Page 343 of Off Limits: The Firsts

I’ve let her down.

I promised her I would be strong. I swore to her I’d never cut myself again.

Don’t do it, Emmy.

With a wretched sob, I take the box cutter and chuck it as far as I can into the thick foliage at the base of the runway. It takes everything I have not to run in after it.

But I don’t. I can’t.

The shame is instant.

The regret immediate.

But the want still thrives despite knowing I broke my promise to her.

And to myself.

“I’m so sorry, Mom.”

I double over and cry with every part of my body and repeat the words she used to whisper in my ear as she’d hold me after she’d find new cuts on my arms again.

This hurt doesn’t take away my pain, only being strong will.

I am in control of me.

I will survive despite it.

I am loved regardless of it.

And at the end of the runway in the early morning, I rock myself back and forth, repeat my mother’s words, and hope I can find my strength once again.

“I fucked up.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Grady says as he pulls his attention away from the preseason football game just long enough to glance at me in the kitchen.

“No. Seriously.” I look at my phone for what feels like the hundredth time and debate calling Emerson again. Her last text, the one from three days ago telling me she’s super busy with a week-long jump class, still doesn’t sit right with me. I didn’t ask her to do anything. I didn’t even text her. So her sending a random text to explain why she can’t see me for a few days feels hinky.

Especially after how she asked to be taken home from the lookout and then jogged up the stairs, saying she had a stomachache. I was left to stare at the shut door to her apartment with my apology getting lost in the night around me.

Something is definitely off. Maybe she just needs some space. Fuck if I know.

“Hey, Romeo? You gonna finish your sentence or are you interrupting my date with the 49ers for a reason?”

“Are you in my house drinking my beer, watching my television, and eating my pizza?” I ask, and he nods. “Then shut the fuck up because I seem to be the one footing the bill for your romantic evening.”

“Well, then get to the point and stop standing there like someone pissed in your Wheaties. What gives?”

“I don’t know.” I sip my beer as I cross the distance and take a seat across from him—my view of the backyard while his is of the game. “Watch those files, will you?” I say, pointing to the stack of cold case files I’m working on that are sitting on the opposite end of the couch as him.

“How can I watch them when they’re freaking everywhere? On the couch. Falling off the couch. On the floor. On the coffee table. On the desk. I mean, Jesus, do you take them in the bathroom with you, too?”

“You make fun, but when you’re sitting outside on my new patio with a built-in barbeque and flat screen television, you’ll be thanking me.”

“Doesn’t seeing this shit every day ever get to you? Don’t you need a break from it?”

“Sometimes.” I sigh. “Recently, a lot of the time.”

For being such a little shit, he’s smart.