"It's okay," a guy in a University of Georgia shirt said once he looked at Emery and Rachel. "It happens."

"I mean, it's only popcorn, Emery," Rachel said in a voice that was not her own.

Emery's eyes widened at Rachel's slip.

Rachel leaned against Emery's shoulder and talked to the guy in front of them. "You know how I can apologize? You," she pointed her finger at him, "are invited to the after party at my cousin's house. He's the quarterback. You should come."

"Rachel..." Emery warned.

"No, it's cool," Rachel brushed her off. "Come by and I'll make it up to you."

"Where's your cousin's place?" the guy in front of them asked politely.

"Just off campus, in Hillsboro. The Village."

Emery pulled Rachel from their seats and smiled at the guys in front of her. "Rachel, I can't believe you did that."

"What? Why are we leaving the game?" Rachel asked, moving slowly down the bleachers.

"We're leaving because you invited those people you don't even know back to Noah's!" Emery led Rachel down and around to where they could exit the stadium closest to where she'd parked.

"Noah's cool, he won't care."

"Rachel." Emery stopped walking and looked at her friend. "I care."

Realization spread through Rachel's eyes and she nodded. "Oh...I'm sorry. I didn't think."

"No, you didn't." Emery started walking. "And if we stay here, you'll invite every idiot in the stands."

"I'm drunk. They probably won't show up anyway," Rachel said as she followed.

"And you called me Emery," she whispered.

Rachel stopped. "Really?"

Emery kept walking until she saw Rachel's car, then finally turned around. "Come on!" she yelled at Rachel, who still hadn't moved.

Emery was uncomfortable with all the people at Noah's place, but she couldn't really say anything. It was past midnight and she was finally buzzed, thanks to the sweet tea vodka they'd purchased with the fake ID Derrick had given Rachel.

She'd locked her door. Noah didn't seem to mind if people were in his room, especially different girls, but she didn't want anyone besides Rachel in hers. Emery was locking her door after she and Rachel had smoked a joint in her room, when she stepped back into him. Noah. She leaned into his chest. "Sorry," she giggled.

"I like that you've stopped jumping away from me, Emily," Noah said.

Emery smiled over her shoulder at him as she followed a stumbling Rachel to the kitchen for a refill.

"We're looking for Rachel and Emery!" a loud voice boomed from the open door of the condo.

Both Rachel and Emery's eyes snapped to the voice, thinking the worst. What they saw sent Emery into hysterics. She leaned over and put her hands on her knees.

Rachel stomped across the room and stood in front of the guy they'd dropped popcorn all over. The guy she'd told to meet them. "Well, it took you long enough," she teased.

"Well, baby, you didn't give us a lot to go on." The guy was wearing red chinos with a black Georgia polo and garnering dirty looks from all the football players.

"Us?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah, us." The guy pointed to about ten other guys standing behind him, waiting to get inside.

"Oh shit," Rachel muttered.

"Hi, I'm Emily, we met at the game." Emery stood next to Rachel and tried to take control of the situation, since she was more sober. Not that that wasn't saying much.

Rachel sagged against Emery. "Sorry I said the wrong name," she whispered into Emery's ear.

"You're fine." Emery smiled. "Why don't you go get some drinks for our friends?" She let the guys into the condo and tried to keep things light, but Vandy football players didn't appreciate a loss or people from the other team at their party.

Noah appeared and took Emery's hand gently, like she would break. "I need to talk to you," he said, looking at the guys.

"Noah, these are some guys that we met at the game. Rachel invited them back for a drink," Emery said evenly, trying to play it off as nothing. She was hoping they would leave, and soon.

"Yeah, well they need to leave!" called a player from behind her in the den.

"It's not like we like to hang out with losers," Popcorn Guy said in response. "But Rachel here said she'd make it up to me tonight and I was intrigued."

"Oh shhure," Rachel slurred. "Let's go outside and I'll give you sssomething to apologize for what shappened earlier."

"Everyone calm down," Emery announced, feeling like she was in some sort of bizarre standoff. "These guys are going to have a drink and accept our apology and I'll walk them to their cars. No harm, no foul."

Noah took a step closer, his foot stepping in front of her and his back nudging her behind him making it clear that he would handle it.

"Noah, it's fine," she whispered and because she was high, she stumbled. Before she caught herself, her lips grazed his ear as he turned to help her and his eyes flew to hers.

"Emily, right?" Popcorn Guy interrupted what would've been a very awkward moment with her roommate.

She tore her eyes from Noah and looked at him.

"So look, are you going to come out with us or is your friend?"

Emery was finally upright on her feet. "Excuse me?"

"Does your apology entail your lips or hers around my dick?"

Before Emery could blink in response, Noah's fist flew into the guy's face. There was a cracking sound and blood burst from the guy's nose. Football players began pushing to be a part of the fight and started forcing all the intruders out the front door. Emery lost Noah in the melee, but Rachel grabbed Emery's hand and they pushed out the door with everyone else.

"Rachel, I can't have the police here," she whispered.

"Oh fuck," Rachel moaned. "I'm just full of good decisions tonight." She straightened up, sobering quickly, and walked right into the middle of two really big men. "I need everyone who wants to get arrested tonight to raise their hand!" she yelled.

This got a ton of the guys' attention.

"Nobody?" Rachel pulled out her phone and started taking a video of the crowd. "Then we'll just need you fine gentlemen that requested blow jobs in exchange for some spilled popcorn to be getting the fuck out of here."

Everyone was frozen, thinking over her words.

"No one's moving yet," she pointed out, "but I'll call the cops in thirty seconds if you guys don't move your asses."

This got the Georgia guys moving toward the parking lot, still talking shit and calling Rachel a cock tease.

"I'm usually not a tease!" she yelled. "I just don't like the exchange rate."

She came back to Emery and slung her arm over her shoulders. Together, they walked inside to finish their sweet tea vodka.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A First of Many

Emery couldn't remember ever being so happy in her own detached bubble. In the year that had passed since she'd left Atlanta, she'd created a world that was solitary in most ways, but she wanted it that way. She was hiding, after all.

She'd gotten her graduation equivalency degree and had started attending online college courses. Her days were full of studying and her nights were full of reading, Noah, and his antics. Nothing had changed in the way of the revolving door of girls that he had in his bed, though there had been a few nights where his friends hadn't filled the den and they'd watched movies together from their respective La-Z-Boys. He taught her how to play Grand Theft Auto. She sucked at it, but she liked hearing him laugh at her attempts to play.

Some days her face hurt from smiling so much. Other days the silence threatened to drown her.

Rachel put on music and started shaking her hips to the beat, her long tresses covering her face with each shimmy. Her tank top, which read For Fox Sake, rose and exposed a perfectly flat stomach. She lit up her joint to the beat of the song and thrust her arm in the air, shaking her hips around and dancing over to where Emery was moving to the beat on the couch.

"Happy seventeenth and nineteenth birthday to my best friend in the entire world!" Rachel yelled in a mock cheerleader voice as she handed the joint over to Emery.

"Thanks," Emery said, taking the joint between her lips and pulling in the sweet smoke. She still felt lost, confused, and relieved, but she wasn't numb anymore. Emily Sanders had been feeling everything she could since she left Atlanta. Sometimes she was overwhelmed with the emotions, even if it was just being comfortable.

"So everything is set up with the Facebook page, right?" Rachel asked.

"Yes. Romona Hicks is our lifeline if I have to run," Emery recited.

"If anything happens, just leave and we'll use that to communicate a meeting or to set up what you need," Rachel confirmed.

Emery was pretty sure she would die without Rachel, especially if she didn't see her on a regular basis. Rachel religiously came to see her in Nashville once a month, but Emery wished her visits were more frequent. Rachel's dad thought she wanted to hang with her cousin. He was just happy she wasn't getting arrested.

She and Noah lived peacefully with each other; he was busy with football, college, and his friends. Even though Emery felt pretty invisible in his life, with the exception of those rare times it was just the two of them, he was always nice (if distracted) and seemed to want to stay away from her most of the time. On those few occasions when it was just the two of them in the condo, the conversation flowed between them and they enjoyed each other. Emery was warming up to him, but there was still something uncomfortable about him. She couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"So have you decided what you're going to major in?" Rachel blew smoke away from Emery's face from her perch on the couch Emery had purchased for the condo.

"No," Emery grabbed the joint and inhaled, "but I think I want to help kids." Like you helped me.

"That's awesome. What about some sort of counselor or something?"

"I don't know. I'm still looking around."

"Sounds good."

Rachel brought Emery money every couple months, after they'd sent another blackmail letter to Phil. Emery hated relying on the money from him, but he owed her and she was able to be away from him because of it. Derrick has most of it in an account for her and she was saving it for when she really needed it. She inhaled again and felt all the straight, rigid lines of her life curve as the high took over.

"Derrick got you a new license for Emily Sanders with your new hair, so now you have a driver's license and a social security card. I think that's all you need."

"Yep. I'm Emily Sanders," Emery said slowly, blowing smoke into the air. She'd kept her hair brown; it was a rich chestnut color and now skimmed her shoulders. She thought freedom agreed with her-she'd mellowed. She laughed all the time now with Rachel or Noah, but she really didn't leave her cocoon of safety. With everyone else, she was still guarded and tried to blend into the background. Emery didn't have a car yet, so if she went anywhere she had to depend on public transportation or Noah. She hated to inconvenience him, so she spent most of her time in and around the condo. All the places she went alone were within walking distance and she tried to be okay with eating by herself. She brought a book everywhere with her so she didn't have to talk to people.

"Em," Rachel sighed as she plopped down next to Emery, "I know this must be hard, but you can become someone else now. You can be anything you want."

"Except all the things I wanted to do I can't now. I wanted to go to Georgia, but I can't because I only have a GED. I wanted to be a doctor or something."

"You did?"

Emery couldn't remember if she did or not. The first time Phil had come in her room, her entire life crumbled. With the violent way he took her, he also took her dreams. His thrusts still flashed through her mind; his grunts filled her nightmares. Every single day, in the seconds between sleep and dreams, she felt paralyzed. Those were the seconds where she (unaware of the reason) saw him lick his fingers for the first time, over and over again. Those seconds of the day were where she felt his presence in the room with her, wherever she was.

She shook her head, trying to remember what they were actually talking about before her mind had scooped her up and dragged her to the place she feared the most. She'd stopped everything after that, like a switch had been turned off. She stopped gymnastics, dreaming of the future, and stopped letting people touch her.

"I don't know." She laughed, simply because she was high and if she thought about her future she might collapse at the truth of it.

"Well, what do you want to do now?" Rachel asked as she danced and jumped around the den.

"You know what I want. I want someone to kiss me." She held the joint out for Rachel, then brought her fingertips to her lips.

"You still haven't let anyone near you?" Rachel asked before taking a pull off the last of the joint.

Emery shook her head. She couldn't. She didn't trust anyone, not even herself. She lifted herself off the couch and danced toward Rachel. They both lost themselves in the rhythm of the music. They danced around each other, lifted their arms over their heads, gyrated their hips, and shook their heads to the beat of music blaring out of the speakers.

As the song was about to end, Noah and a few of his football friends came in the door with beer and other bags. Emery didn't know how long the guys stood in the doorway watching the display before Rachel caught sight of them and stopped to curtsy.

"Cousin...light of my life," Noah said jovially as he walked into the kitchen and set his things on the counter.

Emery's chest heaved with exertion and she and Rachel leaned on each other, watching as the boys came in and put their things down.

One of the guys Emery didn't recognize hit Noah on the arm. "That's your cousin?"

"Yep. Off limits, Ethan." Noah looked at Emery and winked at her.

Rachel, with her hands in her hair, walked over to the sink. She tied her hair back, stuck her hip out, and pouted. "I'm so not off limits, Ethan." She smiled, her red lips exposing perfect white teeth.

"Rach," Noah warned.