe and sound. Right, princess?"

If he called her that again, she was going to seriously hurt him. He made her everything crawl.

"Whatever." No way was she giving him a moment of hero status and he knew it. The smile vanished.

"I have to get back to the search." Prick. Grinding it in some more. She kept her expression as flat as she could and refused to lower her eyes. He could kiss it.

"Any news?" Pamela turned, one arm still hooked around Emily. Why did that make her want to run?

"Not yet. Be patient. This can take some time." Brandsom left, but not without a parting shot. "Stay out of trouble."

She gave him the finger but he missed it. Damn.

The door closed, the hall falling dark. For the first time, her mother looked at her.

"Emily!" Why did she have to shriek like that? It was horrid. "What happened to your face?"

Emily didn't say anything. Waited for the memory to dawn. Watched it develop like an old black and white film across her mother's face. Shock and worry. Triggered memory. Awareness. Guilt. Pamela's fingers traced her own flawless cheek, eyes dropping away. The arm cradling her daughter fell in slow motion.

"We were so worried." Jack tried so hard. He hugged her, too. Kissed her hair. "Where were you?"

"Nowhere." No way she was sharing with them. Like they would ever understand.

"We need to see to that... your face." Pamela looked like she was shrinking, shoulders rounding forward, face a sagging mess of sadness. Not for Emily. She could feel her mother pulling away from her again, just like always. Now that she was home, it was all about Cole.

Good, then. She agreed. It was time she stopped screwing up everything. If she couldn't end it like she wanted, she could at least right this last wrong. She would do everything she could to help find her brother. Even if that meant living the lie her parents wanted, the family lie.

And then. Well. She'd just have to see.

"I need a shower." Emily felt nothing leaving them there. She knew their eyes were on her as she walked to the staircase and was grateful they didn't call out or follow. She just couldn't have that.

It wasn't until she stood in front of the bathroom mirror the terror returned. Not from the mess of her face or from her sunken eyes or the dark circles swallowing them. No, her fear was primal, instinctual. Whether she was crazy or not, the apparition she saw was just as scary. She stared at the mirror then spun and searched the small space. She was alone. Wasn't she? No Sam. No memory flashbacks. Just the cool tile under her feet and her own sorry reflection.

The shower was hot, her skin almost immediately pink. She scrubbed her whole body, shaking all over, sneaking peeks past the shower curtain every other heartbeat to be sure her friend wasn't there with her.

Emily vowed she would never watch another horror movie ever again for as long as she lived. Ever.

Her hair was the hardest. She had to close her eyes for a brief moment when the soap slid over her face. Pain flared awake in her cheek as the water sheeted over it. That she would tackle separately, at the sink with the bathroom door wide open.

Clean felt odd. Almost illegal, like she should stay dirty on the outside. God knew she was filthy on the inside. A soft towel held back her hair, worn pajama bottoms and a t-shirt comforting against her skin. She addressed the mirror again.

The water had cleared away some of the dried blood, leaving blotched patches ending at her jaw-line. She rinsed the rest of it in the shower, though her discarded tank and sweater would never come clean. The tweezers hurt as the sharp ends broke the crusted scab, but the shard had to come out. Emily wiggled and squirmed and winced, biting her lower lip until it ached, but the pain was welcome. The wound was deep, the glass eluding her.

She dug deeper, refusing to quit. After a while the pain became pleasant, something she could hold on to. It held her in the moment, where there was no messed up life, no haunting, no missing Cole, just a battle between Emily, the tweezers and the elusive shard of glass.

Fresh pain erupted as she caught the edge of it. New blood bloomed over the stainless steel and trickled in a hot line down her face. A white facecloth caught the drips. She pulled the piece free and held it up to look at it.

The small shard, that random slice from her mother's tumbler, had somehow cracked off into a small, perfect heart before burying itself in Emily's cheek. She stared at it for a long time before running water over it. It dropped from the tweezers into her open palm and rolled around. The glass was pink. Tara pink. Thing was, Emily was positive they didn't own any pink glasses. Pamela was too traditional for anything so original.

Emily unzipped the belt and slid the sliver inside. It bounced off of Tara's earring and landed inside the band of the gold skull ring. Sam.

It took a long time for the bleeding to stop. By then, she was able to examine the damage. She would have a small, round scar for the rest of her life, with a tail leading off toward her mouth. A comma, damn it. That was what she was. Punctuation between one part of a story and the next. A fucking grammatical nothing that no one used correctly.

Somehow it seemed fitting.

Her bedroom was a tomb, smelling of waste and decay. She ignored it as she turned on all the lights. The covers enveloped her, the bed a welcome cocoon as she pulled herself against the headboard, knees to her chest, comforter under her chin. Closing her eyes was out of the question. And yet, seeing them again... she shuddered from the memory of Sam's face against the window, the total emptiness in her eyes. Not Sam. Emily's madness.

The therapist would have a field day. He'd be all on her about her feelings and stuff she would never share with him. He couldn't find out. That meant her parents could never know either. Which meant Emily had to live with it. Deal with it on her own.

She was used to it.

Despite the balance of her fear and her terrible need to see the girls again, Emily's body betrayed her to sleep. And peace, for a while.

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