Dear Emily by Julie Ann Levin Read Free Book Online Page B

seen
before. Then again, she'd never seen him drink
so much before.
    Amy tired of waiting after a few
minutes. Jack hadn't left the keys and
she had no way of knowing for sure how long the
talk was going to take. He didn't have to
answer any of their questions. Though they
might have some.
    About her?
    She walked away from the house and up
to a large, ficus tree. Other than the massive
tree, it was the only clearing at this side of the
farm.
    And with good reason. You didn't
want a ficus anywhere near a house. The roots of the
ficus had a way of tearing under a home's foundation,
twisting their way, wreaking havoc to the pipes. In the daytime,
however, the ficus provided considerable shade.
    Did it say a lot for her own
state of mind that she could, in fact, stand to be
around Jack? At fault or not, which it was not his
fault, did it say something about her as a
person? Was she supposed to shun him? To hate
him?
    She couldn't do that.
    Jack Harper was the best
thing to happen to her. He was the reason. Only
him. It had nothing to do
and was completely removed from his involvement four
years earlier.
    Amy heard a crunch of broken
twigs underfoot. She fixed her gaze on the moon, needing a moment
before facing Jack. She felt a little sad as thoughts of
her sister crept to the forefront of her mind, making their
appearance at the end of a trying day.
    She missed Emily.
    As different as
they had been, and as unimportant as
Amy had sometimes felt to her sister, she still
missed her. The thing about growing up with a sibling is the shared
experience. Who else would understand the
life you'd known better than the one
person that went through the same shit day in and day
out? That's not to
say that there weren't good
times. There were many, wonderful
times, just like any other family.
    She turned to face Jack and as if
he were expecting it, he gathered her up in his arms
in a well-timed embrace. It was just what she
needed. She pressed her cheek to his chest and his arms wrapped
around her reassuringly. She
noted that this was not their first
embrace.
    They stood like that under
the ficus for a long time. Just when she
thought it was time to pull away from his body, he
surprised her by running his rough fingers through her
hair.
    This wasn't a good idea,
but it felt comforting so she chose not to protest.
His deft fingers smoothed her hair down, again and again, until her
face was square in front of him and
he was looking down at her with those deep-set
eyes.
    “You won't always like me so much,” she
said.
    “That sounds like a promise.” He
sounded much more clearheaded than she'd expected from
him.
    “It is,” she said
nodding gently.
    He held her gaze a moment longer before
releasing her. His hands slid down her arms and he produced the
keys to the truck, seemingly out of nowhere, and held
them against the palm of her hand.
    They walked back to the truck and Amy
cursed the difficulty it caused her to get into
the mammoth of a vehicle. She squinted in the darkness as they
drove toward the city, thinking it was about time
she got her eyes checked.
    She didn't just think about
the health of her eyes. She thought about upcoming exams, the
professor that was always late to class,
the seemingly low supply of chocolate in the apartment,
current events, the coming spring, and so on.
    Amy thought about any random
topic that she could produce, to avoid the one
thought that threatened to overtake all brain
function.
    She was falling in love with
Jack Harper.

Dear Emily,
     
     
    I haven't missed
the irony.
     

Chapter 6
     
    A week later, Amy left her Chemistry
class and found Jack waiting for her. “This is a
surprise.” Then she noticed the look on
his face. He rolled his shoulder and took a deep breath.
    “What is it?” she
asked.
    “Tom was in an accident,” he
said.
    Amy gasped, and her