Emerson's Fury : L.B. Pavlov (18 page)

Greg and I finished unpacking and then went out to grab some lunch. He was a cool guy. We would definitely be friends, I thought. He was serious about two things: football and his girlfriend back home.

“She’s the best. Her name is Julia. We’ve been dating since our freshman year in high school. You’ll meet her for sure. She’ll come out and visit soon. How about you? You got a girl?” he asked and then took a bite of his pizza as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

“Uh, no. We broke up before I came to school,” I said solemnly. I could feel an ache inside of me as the words came out. It was still very painful for me to think about, and talking about it was definitely more than I could handle.

“Sorry, dude. Looks like you had a tough breakup, huh?” he asked, still attacking his pizza as if it was his prey.

“You could say that,” I said, obviously uncomfortable.

Greg changed the subject, and he told me all about his teammates back home and his family. He had a brother and two sisters. They were very close, which instantly reminded me of the Hollingsworths. I suddenly thought about how awkward it would be if I were to bump into Indy now that we were at the same school, and how he would handle it with the restraining order against me. I still couldn’t grasp the idea that the Hollingsworths had a restraining order against me. I hoped that it wouldn’t become public knowledge on campus that there was a restraining order against me. Thinking about all that had happened caused me to lose my appetite, and I felt my stomach twist. I tried to refocus my attention on Greg; he was an animated storyteller.

Greg and I hung out the rest of the day and settled into our room. He complained about the size of the room, and I was embarrassed when I realized that this was more space than I had ever lived in. I finally had my own bed and my own space. This was like the Ritz Carlton for me. In addition, all of my food was paid for as part of my scholarship, and so I would never have to worry about my next meal. I guess I wasn’t your average Notre Dame student.

When we headed to practice the next morning, we were both a little nervous about meeting everyone. We were welcomed as soon as we walked in the locker room, and everyone was very friendly and happy to have us both. I could immediately tell I would be friends with a couple of the guys. I relaxed once we started playing football, though it was one of my toughest workouts. It was awesome to be a part of such a talented team, and I would give 100 percent every day to show my gratitude for coming here and playing. It was the opportunity of a lifetime for me.

I thought about the reason that I came: definitely Emerson. She had pushed me hard to go to Notre Dame and get my college education. I missed everything about her, from the way that she believed in me to the way that she hugged me with such genuine adoration; it made me ache for her. I tried to push that part of my life away, because it was definitely a part of my past.

After all the guys showered, we met for dinner at a pizza pub on campus. I liked the distraction of coming to school early. I didn’t have time to think about what I had lost twenty-four hours a day now. It helped.

We were playing pool when I looked up and locked eyes with Indy. I felt my heart stop. Would he make a scene and insist I leave? I was sure he hated me, and
so I didn’t expect him to be cordial. I tried to look away, but he walked toward me. I set down my pool cue and prepared to leave.

“Cross. You got a minute?” he asked nervously.

“Um, I don’t think we’re supposed to talk, Indy. I’ll leave. I didn’t know you’d be here,” I said quietly, not wanting anyone to hear what we were saying.

“Cross, you don’t need to leave. I don’t care about some stupid restraining order. I know that you weren’t trying to hurt my family. I never believed that for a minute. I know that you love Emerson, and I’m sorry everything’s so weird right now. But I wanted you to know that I don’t have a problem with you at all, and I’m really sorry for how everything went down,” he said as he looked me intently in the eyes.

“That means a lot. Thank you, Indy,” I said, running my hands through my hair anxiously. “I’m really sorry too. I just don’t want to get into trouble for being within a certain distance from you though. I need this scholarship, and I don’t want to mess things up.”

“Cross, I won’t say a word. We’re good. We can keep our distance till things blow over, but we may be in the same place at the same time, and I want you to know that you don’t need to leave,” he repeated. He put his hand out, and we shook hands. He smiled and walked back over to his group of friends.

I decided to stay, but I was extremely uncomfortable. I sat down and pondered our conversation. I wondered how Emerson felt about me. I had assumed she hated me, but I had assumed Indy hated me as well. It didn’t really matter. I was still Blane DiAmico’s son. It would never be OK. Whether they believed I had known about my dad or not, it didn’t change the facts. I closed my eyes tightly for a quick second, trying to get it all out of my mind. It was too much to think about. Too painful.

Just then, one of the guys asked if I wanted a beer. I never drank because I didn’t want to be like my mom; however, things were different now. I was a product of my mom and dad, and even if I didn’t drink, it would never cleanse me of the filth I felt inside of me. I took the beer, and I chugged it. I immediately felt surprisingly better. I played pool and didn’t think about Emerson for the first time in weeks. I downed three beers, and I laughed and talked with the guys for a few hours. Greg and I went back to our room and crashed right away. We had an early practice the next day.

When I woke up the next morning, I had a slight headache, but I didn’t mind it. I had just had my first night’s sleep in weeks that wasn’t haunted by Emerson. I finally saw drinking’s appeal to my mother. You could actually numb
yourself through life. Brilliant. I thought back to my conversation with Indy. It was a little fuzzy, but I felt good that he wasn’t going to make a scene if we bumped into each other on campus.

Greg and I headed to practice. We would repeat this schedule every day for the next four weeks. Practice, eat, hang out with the team, numb myself, and sleep. The days had blurred into weeks, and before I knew it, the summer was ending. I had started drinking every night, and the numbing that came with it proved helpful. I wasn’t tortured by my memories of Emerson, and I had found a way to cope. But whenever I thought about her, I had to push the thought away quickly or I would spiral into depression. I had found a way to get through it. I felt like I was letting someone down by drinking, but I realized quickly there was really no one to let down anymore. My grandparents were never going to know, and no one else really cared.

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c h a p t e r    f i f t e e n

Our entire household had been turned upside down. Daniel was truly acting on his paranoia, and he had become obsessed with Blane DiAmico. The fallout with Cross had affected every one of us negatively. Emerson had left early for school. An experience that I had looked forward to sharing with her had become more of a desperate attempt to escape our house. She had left home several weeks earlier than planned, and she had completely distanced herself from her father and me. She had a broken heart, and she definitely didn’t feel as if she could talk about Cross in our home. She was full of despair, and she was no longer the daughter I had known.

Indy was upset about how his father had treated Cross. He didn’t feel that Cross had had a chance to defend himself. He felt that Daniel forced Emerson to either cut Cross off or else feel like a traitor. He hadn’t come home in several weeks because no one could get through to Daniel, and the resentment was building.

Even my always-full-of-life baby boy, Finn, was on edge. Finn was torn between his friendship with Cross and his loyalty to his father. I thought we all felt that to an extent. He seemed closed off as well and didn’t know how to feel. It was as if we were all mourning a great loss, but no one was allowed to feel anything for Cross, so all of those feelings were being bottled up.

Daniel was fiercely protective by nature. I loved that about him, but it was also the reason all this was happening. I understood his fears when it came to Blane DiAmico, but in my heart and soul, I knew that Cross had not known that Blane was his father. In Daniel’s defense, I knew more about Cross’s personal life than he did. Emerson had shared a lot about his mother with me on our runs, and at this point filling Daniel in would be useless. He had made up his mind. It was the Hollingsworth family against the world. Anyone who tried to tell him differently was a traitor. The situation was black and white with Daniel, and he wouldn’t discuss the possibility of Cross being innocent. I knew that he was hurting inside as well. Daniel had grown very fond of Cross, and the idea that Cross had betrayed him was heartrending.

Daniel’s core was always his family, and seeing everyone fall apart around him was overwhelming. In response he dug deeper into his desire to protect and conquer, and he shut himself off to me as well. It was very painful for me to see him like that. My kidnapping had caused more harm to Daniel than it had to Indy and me. I had moved on. Made peace. Forgiven. Daniel never had. All of those emotions and feelings were rushing to the surface, fueling this force that was destroying my family. I sat on the couch, waiting for him to walk through the door. I had decided today was the day that I was going to attempt to break through. My three children were suffering, my husband was suffering, and God knew that poor, innocent Cross must have been suffering. All I could do was try to fix the situation by getting through to Daniel.

“Charlotte, are you home?” he yelled as he came through the door. Daniel had been excessively cautious ever since Blane had been released, but once he found out about Cross being Blane’s son, it had escalated. He wanted to know everyone’s schedule at all times, and he had security teams protecting the kids and me twenty-four hours a day.

“I’m in the living room,” I said quietly.

“What’s wrong? Are you OK?” he asked with concern, rushing to my side.

“I haven’t talked to our daughter in days. Do you realize that before all of this happened, Emerson and I had never gone a day in her life without speaking?” I said, grasping his hands and hoping he would listen.

“Well, she’s in college now, Charlotte. That’s what happens,” he said matter-of-factly in an effort to avoid where the conversation was headed.

“That’s not what happens, Daniel, and you know it. Our daughter has closed herself off to us. Indiana hasn’t responded to phone calls for days now. Finn walks around like a zombie and barely talks to us. Everyone is hurting.
Can’t you see that? You are being irrational, and you are causing the kids to pull away from us,” I said, trying to look into his eyes for a reaction.

“Charlotte, it’s normal for a mother to feel blue after her child goes to college. That’s why Emerson is pulling away. Indy is just busy with Bella and the band, and Finn is just an emotional teenager,” he said, finally looking at me. He wanted so desperately to believe himself.

“You’re wrong, Daniel. No one loves you more than I do, but you are being irrational. You were wrong about Cross, and you should have allowed him to defend himself. You forced your children to sever their relationship with him just because you were afraid. This was your daughter’s first love. Can’t you see what this has done to her?” I pressed, but there was still no emotion in his eyes when we spoke of Cross.

“Cross does not get the right to defend himself. He is the son of the man who tried to kill you. He doesn’t get a second chance. Emerson will find someone else. I’m done discussing this,” he said, and he got up and walked out to the front porch.

I watched him stand there through the window. I could see the pain on his face, but he couldn’t allow himself to feel anything for Cross because his need to protect his family would not allow it. I wondered if we would ever heal from this. My only hope was that Carlos would be able to prove to Daniel that Cross was not involved. Poor Cross, as if life hadn’t been hard enough. Now he had lost the girl he loved, and her family had turned their backs on him. Not to mention the fact that he was also dealing with the news of who his father was. I truly believed that Cross had found out about Blane at the same time we did. It was just something that I knew in my heart to be true.

Classes were starting in a few days, which meant, to my own disbelief, that I had survived the summer. I loved my roommate, Hannah. She was very sweet, and she was on the cross-country team with me. We hit it off right away, and I was glad to have a good friend at school. I had not been home since I arrived on campus, which surprised me, but I needed to be away from home. My relationship with my parents was a little off-kilter. We always had been very close, but after everything that happened with Cross, I felt as if there was an elephant in the room when I was home. I still cried myself to sleep every night, and the thought that I could never, ever be with him tormented me. My heart literally ached when I thought about him. Sometimes I felt like I didn’t want to get up and start the day, but somehow I always did. I forced myself to keep going.

I didn’t feel I could ever wrap my head around the situation. My father was being so fiercely protective that he didn’t even seem like my dad. My love for my family reminded me that I could never be with Cross, and my dad had played a large part in nurturing that familial love. He supported everything I had ever done. He never missed a race. He would miss football practice every year on my birthday just so he could spend the day with me. He celebrated every triumph, big and small. My dad was one of the greatest people in the world to me. I loved him so much. But right then, I felt as if I didn’t know him. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe, because I was being smothered by the twenty-four-hour surveillance and the constant texts and phone calls checking on my whereabouts.

His hatred for Cross was more than I could take, and so I tried to stay distant from the situation. I just wanted time to heal. I kept hearing the words that my father had shouted through our house: Cross had only used me to hurt us all. The idea that Cross had been involved in a conspiracy to destroy us was something I tried to push out of my head. I knew it couldn’t be true, but my father strongly believed it was. He had raised me to trust my instincts, but I had also always trusted him, and the two had never differed until now. I felt like I was drowning in sadness, and the best thing I could do for the time being was to get away from everyone and everything that reminded me of Cross.