Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

Emmett

I plop myself on the floor outside Briar's bedroom door. "I'm sorry," I say loudly enough for her to hear me.

I regret trying to be cute, but when she said she hated me, I used the opportunity to let her know I knew that wasn't true. But it didn't go as planned.

"Just go to bed," she says. The hiccup in her voice is killing me.

"I'm not going to go to bed. I want to talk about this."

"I don't."

I rest the back of my head on the door. I want to demand she talk to me. We've been so open with one another to this point, so transparent about all our baggage and our fears. All for it to come down to this…

This is the exact reason I never wanted to get into a relationship with anyone. But with Briar, I'm already in too deep, and I can't find my way out without her holding my hand and guiding me.

"Have you always known?" she asks, her voice closer to me. I think she's on the other side of the door.

"Known what?"

"I'm not stupid, Emmett. You knew what you were doing when you said that." I hear a small thud, and I smile. She is on the other side of the door. She hasn't completely shut me out… yet.

"When I was moving you in, the box with all your keepsakes and yearbooks broke open, and everything fell to the floor."

She groans. "What did you see?"

I huff because, in hindsight, I should've told her that day. Made a joke about it, and we could've moved on. We've come so far since then. I don't want to lose the headway we've made.

"What did I do back then to make you hate me?" This question has been plaguing me.

"Answer me first."

I pull up my legs and rest my forearms on them. "Just scribbles about Mrs. Emmett Noughton. I love Emmett and a big red heart over my senior picture. There were a few other things, but nothing creepy."

"Oh my god." She groans again. "I'm going to bed, and you're going to erase all that from your memory." The floorboards creak.

"I can't blame you, I was hot in high school." I revert to my usual way of making an uncomfortable situation more comfortable.

She chuckles, but it's not the one I've become accustomed to. She's still embarrassed. "Yeah, I was one of your many admirers."

"And I was an idiot." The fact that this beautiful woman pined away for me, and I wasn't aware of it tells me how stupid I was.

"You were a senior and popular. I was a freshman and a geek."

"I'm pretty sure you were the same kind of person you are now. The same one who helped me film and get views. The one who doesn't make me feel like I'm the stupid Noughton brother just because I like to make jokes."

"I shouldn't have said I can't rely on you at the bar."

It sucked hearing those words from her, but the only thing I can do is prove to her—and everybody else—that she's wrong about me. "It's okay. But you're dodging the question."

"Because I don't want to tell you."

"So I did do something." I sigh.

She doesn't say anything, and I worry she might be over this conversation. That she'll open this door with a suitcase in hand and say she's going to Gillian's.

"I'm thankful there's a door between us," she says. "Otherwise, I couldn't gather the nerve."

I wait for her to carry on because in order to make it up to her, I have to know what I did. I can't remember for the life of me.

"The summer after freshman year, Gillian dragged me to your family's annual Fourth of July pig roast. I pretty much sat in a corner the entire time, watching Clayton play with Koa next to me on his game console. I didn't want to be there, but Gillian did, and she deserved a break. Plus, I think it was her first time coming back to your family's home after Ben left. I wanted to support her."

"You're a good sister."

"I can't even tell her I'm pregnant. That I slept with a married man. I'm lying to her every single minute of every day. I'm not a very good sister."

"Let's be honest, she's gone a little psycho lately."

She chuckles. "A little, but I get it. She had no childhood. She was raising Koa and me because my dad had to work all the time. She knows you well and doesn't want me to be hurt. I'm not saying she's right about it, but you have a reputation, Emmett, and I understand her concern."

I nod, although she can't see me. She's right, but I always thought Gillian saw through my defense mechanisms. That she saw the good that lives inside me. Sure, I preferred one-night stands and flings with no real attachments, but I've never led anyone on. Never lied about my intentions. Does it make me a terrible person that I didn't want a serious relationship until Briar? Until she found a way through my armor?

"So you were at the party," I say to get her back on track.

"You came over, joking with your friends. Said there was a bet that Clayton was Ben's kid. You asked me if you could hold him on your lap, and I said no because you were clearly drunk."

I rack my brain. Senior year, pig roast, me being a jackass as usual. Sounds about right. "My dad let me get drunk?"

"You were eighteen and had graduated by then," she says by way of explanation.

"Kudos for not letting a drunk guy hold a baby. What was Clay? Four?"

"Three. And he did love you. Held his arms out and wanted to go to you. I guess he's always loved you."

"I am the fun Noughton."

A laugh escapes her.

"And then?" I ask.

"And then one of your friends squatted down and looked into Clayton's eyes as if he thought he'd see Ben there."

"Who?"

"James Jackson."

"JJ?"

He left town and never came back after we graduated. I haven't heard anything from or about him since his family no longer lives in the area either. But it makes sense we were betting on Clayton being Ben's. There wasn't much we didn't bet on back then. We were always trying to one-up each other.

"Yeah."

Something in her tone makes my back straighten. Please tell me JJ didn't do something that means I'm gonna have to search him out and cut off his dick.

"You left, and he stayed," she says.

"But Koa was with you?" My heart rate ramps up, and my body tenses.

"Yeah. But he was giving me a lot of attention. You disappeared for a while."

Of course I did. Fucking idiot. I'm sure I was in the barn.

"He was hitting on me, but I didn't take it seriously. I mean, I knew I wasn't his type. I wasn't a cheerleader, didn't even go to the football games. Well, not without Gillian. It was hard for her to go for a couple of years, but that's another story. But JJ didn't really know who I was, and I wasn't sure why he was giving me attention, but I liked it. I was kind of messed up in the head back then."

"No, you weren't. You were a freshman liking the attention from a senior who a lot of other girls were probably admiring. Did he try something, Briar?"

"No!" The word comes out so fast and adamantly that I believe her. "It's not like that."

"Right, because this circles back to me at some point, right?"

She doesn't say anything for a beat. "Laurel came over and grabbed Clayton, telling me to go enjoy myself, that she'd keep Gillian occupied. Gill was protective, even then. After Laurel left, JJ told me to meet him on the other side of the barn, that he wanted to tell me a secret. Koa wasn't going anywhere, too enthralled in his video game, so I told him I had to use the bathroom."

Dread weighs in my stomach and pins me to the floor as I wait for her to tell me, not remembering one moment of this night. My family has had tons of Fourth of July pig roasts, and I went a little crazy that summer, knowing I was staying in Willowbook. Eating up every minute with my friends, getting drunk, and acting the fool. My dad had a long talk with me that August. That's your summer of fun, he told me, and I should feel privileged because I only got that because I was the youngest.

"Go on." I hold my breath, waiting for her next words.

"I walked to the side of the barn. God, I don't want to tell you…" I hear her groan. "Please can we just move on?"

"I can't make up for it if I don't know what I did."

"You don't have to make up for it. You were young, and I was a nobody."

I frown. "Don't say that. You're not a nobody. Though I have a bad feeling I treated you like that."

Her silence confirms I was a dick.

"Fine. I was walking and heard you and JJ talking so I snuck to the side to eavesdrop. I didn't really want JJ, to be honest. But I felt like if JJ wanted me, maybe you'd notice me. I was so stupid and na?ve." She exhales, and all I want to do is hold her. Let her know that was the past, and I'm not that guy, whoever I was, whatever I did.

"You're killing me. Just tell me what I did." I push my hands through my hair.

Her head bangs against the other side of the door. "JJ told you about me meeting him behind the barn, and you asked him why he'd want me. JJ said something I couldn't hear, then a loud girl started trying to pull you away. You told her to go back to the party, and you'd meet her there."

"Carly," I say, a flicker of a memory sparking. "It was Carly Hawkins. She was always loud and clingy."

"Thankfully, she was drunk and didn't notice me, but I was hiding in the shadows of the barn, and there wasn't a lot of light."

"The whole reason it's the make-out spot."

She lets a quiet chuckle loose.

"What did I say?"

"You said I was trash and said everyone would make fun of him if we hooked up because I was a nobody."

The air whooshes from my lungs. When I recover, I ask, "Anything else?"

She grows quiet again, and I know whatever she's going to say is unthinkable for someone her age to have heard. An age when everyone believes what other people think of them.

"That he'd ruin his reputation for a girl who would lie there like a dead fish while he fucked her."

My heart drops to the depths of my stomach like a stone. "Fuck," I say because nothing I can say will change that memory of me.

She doesn't speak.

My mind is spinning. What an asshole my younger self was. How could I ever say that? To speak so vilely of someone? It's not who I've ever been.

"Good night, Briar." I get up from sitting outside her door, walk into my room, and shut the door.

I go into my en suite and turn on the shower, then return to my bedroom and strip off my T-shirt. I need to wash the mental filth covering my skin. I'm a complete and total asshole.

My bedroom door whips open.

"That's it? ‘Good night, Briar'?" Her eyes are filled with fire, her hands clenched at her sides.