Meet Cute (Page 47)

Fuck. This just keeps getting worse. “What else could she have?”

“Did you know Emme kept a journal?”

She wanders around with a decorated notebook half the time. “Sure. That’s kind of a typical girl thing, isn’t it?”

“It can be. It appears that Emme shared some of her entries with your aunt.”

“She shared them with Linda?” That seems odd. Poetry I can kind of understand, but journals are usually personal, or at least that’s what I assume.

Trish gives me a pained look as she slides a stack of photocopies toward me. “These might be difficult to see, but please remember that these are Emme’s private thoughts, and although she shared them with your aunt, I doubt she intended for you to see them.”

“They’re that bad?” I laugh a little, but sober quickly at her piteous expression.

With each entry I read, written in Emme’s distinctive cursive, my heart shrivels and cracks. Phrases jump out on the page, ones in angry slashing caps, gone over again and again with ink until the paper threatened to tear under the pressure. The running ink and splotches on the page indicate she often cried while she wrote these. Each entry bears a date at the top right corner of the page.

One is dated around the time I started moving my stuff in and cleaning out our parents’ room:

I HATE THIS. I hate that Dax is throwing out all this stuff and there’s nothing I can do about it. He just comes in and takes over and changes everything. I wish he hadn’t moved in here. I wish I could just take care of myself.

Another is from the time Emme punched out that Billy kid and I confiscated her phone:

DAX IS SO MEAN. I hate him so FUCKING much. FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!! He took my phone for the whole weekend. Now I have no one to talk to. And he’s such a hypocrite! One second he’s saying he gets why I punched Billy and the next he’s grounding me. He’s such an ASSHOLE!

There are endless entries, all of them expressing Emme’s frustration with living with me, my invading her privacy, trying to be her dad when I’m not. It’s hard to read and even harder to understand why she would show any of this to Linda.

I swallow down the surge of emotion that threatens to embarrass me. I reach for the cold coffee on my desk, anything that will help ease the sudden dryness in my mouth.

“I know this is difficult, Dax,” Trish says softly.

“I didn’t realize she felt this way,” I croak.

“I very much doubt she does. She’s a grieving girl who’s experienced a huge trauma and she’s working through her emotions,” Trish reasons.

“Even if Emme says she doesn’t mean it, the prosecution is going to say she’s being coerced to change her story.”

“There’s a strong possibility that they’ll use that argument against you.”

“Christ. Am I going to lose her?” I pinch the bridge of my nose and rub my eyes, on the brink of cracking. My sister has written countless entries about how much she can’t stand me. “I don’t even know if she wants me to fight for her anymore.”

“I think you’ll need to talk to her about that, as painful as it is.”

I nod, my vision blurring. Everything I had seems to be slipping through my fingers. “I’ll speak with her.”

“Of course. Would you like to call me later?”

“Sure, yeah. That would be good.”

Trish stands and I do the same, but my legs are unsteady and my palms are damp.

“Thank you for stopping by.” I walk her to the door.

“Of course.”

Emme’s sitting in the waiting room with some blended drink—likely full of caffeine she doesn’t need. “Come on in, kiddo.” My voice breaks, the pain making the words jagged.

“Is everything okay?” She follows me into the office.

I motion to the couch. “I have to show you something and you need to be very honest with me about the truthfulness of it, okay?”

“Okay.” Her sleeve is in her mouth, the edge already wet from her chewing on it. The skin around her fingers is red and torn. Her anxiety is making her unable to manage without some kind of self-soothing.

I push the papers toward her with a heavy swallow. Her brows come down before her eyes flare. “Where’d you get these?” She flips through the pages with shaky fingers.

“Aunt Linda said you shared them with her.”

I watch her horrified expression change to confusion. “What?”

“These are photocopies. This is your writing.”

“I didn’t give them to her.” She shakes her head vigorously. “I would never show this to anyone. This is from my journal. I never let people read it ’cause it’s what I write when I’m upset, or mad, or sad and just feeling bad about stuff. I don’t know how Linda got this, Dax, and I-I don’t mean it.” She skims the painful words in black ink. “I don’t hate you. I just— sometimes I get so mad ’cause nothing makes sense and I don’t know how to handle all the things in my head. The counselor told me writing things down would help.” Tears well and she wipes them away with the heel of her hand.

“It’s like, we used to just have fun together. Before Mom and Dad died, you used to be fun Dax, but now you have to be another kind of Dax, too, and it’s hard. Sometimes you still get to be fun Dax, but other times when you make rules and stuff it reminds me of Dad, and then I miss him and wish he was here and that it could be different. Does that make sense?”

I give her a small smile. “It makes perfect sense, Emme, but you have to understand how much this worries me, that you think these things, sometimes.”

“I don’t really wish I was with Mom and Dad, not like you think that means.” She blows out a long breath. “Sometimes I really miss them and I wish I could be with them. And sometimes I just wish I could see them and make sure they didn’t hurt when it happened.”

“I understand exactly what you mean, but you can see how this wouldn’t look good, right?”

“I didn’t mean for Aunt Linda to see this. I don’t know how she got them.” She looks up at me, panic stricken. “Does this mean she’s going to take me away from you?”

“I’m going to fight to keep you with me, Emme, if that’s where you want to be.”

“I don’t want to live with anyone else.”

Just when things seemed like they were finally going to be okay, the bottom falls out again.

chapter twenty-two

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN

Dax

Less than twenty minutes later, I receive a call from Beverly asking if I’m able to stop by the Whitman office on my way home. She has some paperwork that needs to be signed. Normally Kailyn would be the one to manage that, but maybe she’s still giving me space, or maybe she’s realized I’m nothing but a headache she doesn’t need.

Emme chews her nails until her fingers bleed on the way to the lawyer’s office. This whole situation is a complete nightmare.

Beverly greets us with a friendly smile. “I appreciate you stopping in. Kailyn wants to file this tomorrow morning, so the deadline is a little tight.”

“Is Kailyn here? Can I see her?” Emme asks, looking hopeful.

“I’m sorry, Emme, Kailyn’s not in the office. She has court today,” Beverly says softly.

Which is something I might’ve known if I hadn’t stonewalled her all weekend.

“Oh.” Her face crumples and I fear what will happen if Linda does get custody. I can’t imagine she’d let Emme see Kailyn.

“This won’t take long. You’ll be in and out of the office in just a few minutes,” Beverly assures Emme.

“Okay.” She settles in one of the waiting room chairs, knee bouncing anxiously.

“Is everything okay?” Beverly asks as she guides me to the conference room, the same one I waited in when I first came to see Kailyn after my parents passed. God, how things have changed since then.

“It’s been a rough day.”

“I won’t take much of your time, then. I’m sure you’d like to be home and so would Emme.”

I nod as I take a seat, and Beverly places two sets of documents in front of me. It’s a small amendment to the trust, making it easier to transfer funds. I sign the papers after Beverly reviews the changes.

“How are you handling everything?” Beverly asks as she slips my copy into an envelope.

“It’s been . . . intense to say the least.”

Beverly stands along with me. “I realize now is probably not an ideal time to bring it up, but I’ve mentioned before how much we’d love to have you on board here. We would most certainly be able to accommodate flex hours so you can put in the time necessary to support Emme in this very transitional stage. There’s no pressure, but I hope it’s something you’ll consider.”

“Kailyn has mentioned it recently. It’s definitely something I’m looking at quite seriously.”

She smiles as she walks me to the door. “That’s great to hear. It’ll mean wonderful things for Kailyn, having you on board.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand what you mean.” Did she tell her boss about us?