Chapter 9: Chapter 9

Em

I woke up with a painful groan as light streaming in from a nearby window blinded me with its unrepentant ferocity. In the distance I heard someone's fast shuffling followed by a door being slammed but I couldn’t put together what the urgency was. 

 

“Where am I even?” I mumble my voice scratchy and throat yearning for some water, my entire body feeling achy and sapped of energy as I struggle to string together some form of a coherent thought. 

 

I sling my legs over the bed, shocked at the cool air brushing against them and even more so when I realize it’s hitting my entire body. “Why am I naked?” I mumbled aloud as my heart started to race as I struggled to put together the events of last night, and where I was now. 

 

“I’d been playing Tactical-Respawn when Leo and James joined in. We ended up playing a round and then talking for a while. James offered us to come over! This must be his hotel room!” I looked around and started to assemble the night's everts in my mind. Puzzle pieces forming from the bottles scattered along with the pieces of clothing. The place was a mess but as my stomach lurched and fought against my attempts to move I quickly only cared about the restroom.

 

I stumbled to the best of my ability over to the restroom, the door thankfully already open when I lost control and ended up hunched over the toilet. 

 

As I heaved and retched, I tried to figure out what happened. I could vaguely remember James excusing himself at some point early into the night. But more pressingly I could still feel Leo’s lips on my own.

 

“How much did we drink? Why didn’t James stop us?!” I feel sickened and ashamed in a way unfamiliar to me. I might drink a lot and flirt with people if I’m in a bad mood but I wouldn’t just hook up with someone. Especially not after what happened to Em and not in my best friend's hotel room. 

 

I leaned against the wall physically exhausted and avoiding even the thought of stepping back out into the blindingly bright hotel room. “Where did you guys go?” I prayed out to both Leo who seemed to have fled before I woke up and James who seemed to have never returned last night or at least if he did, didn’t bother to stop us. 

 

As I stared at the ground, my eyes caught a hold of a random clear plastic bag shoved behind the bathroom trash-can. Something about it made my heart pound and my hung-over brain clear up just a bit as my instincts screamed at me not to look at it. “Was this there before?”  I wondered as I ignored my body and went to look at it anyways. 

 

As I opened the bag I was stunned with a sense of confusion. It was as if an imbalance suddenly formed between the actual reality and my own sense of reality. The bag was full to the brim of broken CDs, each one labeled with the same handwriting and some version of “Esme’s Streams.” I didn’t understand the significance until I remembered the disk in the dvd player. A supposed gift from Esme’s younger sister, 

 

“I don’t understand…” I whispered as the bag fell from my hands and the broken disks scattered across the bathroom floor.

 

I hesitantly lift my eyes from the broken disks and walk over them back into the main room, careful not to cut myself. 

 

“If I just find James and Leo they can piece together what happened last night and everything will be OK again.” I promised to myself to make sense of it all as I rushed to get ready. As I grabbed my shirt I let my hands momentarily rest over a bundle of wraps on the ground, and had to bite back with a sense of heart-wrenching guilt. 

 

“I’ll make it ok again Leo…”

 

I hastily threw my clothes on and started walking towards the door when a knock rang out. My heart jumped for a second in surprise. I quieted my nerves and rushed over, hoping to see James or Leo coming back to me. Instead I had to hide my displeasure and glare as a woman in the hotel uniform was standing there. 

 

“Hello… Is Mr. Paige here? I’m the receptionist…” She started to talk before something caught her eye and her voice lowered and died off mid-sentence. Her entire body language seemed to shift to one of concern and worry, I had to fearfully wonder what I looked like in her eyes. “Are you OK, Hun?”

 

I shook my head, “I’ll be fine, I’m actually looking for James too. He left late last night and I haven’t seen him at all this morning.” 

 

She started to say something, her eyes clearly glancing over what little of my body was visible in the crack of the door I’d opened. “I’ll check with the guards working last night but I didn’t see him when I left around midnight… Hey I don’t mean to pry but how well do you know this guy? Are you sure you're alright, he didn’t try to do anything to you? I mean he’s been here for a couple of months now and never says a word about his life and sudd-” I couldn’t help but have my expression darker as I felt my eyes turn into an angry glare.

 

“He’s my best-friend! Don’t talk about someone you don’t know!” I slammed the door on her and turned around in a huff.

 

I slid down the door as tears started to slide, before I knew it I was bawling and I couldn’t even figure out why. My head hurt so much, like a drill was digging through it and my heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Every thought felt like I was swimming through mud, making it impossible to calm myself down and think!

 

I shut my eyes and laid there. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been there but at some point I’d noticed the light from the windows was gone and I was sitting alone in the dark.

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“They never came back…” I whispered out into the empty room. In the distance I saw a red light blinking off something black stuck to the wall. I started to get up, to see what it was when my phone suddenly rang. 

 

I looked at the phone confused for a minute as it kept ringing, I recognized the number, saved to my phone as the familiar contact of “Supergirl’s Cooler Little Sister” but it had to be a joke. Unable to resist, this suffocating fear and foreboding that had been building without pause since I awoke reached a crescendo that pushed me forward.“He-- Hello?” I stuttered out.

 

“Hey… Uhm… Emily? Sorry-” The voice of a young woman on the other end, caught and corrected herself. “You go by Em now right? Uhmm… I know this is out of nowhere but do you remember me? I'm Zora, Esme’s little sister.”

 

I coughed out a quiet sob at the voice I’d long ago given up hope of ever hearing again. “Yea… Yea, Z. I remember you…” I’m sure my crying was audible through the phone but I tried to keep it contained as best I could, wanting to keep her on the line for as long as possible, the line to the life I thought had given up on me. “Is this what you’ve been trying for James? To bring us all back together? Why didn’t you just tell me?” I thanked my friend, promising to give him the biggest hug of his life as I forced myself to talk, realizing I’d gone silent. “I- I know we haven’t spoken but… Thanks. I sent letters and-” I shook my head. “No. It’s ok. I didn’t- It’s just good to hear from you.”

 

I noticed a choked back cry on her end as well but she got ahold of it much faster than I did. “I didn’t know you’d sent letters… I should have called you sooner. When you left-” She was quiet for a second before picking up, I heard something rustling on the other end. “I’m just glad to hear from you. Esme loved  you… We all did… We were just trying to respect your space like James asked.”

 

I felt the world tilt out of place as I heard something impossible. I tried to talk. Tried to beg her to stop talking but the words wouldn’t come to me.

 

“I need to know before anything else Em… Have you seen the videos? I can’t imagine you want to go online very much after the last week but… This new one though… of you and the trans boy… I needed you to know, I’ve seen that hotel room. It’s Jame’s room Em… He has cameras in it.”

 

She finally stopped talking and I found myself unable to say anything.

 

“Are you still there Em?” 

 

I mumbled something incomprehensible back at her.

 

“I’m sorry-” Now I could very visibly hear a paper being moved, she must have forced herself to write this down so she would say it all. She was probably expecting more resistance.

 

Shame, she couldn’t hear the begging in my thoughts.

 

“There’s something else Em… I wasn’t supposed to tell you but you need to know… The police were by the other day. They found a hotel attendant who worked at the con that night, he saw Jame’s going to Esme’s hotel room… They think that bastard killed her!” This last one she was screaming at me, though that might have been because I dropped the phone.

 

I didn’t know how loud I was talking but at a certain point I felt my mouth move and words from deep within me started to spill out.

 

“I’m sorry I left you behind. Esme was my entire world, we found each other lost and built a home and a life together even before we were romantic. James was the linchpin that let us reach out from our home into an even bigger world that welcomed us. Despite that even when we were a part of that world our home was always with each other.” At some point I moved to the bathroom and picked up one of those broken discs. 

 

I tested it’s sharpness out with my finger and felt comfort as it pulled a drop of blood.

 

“When I ran away it wasn’t because I hated you or anyone else, it was because the person I was back then died along with Esme. How was I supposed to go on living that lie without her? Even that show at the tournament was just that, a show. I want you to know though, when I go away this time. I’m not running away from all of you… I’m running towards her once more. I was weak last time, but this time I know what I need to do. I’m gonna see your sister again, and I’m going to tell her I love her.”

 

I looked down at the phone in my hand. With a finger swipe I hung up the call, there was a voice on the other end yelling but it was silent now. My head felt clear for the first time in years and my heart had moved to a crawl.

 

I took the disc and with just a bit of force pulled it down my arm across my wrist and dropped it to the ground as the blood started to fall to the ground.

 

“Just one more step” I whispered out as I laid back in the bed, a cold smile slid onto my face, as I closed my eyes and started to type out a text to the last person on my thoughts. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you a proper goodbye Leo, I would have liked to tell you how I felt…”

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