Nurses. Social workers. Therapists.
They all looked at her like she either had two heads, or with such a dark pity, it made her want to throw up. Or punch something. And the more Emory learned about this world, she dreamt that she had lived a fantasy, that maybe, just maybe, she was destined not to fit in here. Any notion that didn’t fit the mold was discredited without a moment’s breath.
“Emory?”
Exhaling hard, she wrenched her gaze up to meet her imploring eyes as she wearily said, “I already told you everything. Repeatedly.”
“Honey, it’s okay to be scared to tell the truth.”
She swallowed her retort and went back to staring at her hands. The woman sighed. Emory set her resolve, and her silence was unrelenting. The seconds turned into minutes. The minutes into hours.
Finally, the social worker grabbed the papers, her voice soft when she said, “I will leave you with this question. How does thinking of your family make you feel?”
Snapping her eyes up, she looked at her hawk ridged nose and her sharp eyes. Emory’s nails dug into her skin. “I don’t know.”
The woman’s face crumpled, and Emory watched as the worker collected her papers. “You know you can call me anytime you need.”
Emory watched as she left, leaving her card behind on the table. The door clicked, and she loosened a shaky exhale, holding her head in her hands.
Sweat collected at the base of her neck, slowly trickling down her skin. The walls seemed too close; the air too hot. It had been sixty days. Sixty days of confusion, of frustration. Tears burned, brimming in her eyes as she shut them, gnashing her teeth together. She had danced along the edges of her mind, diving into that empty carved out hole in her heart.
It wasn’t that she didn’t give them an answer.
It just wasn’t the answer they wanted.
And with the truth screaming at them in their faces, she was turned away, deemed unfit, labeled and tossed to the side for examination. Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and she wiped angrily at her eyes, composing herself as the door swung open and revealing a grumpy looking Lourie.
“Well, are you ready?”
Her chair screeched back, as Emory stood, nodding stiffly.
They left the social worker’s behind, coming into a poorly lit hallway. Continuing in silence, Emory followed her, her heart dropping with every second. There had been no trace of who she was, no trace of anything.
Naturally, she was put into what she learned was foster care, and Lourie had come into her life. As her foster mother, she was thrown into a repetitive schedule of daily scowls and the dullest life possibly imaginable, waiting as she was dragged through therapy and different medication line ups.
Lourie threw open the door, and the crisp wind hit them like a wall. The tinges of fall peeked through the world, painting the horizon in golden and fiery hues. Lourie’s car was parked at the curb, and Emory faltered, breathing in the heady scent of change flickering through the air.
The city was a kingdom of grey and, at the heart of it, a labyrinth of cement. But on the outskirts, a wildness bred, gatherings of looming trees, the bulk of dark woods. The leaves crinkled in the breeze, their blazing colors flashing as they were ripped from their branches. Her pulse thrummed, and she stared, that thread in her gut pulling her into its hold.
In her dreams, the woods were a place born from fire and ash, of ice and secrets. Of shadows that chased her, called to her.
Not only did Emory feel peace but a deep longing in the forest, and she allowed herself to dream another world waited for her, called to her. It was there that reality fell away and so did every other barrier, and she felt a lingering hope that she had belonged somewhere else. A place that she had a family, that she had called home.
But always when reality crashed into her, she awoke to blurring images, to the taste in her mouth of longing. But nothing more.
“Are you coming?”
She honed her gaze with narrowed eyes at an eye rolling Lourie. Heat flared through her, and taking one deep breath, she took a step forward. And then another. Closer and closer to the car, her fate sealed with an iron hold.
But her heart soared, settling into the darkness of the wilderness, of the unknown, and she knew that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t lost at all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emory
Six years later
The lights in the movie theater dimmed, and Emory shivered, pulling her button-down jacket tighter around her. Grabbing her pop absentmindedly, she took a big gulp, the mixture of overly sweet and fizzing sugar, calming her nerves.
The previews jumped to life in front of her as his warm voice tickled her ear, “This one looks good!”
Internally groaning, she wanted to roll her eyes at her well-groomed date, Kane. From his sweeping dark hair, to his deep eyes and really, really, good sense of humor, she should have been in heaven.
Moore, her co-worker’s voice, sliced through her mind, “Give him a chance, Em! What’s not to like, super-hot and he reads?!”
Internally, she cursed her best friend for convincing her to step away from her well-loved reading chair and, more importantly, her routine. First, she would make a cup of tea, put on her worn sweatpants, and reality bled away as she lost herself in realms of fantasy.
The movie had started rolling, and settling in, she chased Moore’s voice out of her mind, reassuring herself that she should be happy. Her dating life had been hit-and-miss, mostly meaning, she wasn’t interested. But Kane was nice, a decent guy, and if she was being honest with herself was not that hard on the eyes.
She dug into the popcorn, the salty, buttery masterpiece
