Hearing his words made Emery lose her appetite and she sat the bagel on her paper plate. She was acutely aware that she would lose Tim, but there was hope in her heart somewhere that maybe she'd be able to keep him. Or come back to him. Or... Hope. There's that word again that makes life more excruciating.

"What did you decide?" she asked in barely a whisper, needing but not wanting to know.

Tim finished chewing and stared into the water. After a few seconds, his eyes locked on hers. "I don't know, Emma. I don't like lies and I'm not sure I can be with someone who won't share everything with me, but there's a part of me that knows you. I mean, really knows you. The part that you want to hide from everyone, the part that makes me understand that you wouldn't just lie to be cruel, that there's some deep-seeded reason behind your lies. The part of you that makes yourself look at your scars first thing every morning, so that you don't forget. The part of you that emerges when I'm inside you. I know it's real and we're real and I just don't want to let that part go."

A choking noise escaped her lips as she stared into his eyes and he stripped her bare. He looked at her and saw Emery, not Emma. He saw the hurt shell of a girl.

"That part," Tim said as he leaned in and wiped away a tear that Emery hadn't realized had escaped.

"You're right," she blurted before she could change her mind. "You're right about everything. I'm a liar. I don't know if I could be with someone like me either."

Tim's eyes widened at her admission.

"It's just...I don't know if you'll want me when you hear the truth, either, or that I'll be safe or th-"

"Emma," Tim interrupted her. He grabbed her arm pulled her close to him.

"I don't want to see that change in your eyes when you look at me," she said, her voice barely audible. "I know you'll feel sorry for me. I don't want that. Rachel changed." A bag of trash floated past them; she stared at it until it vanished, transfixed. "I do it too when I read and hear stories about all the kids on my caseload."

She knew that this was it. This was the decision she'd been dreading: Tim or continuing to run, keeping her circle tight.

Emery untangled herself from him and walked to the riverbank, standing precariously on the edge. One misstep and she'd be falling into the water. When she felt his presence behind her, she started talking calmly, not looking at him.

"Only two people know this and I haven't told anyone in four years. I..." she paused, taking a deep breath. "I was abused for years..." She fidgeted with her shirt. "No, that's not true. I was raped, r-routinely, from when I was thirteen until I ran away from home at sixteen. I've been running since then. I feel the pain of it every day. I don't know if I would know I was alive if I didn't feel pain. I work to help kids so they won't..." Her voice cracked. "I just want to help one kid. I'm so broken and fucked up and no one knows me except for Rachel and Derrick. I'm afraid that when I turn around and look at you, everything will have changed. I'm afraid that I've mistakenly let you into my life and I shouldn't have. I wasn't supposed to. My life is running and hiding and pain. That's all I had, until you. I think..."

She felt his hands take hers and wrap his fingers around them. She exhaled. "I'm afraid of everything," she whispered.

Emery was pulled into those now-familiar arms that wrapped tightly around her body. His lips grazed her ear as he whispered into her hair, "I love you."

She closed her eyes. Hope tiptoed down her throat and dove into her belly, causing goose bumps to spread across her entire body.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE.

Realization

Emery sipped her coffee and watched the leaves fall from the trees against the backdrop of the gray sky. She couldn't write her letter to Noah today. It was eye opening, the fact that she didn't have the thoughts of him. She'd either run out of ways to say she was sorry or she was looking forward. That made her scared, the looking forward. For so long, there was no forward, only to the side. She sidestepped through life and moving forward meant mistakes. She couldn't make mistakes. Emery was scared of the feelings she was allowing herself to feel, and so scared that she'd been stupid yesterday by telling Tim almost everything and especially what happened next.

She picked up her phone and called Rachel, ready for the cussing she was about to hear.

"Hey, bitch," Rachel answered.

"You sure are chipper before noon."

"I've been awake for a while, thank you very much. I'm getting ready for my interview tomorrow with a huge party planning company in Atlanta."

"That's exciting. Good luck, even though I know you won't need it."

"Well, I need all the luck I can get for this one, I think. They do parties for celebrities and all that shit, so I need to get my game face on."

"Do you ever not have your game face on?"

"Only if I have my O face on." Rachel burst out laughing and Emery joined her.

"You're crazy," Emery commented through her fits of laughter.

"You love it."

"I do."

"To what do I owe this morning phone call?"

"Well, I need to tell you something and I think you might yell at me."

"You're going to ruin my good mood?" Rachel whined. "I don't want to know."

"Okay," Emery sighed.

There was a comfortable silence.

"Throw it at me." Rachel's voice had lost some of its enthusiasm.

"I told Tim last night."

Silence.

"I mean not everything, of course, and I don't know why I did. I just felt like I needed to, to keep him away, you know. I don't deserve him and wanted him to see that..."

"Em, what did you tell him?"

"He knew it was something, but he couldn't figure out what happened to me. It's like he can see me...the real me."

"So you told him what, Em?" Rachel asked again.

"I told him that I was running. That I ran here because the person who abused me found me in Nashville. I told him that I was broken, and damaged, and he shouldn't want me. I told him he could do so much better. I told him I may leave again."

"Oh, Em. You are so wrong on so many levels. If he's half the person you've been describing to me for all these months, I think Tim sees you and knows that you're worthy of love, of respect, of adoration... You feel like you have no worth and no value, but you do. When you open up, Em...it's beautiful. You actually glow, and your strength is amazing." Rachel sighed. "Listen to me, Em. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have your toes curl on a daily basis. You deserve everything."

"I'm a liar," Emery whispered.

"Em, I'm sorry."

Silence. Emery traced the scars on her left arm, the marks and reminders that she couldn't do what she'd been doing. She couldn't be falling for someone.

"What did he say, Em?"

"He said..." Her voice broke with an emotion she hadn't felt since she was twelve. "He said he loved me."

An audible exhale sounded through the phone. "Em...if someone knows all the ugliness and stays, that's love."

"I didn't say it back," Emery responded quickly.

"I understand, but you do, don't you?"

"I..." Emery looked into her coffee. "I don't know."

"Yes, you do, you just haven't felt it before. If you told him what you did, you love him. It's like with me. You knew immediately you could trust me, and that you would love me. We clicked. Did you feel it with him?"

Emery smiled at the memory of her and Rachel in handcuffs at Perimeter Mall. "Truth?"

"Of course, always."

"I think I felt it in the dance club, and that's why I ran."

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX.

Normal?

From: Romona Hicks

To: Rachel Helms

Make sure you check in on my sister this week. Her birthday is next week. I've sent you something to give her. Please give it to her on her actual birthday. Also, tell her I love her very much. I'm worried, Rachel. She'll be thirteen.

Tim's work schedule was interfering with them seeing each other, but he'd been sending her sweet texts every day.

I miss the curve that goes from your ass to the back of your leg I could get lost in that curve I could live in that curve That set of texts came early on Friday morning right after midnight, followed with a plea to eat lunch with Meme.

Meme is worried about your soul According to her you need to be saved Lunch is the only recourse Emery giggled at his texts and shot back her response.

Well if that is the only way to save my soul, I'll have a go at it Will sweet tea be served?

Tim's response was swift.

Sweet tea is always served Emery put her phone on her bed and tried to think of a comeback, but her phone buzzed with another message.

Thank you. It means everything So she agreed to go and have lunch with Tim's grandmother, because it meant everything and it was something she could give him.

Emery was sitting at a wooden farm table on the back porch in the shade of several huge trees, running her finger up and down her mason jar of sweet tea while she waited for Meme to come with their lunch. Tim was working a high school football game today so he couldn't come with her, but she didn't want to cancel.

"Here we go," Meme sang as she walked into the screened-in porch that overlooked the path to the beach. She set two places of chicken salad, complete with grapes and goat cheese.

"Wow, this looks amazing," Emery commented.

"I should have you over more often." Meme laughed. "Henry never gives me compliments on my culinary skills."

"Do you think he's just used to the awesome?" Emery asked before she shoveled a huge forkful of the chicken salad into her mouth.

Meme laughed a full belly laugh, which caused Emery to start laughing as well.

"Maybe." Meme nodded, then wiped her mouth with her napkin. "Emma, Tim told me you two had a falling out a couple of weeks ago. You okay?"

"It wasn't a falling out," Emery replied.

"What was it then, dear?"

Emery looked toward the beach for a few seconds and then turned back to meet Meme's eyes. "I'm going to lose him," she said simply. "It could be in a heartbeat, a month, or a year, but I'll lose him and when I do, it will destroy me."

"Well, shit, honey, if everyone gave up the person who'd break their heart, there would be no marriages left."

Emery's eyes widened at the curse word and then the entire statement. She'd never thought of it like that. She'd been so focused on the inevitability of their end, she hadn't seen that maybe that's what most people thought about their own relationships. That was a first.

Panic woke her in the middle of the night and she felt on the other side of the bed before remembering that Tim had the midnight shift. She grabbed her phone to check the time and saw that Tim had texted. It was 3:36 in the morning.

When I look at you I wonder how I am so lucky to have found you. I hated leaving you tonight. I wanted to have your breasts pressed against me all night. I want to wake you with my tongue in your favorite place. I want to do everything with you. I want you to do everything with me. I want your first thought in the morning to be me (or my dick). I want your last thought before you close your gorgeous eyes to be me (or my dick). I don't want you to cry or leave me in your mind and go off to a place that you're scared of. I know I can't save you, Emma. I don't want to save you, but I want to be there when you save yourself. I want to be the one you run to when you realize who you really are. Me. I want you. All of you.

Emery laughed and cried simultaneously at this text. He thought he was lucky? That might be the most important thing anyone had ever told her. He didn't care about her pain. He wanted her to feel it and when she was better, he would be there. Tim didn't want to make her different, but wanted her to figure it out on her own and he would celebrate with her. In that moment, with snot coming out of her nose from the tears and laughter, she knew with everything she had that she loved him utterly and completely.