“Yes. I’ll go to bed, too…on the couch. I’ll go to couch,” he said, patting the space next to him.
“Do you need anything tonight?”
“No. Thank you.”
She scooped up Jim, and Pam followed them into the kitchen. “And the dizziness?” she asked, loud enough for him to hear her from the couch.
“It’s better now.”
“What about the dimming, detached feeling you had earlier? That’s better, too?”
“Did I say anything aloud about feeling like that? I honestly can’t remember.”
“No, but you got the look,” she said, setting the cat on the counter as she filled her water bottle and picking him up again when she was finished. “I can tell when my anxious…students get the look.”
Family history of mental illness: none.
Symptoms: panic attack, depersonalization, dissociation, dizziness.
“I’m feeling better,” he said.
“Good. Good night, Emmett.”
“Good night. Good night, kittens.”
Tallie switched off the lamp, leaving on the hall light like she had the night before, but she left her bedroom door unlocked this time. Simply closed it and put her ear to the wood, listened. Kept it there, mouthed his name. It’s happening. Remember this. This is the wildest thing I’ve ever done, she thought, holding her breath like a prayer.
She emerged from her bathroom dewy and clean-faced. She googled Emmett Aaron Baker and found nothing.
Nico texted see you tmrw, mooi, and she considered responding with there is a man i do not know on my couch and you will meet him tmrw, but i don’t know what it means. i am relearning even my own heart, but simply sent him yes pls, mooi before putting her phone in the nightstand drawer.
She was supine under her cool sheet and weighted blanket, feeling guilty and awful and was she really doing this but. Put her hand between her legs because it was quieter than her vibrator buzz. Tallie let herself go and thought about the unlocked door separating her from Emmett out there on her couch. Thought about him finding her in that position, her hand beneath the blanket moving around like a busy mouse. She imagined his strong tiger body standing by the bed, watching her close her eyes and turn her head to bite the pillow. Imagined Joel, jealous, watching her. Nico, too. She thought about the sext Nico had sent her a month ago: i have a lesson this afternoon, but tonight…i want to make you come. He’d done exactly that, more than once. She thought about how good Nico made her feel and how good Emmett could make her feel if she’d ask him, if she’d let him.
Tallie was a tightly tied knot that needed to come undone. She imagined all he wasn’t telling her—his danger and darkness and secrets and the what-ifs—whipping like wind, snapping like thunder. An unstoppable storm. Her desire and his force and the mystery wrapping around it, revving up and swirling, knock-knock-knocking harderharderharder against her bedroom door until that gasping mouth of the world tugged loose and split wide open. Swallowed her up.
PART THREE
Saturday
EMMETT
Emmett was on the couch, curled like a comma, sleeping. He’d thought about Tallie behind her locked bedroom door as he drifted off, hoping she’d appear to him in a dreamy, sugar-spun haze where he was a different man with a different life. No before, no after. But instead, he dreamed the power went out again. He’d had his eyes on Christine and Brenna, their faces eclipsed, then illuminated by glows of sunlight and moonlight, swapped out for the lamp in Tallie’s living room. The dream clicked to an unending cone of darkness. Christine and Brenna were gone, wisped into black. Emmett screamed for them at first, then forgot their names. Couldn’t scream them anymore. He said, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Chanted it, rocking himself in a cold, concrete corner. Alone. The only man in the world, left behind, pulling at his hair. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
“I’m so—” He woke himself up saying it in the quiet of Tallie’s house. Frenetic flashes of black, white, and red with his eyes closed. Eyes open and crying, he saw Tallie standing over him with her hands held out, like she was preparing to catch him if he jumped into her arms. Once she saw he was awake, she turned on the lamp. She sat by his head and touched it, the tuft of hair at his temple. She put her hand on his, asked if he was okay.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes.
“That’s what you kept saying over and over…‘I’m sorry’ pretty loud, not yelling…but it woke me up. Is this a recurring dream? Do you remember what was happening? Do you want a glass of water?” Tallie said.