CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.

Hell is Not a Proper Synonym

Emery opened her eyes to the bright light of the sun shining through her blinds. It was supposed to be hot today. It was a Saturday and she was going to spend her birthday alone. The first one she'd ever spent alone. Rachel offered to come, but she had finals all week and needed to study.

Christmas, her birthday-they would all be spent alone, living like this. Solitary, without anyone except for Rachel, who was beginning to have her own life, and rightfully so. Emery didn't know if she could remain untethered to anything. She felt as though she was floating-no friends, no one to just sit with and enjoy the quiet.

She pulled up her phone and saw she had a message for Romona Hicks.

To: Romona Hicks

From: Rachel Helms

You've come a long way since we first met. You are strong and brave and I am so glad we were arrested together. I hope you can do something special for yourself today. Sorry I couldn't make it.

To: Rachel Helms

From: Romona Hicks

You aren't allowed to ever be sorry for not being able to come hang with me. You've done so much for me. I'm not brave or strong, but whatever I am is because of you. I love you. Study hard.

She typed the message out on her phone and then closed her eyes, thinking of something "special" she could do today. Emery put her phone down and grabbed her brand new journal from the bedside table. She'd run out of the pages in the last one and had placed it with her others in the top of her walk-in closet. Taking the pen out from in between the pages, she started writing.

I.

Noah,

It's been almost four years since I was raped for the last time. That's 1423 hash marks. I've made 1423 marks saying I wasn't touched that day. In a way, I have healed. You helped me heal and see that there were people out there that I could trust, who could love me. I'm helping kids, which I always wanted to do, but I can't help the one that I've wanted to all these years because I'm scared. I haven't healed in many ways. I have a constant reminder of what he did to me. I see it every morning and it reminds me who I am. My name could be Emily, Emma, Erin, Elizabeth, but deep down I will always be Emery. I will always be the girl who was raped for three years and ran from it all, leaving my baby sister behind. I will never heal the fact that I don't like people to touch me. I'll never change the fact that I have to sit here by myself so I don't get too involved with someone and then have to move. I haven't She turned her leather cuff around and stared at the words, wishing she was strong and brave. A loud crash made her put her pen down and run out of her apartment. The noise sounded like it had come from Ms. Carter's apartment. She ran down the stairs and started knocking frantically on the door.

"Ms. Carter!"

Emery was still in a tank top and tiny boy shorts, but she burst through the door to run to the window in the front. Before she reached the bottom step, she realized she didn't have a way to get back in and grabbed the door, shoving a rock under it to hold it open. Shielding her eyes, she peered through the window, but she couldn't see anyone. Then she saw Dixie, Ms. Carter's dog, run through the den and start barking, so she knew Ms. Carter was there; she didn't go anywhere without that dog.

"Shit," she cursed under her breath. She knocked on the window, which only led to Dixie jumping and barking at her.

Emery jogged back into the house and then up the stairs, looking for her phone. Emery didn't want to be anywhere near cops, but what if that sweet old lady was hurt? She called 911.

"Um, yes. I'm concerned my downstairs neighbor is hurt or unconscious." Emery took the phone with her and gave her address as she ran back down the stairs. "No, I heard a really loud crash and I've been knocking on her door. I can't see her, but I know she's there. She doesn't go anywhere without her dog."

The operator made her give a description of the house and Ms. Carter and then said they would send EMS.

Emery sighed in relief when she saw an ambulance screech down the street a few minutes later. It was only when two men exited the vehicle that she realized she didn't have on real clothes or a bra. Embarrassed, she covered herself the best she could and answered their questions.

One of the EMS workers called someone about the need to get into the house. "Police are on their way." He smiled at Emery as he informed his partner.

"Okay, well...can I go now?"

"Oh, sure. We'll take it from here. We have your phone number in case we need something," the other man looked down at his notepad, "Emma."

"Thanks." She put her head down and walked upstairs. She couldn't stay to see what happened. She hoped Ms. Carter was okay, but she needed to stay clear of any law enforcement. As she reached the door, Emery made a quick decision about what she would do for her birthday.

Emery raised her head from where she lay on her towel close to the shoreline on Hilton Head Island. It only took a little over an hour to get to the beaches on the island from Savannah. She'd never been, but had overheard people at work talking about how nice it was "on the island," so she'd hurriedly packed lunch and a towel and googled the route on her phone. Her skin was already a little pink from the sun. Sighing, she pushed herself up to a sitting position and pulled her phone out of her bag. She'd been there for over three hours already.

She opened the cooler and spread her birthday lunch out on her towel. She had pimento cheese and crackers, Purple Haze beer, and a piece of red velvet cake. Mindlessly, she scooped out the pimento cheese with her cracker and ate while she watched the other people on the beach. It was a perfect beach day, around eighty degrees, and the beach was packed with families, friends, and couples. She was the only one alone.

Emery would always be alone.

A few months ago, she'd been searching the internet when she'd come across a quote from Stephen King that she believed ruled her life. He'd indicated the word "alone," was the worst word in the English language. He'd said murder didn't "hold a candle to it and hell was a poor synonym." His statement was the deepest truth she'd ever read. Emery couldn't imagine a life worse than the one she lived, other than living with Phil.

She'd never get to just go to the beach with friends. She'd never have a family. It made everything seem worthless and unnecessary, like maybe her life would be better back in Atlanta. As soon as she had those thoughts, she realized what being alone did. It made her perspective and memory skewed.

She turned up her beer, yearning for numbness.

Later that evening, Emery pulled her car into a spot down the street and walked slowly to her house, not knowing what she would see when she got there. Ms. Carter's lights were on, so she knocked. After a few minutes, the old woman opened the door and Dixie ran around her feet.

"Hi, dear," Ms. Carter said with a smile. "Come in and let me get you some tea and cookies."

Emery smiled at the woman who just assumed everyone would want tea and cookies. "How are you?"

"Oh, thank you so much for calling for me today and getting help. I fainted. I haven't done that in years."

"But you're okay?" Emery just stood there, uncomfortable and not knowing what to do.

"Sure, honey." Ms. Carter walked over to the couch and motioned for Emery to sit. "I'm glad we're finally getting a chance to talk. You've been busy since you've been here."

Emery suddenly felt very bad she hadn't taken the time to speak with Ms. Carter more than a cursory greeting. "I work a lot."

"I know dear. You work for DFCS, right?"

"Yes, ma'am." Emery took a sip of her tea and tried not to grimace at its syrupy sweetness.

"What else?" Ms. Carter eyed her over her peanut butter cookie.

"Excuse me?"

"What else do you do, dear? From what I see, it's not much." She put the cookie down on a plate colored with exotic flowers.

Emery was silent at the rudeness of this woman.

"Dear, you have to excuse me," Ms. Carter said sweetly. "I'm old and don't have the constitution or inclination to hold my tongue. I wasn't always this way. I just meant, you're a precious young thing and you never have any friends over except that black-headed hellion. Are you one of those lesbians?"

Emery looked down at her hands so she wouldn't burst out laughing at the audacity of this woman. She stood up. "Listen, I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Emery walked over to the door and turned the knob.

"Emma, I just don't want you to end up like me, dear. Take today, for example. When something happens to me, no one knows or cares. It takes the kindness of a stranger to make sure I'm okay." She looked up at Emery. "You don't want that."

Emery nodded and closed the door behind her. She wondered why Ms. Carter was by herself. Was she always a solitary person or did something force her to build barriers around herself?

Happy twentieth slash twenty-third birthday.

Alone. Hell.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.

Ice Cream Can Make Anything Better

She had been doing her job for a while now and was getting more comfortable with it. Emery's goal hadn't changed-she wanted to help one kid every single day. Most days she felt like she did that.

Twelve people sat around the table and she was the youngest of them all, even at her pretend age. Lucas's mom didn't even bother to show up. Emery was sitting next to the lead special education teacher at Lucas's elementary school. On the other side of her was one of the administrators who thought Lucas was deaf. It really pissed her off, because that just showed they didn't care about him. She'd already had several aggressive discussions with the administrators about this and they had no good explanation as to why the school didn't realize he wasn't deaf the first time she'd been called to the school, especially since there was proof in his file that he'd passed a hearing test. And even if he was deaf, they hadn't provided any amount of resources to ensure he was accessing the curriculum. There was no interpreter, nothing. She'd thought about contacting a public defender to sue the school.

Because school was ending, they were developing his individual education plan for the next school year. The IEP explains what services the school must provide in order for Lucas to make progress toward the goals decided by the team. Due to his deficits, they had to go over his current performance in school, his behavior, and any changes they need to make to the plan in order to make sure Lucas gets what he needs educationally.

It'd been two hours of discussing grades, his evaluation, and the lack of ideas about what set Lucas off behaviorally at school. She was exhausted and her head was spinning from information overload.

"We need to figure out why he goes off, though, right? I mean, when he snaps, he just goes crazy," his teacher said, exasperated. "It's not safe for the other kids."

"Well, isn't that your job?" Emery snapped.

The teacher's eyes cut to Emery. "What?"

"Isn't it your job? I don't mean you as the teacher, but as a district, aren't you supposed to be able to tell us why he reacts to certain things?"

"We probably do need a FBA," the special education coordinator said, nodding to Emery.

"What's that?" Emery asked. That was a new acronym.

"It's a functional behavioral assessment. We conduct these so we can see what behavior we need to address and take data on the antecedent behavior so we can better teach coping skills and use intervening strategies so that the destructive behavior doesn't happen."

Emery sighed in relief. "Yes, let's do that please."

That set off a discussion about his behavior and the need to put him in a room by himself so that he couldn't harm himself or others when he was having a quote-unquote "episode."

"Listen, I'm aware that I know the least at this table," Emery started, "but is there any way we can let him just have a minute before he gets to that point? I mean, I've never seen him destroy things with me and I've been trying to observe him in different places to see if there's something that's a trigger for this sort of aggression."

"Well, we know that there are things going on in the home that don't help his situation," another nameless person around the table said.

"I have to tell you, I think he's fantastic," Emery said, and meant it. "He's smart and inquisitive and really sweet, despite his circumstances. How does he communicate with you at school?"

"He writes," his teacher answered.

"Don't you have some sort of assistive technology to help with that? Maybe he could type in what he wants to say and it would say it out loud?" Emery asked.

The room was quiet.

"What?" Emery looked around. "He needs to be able to communicate."

"We don't know that he'll be able to utilize something like that, but we can look into it."

"Well, figure it out," she stated as plainly as possible, an edge in her voice.

She was baffled. If they had something that would allow him to communicate, then why wouldn't they allow him to have it?

"If you're not going to get it for him, I will," Emery said before she knew what she was saying. "If I get it for him, will you allow him to use it?"