The Mixtape by Brittainy C. Cherry

30

EMERY

The next morning, I knew I needed to talk to Sammie, and I knew exactly where I’d find her—down at the church getting ready for morning Bible study. It didn’t take much effort to find out where she’d be in a small town like Randall. All I had to do was ask around, and I quickly received my answers.

I arrived before the church service had begun, and I found Sammie in one of the classrooms, preparing for her lesson. She hadn’t noticed me, as she was busy flipping through paperwork, so I stood in the doorframe and knocked on the wall.

The moment she looked up, she dropped the papers in her hands, which went scattering across the room.

“Emery,” she whispered, her voice in pure shock. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost, and in some ways, she had. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“Are you kidding me, Sammie? What are you doing here?” I barked, stunned. I hated the fact that a part of me wanted to hug her, to embrace her, to cry, knowing she was alive and well. Another part of me wanted to cuss her out. “You told me you went off to start a new life. You didn’t tell me that you came back here. Each time we talked, you were somewhere new. How could you do that? Why would you keep it from me that you came back here? Did you ever even travel at all?”

Her eyes showed the truth. She hadn’t. She’d run straight home all those years ago. I was going to be sick.

“I . . . it’s . . .” She swallowed hard and glanced over my shoulder as if she was afraid of someone overhearing our conversation. “It’s complicated.”

I closed the door behind me and walked into the room in her direction. “You ran back to Mama and Dad right away, didn’t you?”

“I had to, Emery. You don’t understand. I had nothing.”

“You had me!”

“Not really. And I get it. It was easy for you to walk away from Mama and Dad, but I’m not like you. My relationship with them was good before I made a mistake.”

“You didn’t make a mistake—you were raped, Sammie.”

She cringed at my words before breathing in deeply. “Yes, well, that was a long time ago, and it’s something we don’t talk about anymore. So, yeah. I have to get ready for class.” She went to pick up the paperwork, and I was so confused. What was going on? She was acting like a weird Stepford wife, moving as if she had no real emotions and acting as if her abandoning me and Reese five years ago wasn’t a big deal.

“Sammie, you left Reese. You left me. We struggled for years trying to keep our heads above water, and you walked away and came home. You could’ve reached out and told me. You could’ve given us help somehow.”

She blinked a few times before shaking her head. “I made the best choice I could, Emery. That’s all I could do.”

“And Mama and Dad were fine with you abandoning Reese?”

Her brown eyes glassed over before she went back to picking up the pieces of paper. “It doesn’t matter what they think.”

“Well, they seemed pretty shocked when they saw Reese in town yesterday.”

“What? They saw her?” Sammie gasped. “No . . . no . . .”

“Yes. And they were stunned. They said you told them you lost the baby. They didn’t even know she existed.”

Sammie wasn’t listening to me. She wasn’t taking in the words that I was saying. “Reese is here? In Randall?”

“Yes . . .”

“No one can know I had that baby, Emery. Do you understand? No one can know. It would ruin my world. Mama and Dad would flip out. I told them I lost the baby, and that’s why they took me back in. They said it was God’s way of healing me.”

That alone made me want to vomit. The only way my parents would take my sister back was by believing she’d had a miscarriage? And they believed something so horrific was a sign from God?

What was wrong with those people?

What was wrong with Sammie for telling such a terrible lie?

“Well, now they know Reese exists. So you’ll have to deal with that,” I warned her. “Not that you’re good with dealing with things.”

“You don’t get to scold me,” she started.

“The hell I don’t!” I snapped.

“Watch your language—you’re in a church,” Sammie muttered, sounding a bit too much like Mama.

“Is this all you wanted? To be a carbon copy of Mama? To pretend that things are fine when they aren’t? You abandoned me, Sammie, after I took you in, and you have nothing to say about it? No remorse?”

She parted her lips as her body shivered a little. “It . . . it was in God’s will to end up this way.”

God’s will?

What a fucking cop-out.

I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe the woman who was standing in front of me saying these things. I didn’t know that woman. I didn’t know the girl who stood there speaking the words that she had. My sister wasn’t that person. My sister could never be so cruel and heartless. No . . . the woman in front of me was a product of our parents. They’d shaped her solid during the most traumatic times of her life.

And the sister I knew, the Sammie I loved, was no longer anywhere to be found.

“It’s a sad day when a person needs to use God to cover up their guilt for harsh choices in life,” I muttered, turning away, knowing there wasn’t anything else left for me to say.

As I went to open the door, Sammie called out.

“Emery?”

“Yes?”

I looked back to find a teary-eyed girl staring my way. Her bottom lip trembled as she said, “Please don’t tell anyone about Reese and me. It would ruin my life. I can’t deal with that. I have a new beginning. People can’t know.”

I didn’t say another word to her as I walked out of the building. I’d never tell a soul about what Sammie did all those years ago. But that guilt on Sammie’s heart?

That was something she’d have to deal with for the rest of her life.

My days felt heavy as memories of my trip to see Sammie kept coming up and pounding me with emotions. I did my best to distract myself with spending extra quality time with Reese and coming up with new recipes to try for Oliver. Cooking and my daughter were my two saving graces. Without them both, my mind would’ve run wild.

One afternoon, while I was making a grocery list for the week at Oliver’s, I heard sniffling coming from the pantry.

Alarmed, I headed over quickly, where I found a crying Kelly falling apart, with her palms over her face.

“Oh my gosh, Kelly, what’s wrong?” I asked, rushing to her side and pulling her straight in for a hug.

“I’m sorry, Em.” She sniffled and tried to control her emotions. “I just saw the cereal up there, and it reminded me of a night that Alex and I stayed up late into the night eating cereal, and it’s stupid but it hit me hard, and now . . .” She couldn’t finish her words, because she began sobbing again.

It was the first time I’d witnessed Kelly showing any kind of sadness. Oliver had told me that she and Alex had had a past together and were falling in love, but I’d never brought it up to her, because I figured it was a hard topic to tackle. She always seemed so upbeat and composed, so seeing her crumbling from having a memory come rushing back to her broke my heart.

“I’m so stupid. I’m sorry, I’m fine,” she said, wiping the tears that kept falling.

“You’re not stupid, and you’re not fine. You don’t have to be fine, Kelly. I cannot even imagine what it is you’re going through.”

She looked at me with the most heartbroken stare and shook her head. “You don’t know how awful I feel. I feel so guilty.”

“Guilty? Why?”

She sniffled and covered her face with the palms of her hands. Through her muffled sounds she said, “A man asked me on a date at CycleBar today, and I gave him my number,” she cried. “How could I do that? How could I give another man my number after losing the best man I’ve ever had?”

Oh, Kelly . . .

That moment was a complete realization for me. While I’d been dealing with my own demons, Kelly had been facing hers. I hadn’t even known how deep her scars ran until that very moment. It was then that I realized that everyone had struggles that they tried their best to keep to themselves.

“You can’t be that hard on yourself, Kelly. You deserve to be happy again.”

“I don’t even know what that means anymore!” She cried, even harder, and I held her tighter in my arms.

“You know what you need?” I whispered, trying my best to soothe her.

“What’s that?”

I pulled her back a little and smiled at her as I brushed away some of her tears. “You need a girls’ day.”

After some convincing, Kelly agreed to have me take her on a spa day, to help clear her head and heart from the mess that was sitting inside of her.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” I asked Oliver as Kelly went to clean herself up a little.

“Yes, of course. She needs it. Plus, I can get by feeding myself for the day,” he joked. “How can I help?”

“Actually, I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor and pick Reese up from camp today? I asked Abigail, but she already has plans.”

“Of course, not a problem. What time?”

I gave him all the information, and he was more than willing to help me out.

“Thank you, Emery . . . for being there for Kelly. I know you’re going through your own stuff, but it means a lot to me that you’re helping her out.”

“I think we both need a day to get away,” I confessed. “The world’s been a lot lately. I just feel as if it’s time to unplug for a second.”

“Take all the time you two need. I’ll be here with Reese when you’re ready to come home.”

Home.

He said it as if his home was mine. That made me smile more than I knew possible.