Page 88 of Secrets in the Deep

Emily nodded. “That’s true. If eight-year-old me could see herself right now, she’d be in awe. Heck, most people would look at me and be in awe, because from the outside it looks amazing. Travel and exotic locations and people saying my name like they know me. But I have no friends. I’m never home. I live out of hotels and inns. Everyone I come across wants something from me. A signature. A photo. To star in their film and make it an overnight success. Nothing’s felt real or genuine for years…until I got here.”

“Did you tell him that?” Nora asked.

“No. I made the decision to break my next contract and take a hiatus from acting all by myself. And I wanted to pick the right moment to tell him. A moment where I could explain how I was feeling and why I was making the decision forme. But my mother took that moment from me…again. And yet again, the two of them unknowingly worked together to try and unravel any plans I’d made.”

Nora leaned forward. “My brother loves you, Emily. He just…he grew up having to make decisions he was too young to make. And that changed him.”

“Because of your mother?”

Pain flickered through her eyes. “Yeah. I don’t know how much he’s told you about her, but she suffered from schizophrenia. And it was really bad. We never had clean clothes or stable lives or heck, even safe living conditions. He pretends it doesn’t affect him. But I think he got really good at making very tough decisions to protect both of us, and that’s what he thinks he’s doing now.”

“He doesn’t talk about that.”

“I know. But even if he did, you shouldn’t have to live with someone you love trying to take control of your life. I just hope he figures it all out before he loses you.”

Nora spoke as if tonight wasn’t final. As if they still had a chance. But it didn’t feel like that to Emily. It felt like she’d let him back in, forgiven him, and at the first true test, he’d broken them in exactly the same way he’d broken them the first time.

Over the next hour, the mood in the room lightened, the conversations moving to the locals of Deep River. A dysfunctional couple, Anika and Mark. A town recluse named David Collins. Then to a woman named Maureen who, apparently, was a self-proclaimed psychic.

When her phone vibrated with a text, Emily tensed, because it had to be her mother or Ryan. She wasn’t sure which would be better.

She pulled her cell from her pocket.

Ryan: How’s the cut?

Emily: I’m pain free.

Ryan: Are you with Nora?

Emily: Yes.

The three dots popped up then disappeared. When his next text came through, her breath stuttered.

Ryan: I’m an idiot.

She paused before typing the next words.

Emily: You are an idiot.

Ryan: I just…I can’t let go of this fear that you’ll wake up years from now and realize I cost you everything.

Emily: Your version of ‘everything’ is very different from mine.

Ryan: I don’t know where we go from here.

Emily: Even that hurts, Ryan. I want you to know. I want you to be so incredibly sure that the only future that’s right for either of us is one together. I need you to feel with absolute certainty that every version of tomorrow is unthinkable without me in it. Because that’s how I feel about you.

Ryan liftedhis beer and downed a quarter of the bottle. He wasn’t even sure what the fuck he was doing here. He wasn’t the guy who, when things went to hell, tried to find an answer at the bottom of a bottle at the local bar.

Fuck no.

But after an hour of driving around in circles, not knowing where the hell he was going, he’d landed here.

His gaze shifted to his phone, the messages from Emily beating into his skull like a fucking bat. He hadn’t said the right things. He didn’t know what the right things were.

His phone vibrated with a text from the group chat.

Joel: Emily’s staying at Polly’s tonight. I’ll be here too.