Church. Page 3

  He doesn't speak to Margo, and he doesn't speak to his father, and he doesn't speak to anyone else. But he spoke to me. What does that mean?

  “We're all a little 'mentally ill', Margo, so chill out and worry about yourself and Jerry's life insurance policy, okay?”

  She could tell her mother was thinking about slapping her again, so Emma moved past her and went out the front door. She didn't bother saying goodbye to Jerry. His face was back in his paper.

  There was a car parked down at the curb, she hadn't noticed it the night before when she'd come home. Paul was sitting in the driver's seat, stiffly holding onto the wheel. Emma watched him for a second, then jogged down the driveway and climbed into the car.

  “Sorry my mother's a bitch,” she said as she put on her seat belt.

  Paul didn't say a thing, just started the car and immediately drove off.

  It was strange, but she didn't feel as uncomfortable as she had the night before. In the bright light of day, she could see him clearly. See herself a little better, too. She looked at him while he drove, let her eyes slowly wander over every visible inch of him. He didn't seem to notice, or even care. Either way, he wouldn't tell her to stop, so she kept doing it.

  Jerry and her mother had said he didn't speak, yet he'd spoken to her. And even when he wasn't speaking, she felt like she could understand him. Like he was speaking a different language, a very subtle one, only communicated through minimal body language. But it was there, and she was tuned into it.

  “She married your father for his money,” Emma went on, turning in her seat so she could face him. He kept staring forward. “I know, ridiculous, right? Jerry isn't exactly a millionaire. But trust me, compared to the losers Margo usually goes for, Jer is practically rolling in it. When she found out he owned his own house, that was it. She knew she was going to marry him. Plus, he has a decent life insurance policy and a sweet retirement plan. Margo's not a spring chicken anymore, she's playing the long con now.”

  No reaction. It was absolutely beautiful. Where had this man been all her life?

  “How do I know all that stuff? Because Margo knows all that stuff – she went through his office, here and at work. And she likes to act like she hates me, but she doesn't. She tells me everything. I'm her ... confessional booth.”

  Whoa, that got her a reaction. That muscle of his ticked once again, and for the briefest of seconds, he clenched his jaw. What had she said? Confessional booth, did that mean something to him? Did a religious reference mean something? She shrugged and faced forward.

  “So why do I stay in this parasitic relationship, you ask? Because Margo fixed it that way. Abused me my whole life, made me think I needed her to survive. Then, when I was eighteen and was just starting to realize I didn't need her, she took out a bunch of credit cards in my name. Racked up so much debt, she completely trashed my credit. I didn't find out until I was almost twenty. Couldn't rent an apartment with bad credit. With bill collectors hounding me. Couldn't buy a car, not even a shitty used one. Didn't have any money, couldn't buy nice enough clothes to get a job. No job, couldn't afford a lawyer to sue my own mother for identity theft. No school, so wasn't smart enough to figure out how to get back at her.

  “And then along came Saint Jerry. 'He'll send you to school' Margo promised. 'He'll give you a future' she whispered. All these things, just to help her look like marriage material. Tale as old as time, really – Margo uses her pretty young daughter to lure in some guy. But now, see, now that she's got him, and it's obvious that he doesn't want me, she's doesn't need me. So we made a deal. They take care of me, and I keep my mouth shut. Sometimes. Jerry lets me sleep on that shitty couch, and my mother ignores me for the most part, and it's not the worst thing ever. Not great, but not the worst. It isn't like it was before, that's for damn sure.”

  Silence was the only response she got as the college campus loomed into view. Paul didn't go to the public parking lot, though, he surprised her by passing through it and parking in the faculty area. They both got out of the car and she watched over the hood while he collected his belongings.

  “I still don't get why you would come here, even for a job. Why'd you come back? You have a life, a car. You could go anywhere,” she pointed out, her voice full of wistful longing.

  When he stood upright, he finally looked at her. Stared at her. Bored holes into her soul. Again, he never said a word, but she heard him clear as day, read his body language like it was printed in neon letters on his skin.

  “For reasons you don't need to know.”

  “I can find my own way home,” she breathed, then she cleared her throat. “I only have two classes today, so don't worry about me.”

  Paul turned around and strode away, heading for a side entrance.

  Emma watched him for a moment, then turned as well. She was surprised to see a dozen or so students staring at her, frozen in place in the parking lot. She stared back, then glared and started marching to the front doors.

  It didn't end there, though. There was a large, common area in the front of the main building. Plate glass windows looked out over the parking lot, and Paul had parked in front of the very last one. There were a few students scattered about inside, and when she walked in, they all turned to look at her and spoke to each other in hushed tones.

  “What?” she asked loudly, lifting her hands up. There were a couple snickers and some people looked away.

  What, did I go back in time to high school and not realize it?

  Emma threw herself down at a table and glared at everyone. Okay, so they were staring at her. Why? It was a small town and a small college, her attendance had gotten her some eyebrow raises on her first day. But that had been weeks ago, they mostly ignored her now. She glanced out the window, at Paul's parked car. It was an old Honda Civic, 1990, burgundy. Nothing worth gawking at, really. The driver, however, had been very gawk worthy.

  Wait a minute. This was a small town. Small enough that a new college student was noticed. That meant a local as odd as Paul would definitely be known. He'd gotten out, away, had used his big, beautiful, bizarre brain to go to a fancy university.

  And then he'd come back. It was almost like he was a traitor. Like he'd committed some kind of crime, or some kind of ... sacrilege.

  Wait, wait, wait a minute, I've heard all this before.

  He was very quiet. He was very smart. He'd gone to an Ivy League school. He'd come back. He was going to their shitty college.

  Some kind of sacrilege ...

  She almost blurted it out loud, but then someone sat down next to her.

  “You lied to me.”

  “Huh?” Emma asked, startled out of her thought process. Stacey Cummings was back again, sitting down next to her.

  “You lied. You said you'd come to my party, and you didn't,” she repeated.

  “I didn't lie. I said I would try, and I did.”

  “So what happened?”

  Emma really wanted to point out that she didn't owe this girl jack shit, let alone an explanation, but she stopped herself. She was trying to strive for greatness, she remembered. Not for being the world's biggest bitch.

  “I got into a fight with my mother,” she was honest. “I still live at home. It got ugly.”

  “Oh,” Stacey's whole demeanor relaxed. “That sucks, I'm sorry. I had figured you lived in the dorms or something.”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, if you ever need somewhere to crash, let me know, I've got lots of room at my place. It's my parents' old house and I'm all alone there most of the time, so I don't mind letting people stay.”

  Emma watched the other girl while she spoke, wondering about her. Some people rescued dogs from the pound – she guessed Stacey rescued people from their shitty situations. She wondered why. What had happened to Stacey to make her feel like she needed to save poor unfortunates like Emma?

  She didn't ask, though, seeing as how she'd probably need to take Stacey up on her offer at some point. Stacey had set
her sights on being Emma's new friend, on taking care of her. God only knew why, but it was certainly handy. It meant Emma could use her.

  “That's awesome, thank you. Can I ask you about something? Did you see the guy I got a ride with?” she asked.

  “Yes! I was just going to ask you, how did that happen? I didn't even know you knew him.”

  “I don't, technically. We just met this morning. Or last night.”

  “Where did you bump into Church at night around here!?”

  “Church?”

  “Yeah.”

  “... what?”

  They both stared at each other in confusion, then Stacey waved her arms through the air.

  “Okay, rewind, start over,” she said. “You got out of a car this morning with Church. That guy we talked about yesterday! How did you bump into him?”

  Ah, that's what Emma had been figuring out before Stacey had interrupted her. Yes, a sacrilege, quiet, smart – Paul was Church. How could Emma not have known that?

  “I, uh ... I guess he's my step-brother,” she replied. Stacey's jaw dropped.

  “Your step-brother is Church Logan?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why didn't you say anything yesterday?”

  “Because I didn't know. I'd never met him, and Jerry only ever called him Paul.”

  “Oh,” Stacey gasped. “That's right. Paul 'Church' Logan, I'd forgotten. No one's called him Paul since ... geez, elementary school?”

  “We bumped into each other in the hallway last night, then he gave me a ride this morning.”

  “Did he talk to you?”

  Technically, Paul – or rather, Church – hadn't spoken to Emma that day. But in another way, he had, and he'd definitely spoken to her the night before. Still, she didn't want to share that with anybody. Not yet.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “So where does the nickname 'Church' come from? Jerry never talks about religion or anything.”

  “Gosh, you know, it's just what everyone calls him, I'm not sure how it got started. Ms. Bluth, our social studies teacher in eleventh grade, said it had to be because he's 'quiet as a church mouse'. Some guys tried to start calling him Mouse, instead, but it didn't last long.”

  “Oh yeah? Why'd they stop?”

  “Remember how I said there was a rumor Church had beaten up a guy for teasing him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, well, they stopped calling him 'Mouse' right about that same time.”

  Emma turned away and looked back out the window, at the Honda Civic again. He was so quiet and still, it was hard to imagine Church beating someone up. But he was a tall guy, fit, in good shape. If he'd been looked like that in high school, he wouldn't have had any trouble smacking someone around.

  Strange. Stacey was right, he's definitely a strange guy.

  Biology was her first class of the day, then Emma had a half hour break between it and her next class – she'd purposefully picked classes close together so she wouldn't have a lot of down time. She didn't want to aimlessly wander around the campus for hours between classes, and she didn't have a job to go to, or money to spend anywhere, so it was better to have something useful to do with her time.

  She stopped in a bathroom and fixed herself up a little. Brushed her teeth and her hair, then on a whim, she decided to put on some no-make-up make-up. Just powder to tone down the shine, and a couple slicks of mascara, helping her eyes to pop. A brush of chapstick to top off the look, and she was pleased. Wholesome Emma was back in effect. Late night, vodka drinking, secret spilling, batshit crazy Emma was hidden away.

  “You're looking cute,” Stacey commented when they met up in their shared math class. Emma almost groaned. Apparently they really were friends. She wasn't sure how to feel about that, she hadn't wanted any friends in this new chapter of her life.

  The class was in a lecture style hall, with raised seating. They walked up a couple levels and took two seats next to each other.

  “Yeah, I kinda went straight from bed to school this morning,” Emma managed to chuckle as she took out her course work and started looking over it.

  “I could tell.”

  People were still milling about, chatting with friends or looking over homework, when Mr. Harker finally walked into the room. Everyone went quiet, but not out of respect for the teacher. No, they went quiet because of the man who walked in next.

  “What is he doing here?” Stacey squealed in a whisper. Emma stared as Church walked across the room and sat down behind the teacher's desk.

  “I honestly have no idea,” she whispered back.

  “Students! Good afternoon!” Mr. Harker called out. “Welcome back to math. You may have noticed a new addition to the room, and no, ladies, he's not here for your benefit. Mr. Logan will be acting as my teacher's assistant for the remainder of the semester.”

  Emma studied Church's face, trying to see if the joke about his looks annoyed him. He didn't bat an eyelash, even though several of his new students were doing just that at him. Either they weren't deterred by his “strange” status, or they weren't from around there and didn't know.

  “God, look at Marci MacIntosh,” Stacey groaned in a stage whisper. “She's gonna fall out of her seat if she doesn't calm down.”

  Emma glanced down at the front row and took in the large chested girl who was leaning over her desk very provocatively.

  “She's gonna fall out of more than her seat if she's not careful,” she snorted. Stacey laughed.

  “At least it would add some entertainment to the day.”

  “Wait ... MacIntosh ... isn't that the girl you said slept with him?” Emma asked, using her pencil to point between the two objects of their discussion.

  “Yeah. Well, I mean, that's what she claims. Church doesn't exactly deny or confirm it, so who knows. But I can't imagine him having sex, could you?”

  Yes. Yes, Emma very much could. It made her feel strange. Made her think about her mother's words. Church was different, that was for sure. She herself had wondered about him. He was clearly non-verbal. He was also her step-brother, technically. Thinking about him naked and touching her and looking at her with those intense eyes, it couldn't be appropriate.

  Something's wrong with me. More so than usual this time. I need to be very careful with him.

  She decided to ignore him. He was as aware of her as she might be of an eggplant, so it was ridiculous, having sexual thoughts about him. She focused on the teacher, taking down notes on everything he said and struggling to understand it. Any kind of math had always been her weak spot. Soon she was lost in letters and numbers and symbols, trying to make sense of it all.

  “Next class,” the teacher wound things down almost an hour and a half later. “We're gonna go over chapters eighteen through twenty-four. Pay close attention to the equations in chapter twenty-two. Oh! And make sure to have an awesome rest of the day.”

  There were a couple laughs and claps at his last comment, but Emma didn't bother. She bent over and fought with her bag, trying to shove her textbook and notepad inside it.

  “He was staring at you.”

  She lifted her head. She'd actually forgotten Stacey was next to her.

  “Huh? Mr. Harker?” she asked, glancing around.

  “No, stupid. Church was staring at you.”

  Her eyes immediately went to the big wooden desk in the corner. He was still sitting there, but he was reading over a test, using a red pen to make lots of notes all over it.

  “He's working,” she pointed out.

  “He's working now,” Stacey corrected her. “But about halfway through class, he turned and looked at you. He didn't look away until maybe ten minutes ago.”

  “You stared at him staring at me for half an hour?” Emma laughed, standing and shouldering her bag.

  “No, but I kept glancing back. I've never seen him stare at anybody, not like that, at least. I think he likes you.”

  “How could he like me? He doesn't know me.”

&nb
sp; “You live with him, don't you?”

  “Yeah, but only for like five whole minutes. The car ride this morning barely counts, and I bitched about my mother the whole time. He's probably staring at me because he's imagining the different ways he wants to kill me, get rid of his annoying new step-sister,” she joked, jogging down the steps to the door.

  Stacey switched the subject then, going into her Welcome-Wagon role again, talking about another upcoming party. Some big deal on Saturday, everyone was going to it, Emma simply had to go this time.

  She only listened with half an ear. When they stepped into the hallway, she glanced back once, and found herself almost falling into Church's big blue eyes. That stare again, the one that cut through her. She felt like he was staring straight into her damaged little soul.

  I don't care if he's imagining me naked or dead or anything in between. I just want him to always look at me like that.

  EATING IN THE DINING hall was Emma's only option aside from going home – her scholarship had included funds for her student account. Textbooks, notebooks, pencils, pens, and shitty cafeteria food would never be a problem for her. Plus, it meant less time in Margo's presence, so it was a bonus.

  She sat at the end of a table and nibbled at a sandwich. Stacey and a couple other girls had joined her. More friends, yippee. They'd started babbling about some big concert the year before and she stared at them. How could she be friends with these people? Around that same time last year, Emma had spent the weekend barricaded in her own bedroom, trying to keep Margo's very drunk and very rape-y boyfriend out. She had nothing in common with these girls, they wouldn't understand her.

  So she ignored them and let her mind drift away. She wondered when life was ever going to start getting good. Wondered if being homeless wouldn't be a better option than living with Margo. Maybe getting gang raped by hobos would help erase some of her other memories.

  Emma wasn't sure how long Church had been standing in the doorway of the dining hall before she noticed him. Their eyes connected for only a moment, then he turned and walked out of the room. She swallowed thickly, then put down her sandwich.