"There's no escaping the click, Emery." She stepped back and smiled. "Talk to you later." The tires squealed as Mr. Helms peeled out of the parking garage.

Emery stood there watching the taillights on the car that held her saviors. One had gotten her out of jail and one had made her realize sharing her secret wasn't the end of the world. Or at least she hoped it wasn't.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Free Fall

"You're not even in trouble?" Rachel's voice cracked through Emery's cell phone. She was currently trying to talk Emery into skipping school and going to Six Flags.

Without even pondering whether she should go or not she gave in. "Fine," Emery agreed, then did a u-turn on Ashford-Dunwoody and drove back towards home.

Rachel's house was new construction on the other side of Emery's neighborhood. It was all brick with rock details around the two-story columns framing the massive maple double doors. When she pulled into the circular driveway, she saw Rachel waiting for her with a huge grin on her face.

The passenger door opened and Rachel got in. She was breathless. "Hey."

"Hey." Emery smiled and started back toward 285.

"So did your dad ground you or something?" Emery asked. She'd wondered how the rest of Rachel's night went. Her family had been out when she got home and she'd snuck in, taken a hot shower to rid herself of the shame of the intake procedure at the jail, and then crawled into bed wearing a t-shirt.

"Yep." Rachel pulled out a flask and poured from it into a soda bottle, then screwed the top back onto the bottle. "Can't you tell?"

"Why do you do these things that get you into trouble?"

"Why not?"

"Because you don't want to get in trouble."

"Oh, he says I'm grounded, but that doesn't mean shit." Rachel leaned back against the leather seat and stared out the window. "He's not around enough to know."

Emery chuckled. "Well, at least you're consistent."

The rest of the trip was filled with them singing pop songs at the top of their lungs and Rachel taking sips of her drink. When they parked at Six Flags, Rachel pulled out shorts and a t-shirt for Emery to wear.

"I knew you were headed to school, so I brought these for you to change into."

Emery stared at the tank top and shorts for a few moments then looked at her skirt and long-sleeved shirt. She began shaking her head.

Rachel cocked her head to the side. "Why?"

"I..."

Realization washed over Rachel's features and she sighed. "At least put the shorts on, crazy, it's like 90 degrees." Rachel's eyes, full of pity, fell on Emery's long sleeves.

"Fine." Emery smiled even though she was disgusted with herself. She didn't want pity. She pulled on the shorts under her skirt and then shimmied the skirt down her legs. "Don't look at me like that, Rachel. I didn't tell you because I wanted your pity."

"Em..." Rachel started.

"I don't know why I told you, but I did and I don't want to know how much you pity me. It makes me..."

"I don't pity you, Em. You're super strong just standing there. I just wish I could help."

"Well you can't, so just forget I told you," Emery spat.

Rachel grabbed Emery's arm as they walked toward the entrance of the park. "Emery. I can't forget that you told me, but I promise you that I don't pity you. Okay?"

Emery nodded.

After the rocky start to the day, she now found herself laughing and crying with a joy she hadn't felt in many years. Rachel and Emery screamed at the top of their lungs as they fell from the very top of the ride called Free Fall.

The joy and every other emotion that came with being around Rachel was disheartening for Emery because she knew if she allowed herself to feel it, she'd feel everything. You couldn't pick and choose the emotions you felt-you either felt nothing or felt it all. She knew with Rachel opening the door for Emery to feel elation, grief would follow. Emery knew the utter sorrow she felt when she thought about how no one would help her would usurp all the happiness and she would drown in it. She hadn't seen the lightness of life in three years; she viewed everything through the veil of evil. She found that when your vision is hazy in that way, you can't see the possibilities, opportunities, or even have hope that they exist. Her veil slipped a little around Rachel.

Rachel grabbed Emery's hand and they walked off the ride together.

"That was awesome." Emery laughed.

"Let's go again," Rachel urged, pulling her back to get in the same line.

Emery took in Rachel's racerback tank top that read Where words fail, music speaks and her short shorts, paired with black Chuck Taylors. They were so opposite from each other; Rachel seeking the attention she didn't get from her father and Emery trying to hide from everything, especially at home.

As they stood in line, Rachel chatted about school, books she was reading, and the fact that Chandler had apologized a million times. Emery immersed herself in the normal that she didn't have-the boy, books, and school. The friend. Emery really didn't care about any of those things, but she was fascinated by how she should be acting and how different she really was from normal.

When they got to the ride again, Rachel took a seat next to Emery and grabbed her hand as the ride slowly rose to the top.

"You know, Em, you can always leave."

Just then, the bottom dropped out from under them both. It was the scariest, most amazing feeling, and it was just what Emery needed.

A few weeks later, when she and Rachel were splayed across Rachel's bed doing homework and listening to music, her new friend broached the subject again.

"You know," Rachel let her pencil fall to the side, "I think we can work it so you can run away, Em. Just leave it all."

Silence.

"I mean, don't you want it to stop?"

What a stupid fucking question.

"Once, when I was fourteen, I'd worked up the courage to tell my mother about what he was doing to me." Emery fiddled with her pen, not looking at Rachel. "It was like he knew...he knew that I was on the verge of telling." She took a deep breath. "I'd asked my mom to take me to the Nordstrom cafe because he would think we were shopping, which wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Do you know what he did?"

Rachel shook her head, her braid that wrapped around her shoulder shaking furiously.

"That morning, when we were getting ready to go...he brought Ashley down to the kitchen in a shirt and no underwear. She was seven. To my mother, it meant nothing. She just told Ashley to go finish getting dressed. But the look in his eyes...it was clear what he was doing. He was daring me to tell her, warning me that he would take my seven-year-old sister the same way he did me if I told."

"What do you mean?" Rachel's voice was barely a whisper.

"That's what he told me to do, never wear underwear to bed because he didn't want to have to bother with taking them off."

Rachel made a choking sound.

"So, no, Rachel. I don't think I can just run away."

"Em..." Rachel was trying to compose herself.

"Look, this is why I don't talk about it. It's so fucking..."

Rachel cleared her throat. "How does your mom not know?"

"I..." Emotion threatened to close Emery's throat. "I have no idea. I'm unrecognizable from who I was at thirteen."

A tear fell down Rachel's cheek. "Thirteen?"

Emery nodded. "Every time," she began, her voice now full of steel, "I mark on a piece of paper I hide in my Bible."

"Oh, Em..." Rachel crawled to where Emery was and wrapped her arms around her friend. Rachel's long bangs fell from behind her ear and tickled Emery's cheek. They were quiet; Emery let Rachel comfort her.

"One hundred and fifty-six," she whispered in the quiet room. The words floated through the air and disappeared.

Rachel choked on a sob.

"One hundred and fifty-six," Emery said louder this time, making it real. It was the first time she'd really thought about how many times. Before it had just been marks on a page.

The silence threatened to combust and take them with the flames.

"One hundred and fifty-six," Emery repeated, letting the number sink into her skin and her brain.

CHAPTER FIVE.

Inception

A few weeks later, Rachel lay on her back, her iPad held arms length over her face. "I just don't get what he sees in her." Rachel was examining her crush's Facebook page. He'd just posted pictures of him and his latest girlfriend.

"It's probably not what he sees..." Emery commented, looking at the pictures of a girl with the biggest fake boobs she'd seen. At Rachel's reaction, she cringed. "Sorry."

"No, you're right. I know you are. I want him to want to 'see' that in me." Rachel smiled as she did air quotes. "I mean, all he'd have to do is ask and I'd throw my panties at him."

"Well, maybe he's scared to ask because of your dad."

"I doubt he's scared of anything, Em." Rachel turned her iPad so that Emery could take in the guy that commandeered Rachel's mind from where she lay on the bed. His dark hair was cropped, almost shaved, and he had cerulean eyes that looked as if they were staring at Emery from the pages of Facebook. "He's so confident, it's like nothing rattles him. Oh, and look at those eyes. I mean, don't your panties just melt?" Rachel laughed.

"He looks older than you." Emery squinted her eyes at the picture to see the details of his face.

"He's twenty." Rachel tapped the screen and the picture got bigger.

"Four years is a lot," Emery commented. He looked older than twenty, but sort of like he should be on the CW network.

"It's not really," Rachel refuted. "When I'm eighteen, he'll be twenty-two. Stop ignoring my panty melting question."

Jealousy wormed its way through her brain. She wanted to have a crush. She wanted something normal. Anything normal. "I've never had a crush on anyone." Emery looked down at the book in front of her and leafed through to the right page to start her chemistry homework. "Unless you count Scott Rinehart when I was twelve."

"Any crush counts," Rachel confirmed. "Why don't you like anyone at your school?"

"Because I don't..." Emery didn't want to get into this with Rachel. They hadn't talked about it since she'd told Rachel how many times Phil had raped her.

Rachel put the iPad down and looked at Emery. "Why?"

"Don't make me talk about this, please." Emery rolled on her stomach and studied her notes, ignoring Rachel.

"Emery, you are worthy of everything. You should have crushes and boys chasing you. You should wear cuter clothes and not try to hide from everyone...from life."

Emery rolled to her side and faced her nave friend. "Rachel, I know you don't understand, but I can't even imagine trying to have those things. I don't want to wear clothes that invite attention I don't want. I don't want anyone to see me; I don't have emotions to even warrant a crush. I wish I did."

"Well, tell me about the boys in your class."

She rolled back to her stomach and continued her homework. "No."

"Come oooon, there must be soooomeone," Rachel teased, dragging her words out.

"No, there's not, because I'm dead inside." Emery held her eyes on the pages in front of her, not believing she was actually telling Rachel how she felt. Again. This girl was like truth serum. "I walk around and don't experience anything. I don't have anything I want to do because I can't imagine feeling anything. If I let myself feel anything, I'm afraid I'll..."

"Emery," Rachel's voice broke with emotion, but stopped Emery from finishing, "let's get your shit together and leave. I have a plan."

Later that night, the silence of her house weighed on her as she waited. Emery felt like every night, that's what she did. Wait. She couldn't fall asleep because the fear of what would happen took over. Her body would jerk once the fall began, as if it was panicking and trying to keep her awake. Every night the fall into the abyss of sleep was a blessing and a curse. It haunted her. Rachel had made her plea for Emery's sanity, for her life, tonight. Emery didn't know if she would do it or not, but it was nice that someone wanted her to live without the horror that filled her days and nights.

"Mom, I'm going to Rachel's!" Emery yelled as she closed the front door and rushed to her car. She'd made a habit every night to be gone by seven so that she wouldn't have to be in the same room as Phil. It'd been working for the last few weeks. She heard the door open again just as she made it to her car. She stopped and closed her eyes.