The Girl I Used To Know

“What happened to you, Emma?”

Zack Merrick sat on the edge of Emma’s bed. They had just awoken from their night of partying. It was safe to say that neither of them fully remembered the night. Zack had no idea how he made it back to his house, or how he ended up in Emma’s bed, and the last thing that Emma could clearly recall was walking back to Zack’s house in the care of both the boys.

“What do you mean?” Emma groaned from her place in the bed. “You can’t lecture me about last night, Zack, because you did everything I did.”

“That doesn’t mean a lot right now. I can’t remember a thing.” Zack Merrick sighed. As angry as he was at Emma for doing what she did to him on their date, he was more disappointed in himself. Last night she had brought out a side of him that he had never seen before. A side that he never wanted to meet again. “I mean, you were doing so good. Why now?”

“Because it was the anniversary, Zack.”

Before Emma even acknowledged what she had said, Zack had joined her back in the middle of the bed. Those were the words she never wanted to escape from her lips. What Zack didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Furthermore, what she didn’t have to talk about, she could avoid thinking about.

“The anniversary of what?”

“Nothing,” Emma shot quickly. “Forget I said anything.”

“No. What anniversary”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Zack.”

He knew he was over stepping his boundary, but as far as he was concerned, she was living in his house and he deserved the truth. If Emma Demmings was going to string him around and then do drugs right in front of him, after convincing him to try them as well, she was going to tell him what was wrong with her.

“Come on, Em.”

“Alright. You want to know? After our Senior prom I went to a party. I got really drunk and ran out of cigarettes, so I figured if I just drove to the store up the road it wouldn’t be a problem.” Emma thought telling someone, especially Zack, would be at least slightly easy since it happened so long ago. But as the words left her chapped lips, tears formed in her eyes. “I was fine on the way there, but on the way back I just.. Zoned out, I guess. Anyways, there was this little girl, and she ran out in front of the car before I could stop. There was blood everywhere. The only thing I knew how to do was run, so I did. And I never looked back.”

“You..” Zack paused to inhale a deep breath. “You killed someone?”

“Not just anyone, Zack. An innocent child. What the Hell is wrong with me?”

“It was a long time ago, Emma.”

“Yeah. I’m still alive and she’s still dead.”

Emma Demmings stood from the bed with tears streaming down her pale face. When she came to the Merrick house she only had two things she really cared about; a crappy hoodie and a metal box. She grabbed both of them from the dresser. She pulled the ripped jacket over her head and stuffed the box deep inside.

“I’m sorry, Zack.” She turned to him with sad eyes. “But I can’t stay here. I appreciate everything that you’ve done for me, and everything that your mom has done, but it’s not right. I don’t belong here.”

“Emma, don’t.” Zack followed her through the bedroom door. He nearly had to run to keep up with her. “Please stop!”

“Zack,” Emma breathed. She opened the front door with a soft smile on her face. She slid her cold hand down the edge of his face, and out of respect for the way he felt about her, she planted a soft kiss on his trembling lips. “If you care about me, you’ll let me go.”

Zack Merrick couldn’t deny that he had strong feelings for Emma Demmings. He always had them, and he always would. He would have given nearly anything if it meant she would stick around. When he stared into her eyes could understand just how deeply she was broken, and how running was the only thing that made her content with the mistakes she’d made. He stepped back from her, and without another word said Emma Demmings walked out of his life, and hopefully, out of his heart.