Buried in Sunshine (20 page)

“Wake up…” Emma repeats over and over as though
the words will help her free herself from this terrible
nightmare.

With a jolt, Emma awakens in her hospital bed.
Her restraints are gone. A hot breeze blows into the room. Emma
looks to the window and sees Alexis sitting on the open window
sill; her dress is stained with blood.

“What have you done Alexis?”

“I’ve freed you—“

“Did that really happen?” Emma asks as she
attempts to recall every detail of the memory.

“I have to give you quite a bit of credit,”
Alexis says as she smiles. “You really pushed him to desperation.
Without that, I don’t think we could have uncovered his dirty
little secrets. You’re not weak after all.”

“I should have never taken it so far…”

“It was anger—it gives us strength. Let’s us do
what we need to be done.”

“I’m not like you,” Emma protests as she buries
her head in her pillow. “I don’t want to be like you.”

“You’re more like me than that weakling
Elizabeth—you’re so much like me you’d be amazed. It felt good,
didn’t it? Confronting him, showing him no compassion at all—I
loved the part where you told him to go to hell.”

“Where is Elizabeth,” Emma asks.

“Gone,” Alexis replies as she looks out the
window. “You’ve got me. You don’t need her.”

“I hate you,” Emma whispers.

Alexis laughs as she brushes a hand through her
windswept hair. “After everything I have done for you?”

“You’ve turned me into something I never wanted
to be.”

“I turned you into what you have to be,” Alexis
says in stern tone. “You wanted answers—you’ve got them. You want
to spend your last days in here?”

“I’m going to stop it.”

“So naïve,” Alexis says as she shakes her head.
“Even that empty-headed waif Elizabeth knew that there was no
stopping it.”

“Elizabeth is by far a better person than you
are.”

“Ungrateful as always,” Alexis says as she
throws her hands up dramatically. “I’ll see you soon—we still have
business. Anyway, enjoy your freedom.”

Emma watches as Alexis jumps out the window and
disappears.

Just as Alexis disappears, Dr. Riley enters the
room. Following behind her is Justine Celeste. Emma is surprised to
see her here, she wonders for what reason Dr. Riley had chosen to
bring Justine along.

“Emma…” Dr. Riley says as she places a hand to
Emma’s forehead and caresses it with her hand. “How are you
feeling?”

“I’m better—I noticed I’m no longer
restrained…”

“I am so sorry that I doubted you for even a
moment,” Dr. Riley says as she nods. “You were right, you were
completely right.”

“Brian Metcalfe…?” Emma asks apprehensively. She
has a feeling she already knows his fate.

“He took his own life after leaving a note,” Dr.
Riley says as she places a comforting hand upon Emma’s shoulder.
“He terrible about what he did—his hurting you, was the last act of
a very guilty…desperate man.”

“He’s gone,” Emma says softly. She knows for
certain now that everything she saw was true. As impossible, and
terrible, as it all was—it was all true.

“There’s something else,” Dr. Riley says as she
takes in a heavy breath. “Your stepfather wasn’t driven off, nor
did he commit suicide. Brian killed him and buried him beneath
concrete in a greenhouse a short distance away from your home.”

“He lied to me,” Emma says as a touch of
disbelief taints her voice. Of course he had good reason to. It was
just that, he seemed so sincere. There was no sense of dishonesty
that Emma could find in his defense. “How did he die?”

“The police are investigating it further—and the
body is in pretty bad shape so I don’t think that we’ll know for a
while.”

“Emma?” Justine says as she meekly steps
forward.

“Justine…” Emma says with a nod. “It’s good to
see you.”

“We thought that it would be a bad idea for you
to return to your home today,” Justine begins as she approaches the
bed. “I’d like to invite you to stay over tonight—and then you
could go back tomorrow if you wanted. Just so that you’ve have
someone to kind of take care of you.”

“Is that what you want?” Emma asks.

“Oh, of course,” Justine says as she smiles, “I
don’t really have many friends—any that are… I don’t really get
visitors. I think I would really like it.”

“Yeah,” Emma says softly as she attempts to sit
up in the hospital bed. “I would like that.”

“Emma,” Dr. Riley says as she shakes her head
and lets out one of her typical sighs. “I’m so sorry. I should have
never doubted you.”

“Thank you for going to the police. Thank you
for keeping your promise.”

“It was pretty terrible there,” Dr. Riley says
as she looks to the open window. “It is way too hot in here for
this—it’s supposed to hit a hundred and fourteen with the heat
index today.”

“What about Ethan?” Emma asks as she remembers
him hitting the floor. “Is he alright?”

“He passed out from the sight of finding his
family…” Dr. Riley begins as she looks saddened. “His mother didn’t
make it—at some point, maybe after finding her husband dead—she
wheeled herself out into the yard and allowed herself to die of
heat stroke. He’s probably pretty shaken up.”

“I wonder if he hates me.”

“I bet he wonders the exact same thing of you,”
Dr. Riley says as she pats Emma on the shoulder. “Give him some
time.”

“Can we get out here?” Emma asks as she turns to
Justine.

“You’re good to go,” Justine says as she smiles.
“We’ll just step out and let you get dressed and then we’ll head
back to my place.”

“Sounds good,” Emma says as she painfully shifts
herself in bed and places her bare feet against the cold tile
floor. “Thank you…both of you.”

“It’s good to have help,” Dr. Riley says as she
turns to Justine. “We’ve all been through rough times—it’s the
people that we surround ourselves with that help us get out of the
bad times.”

“Thank you for being here for me,” Emma
adds.

*

“It’s not much,” Justine says as she opens the
door to her apartment. “It is home though.”

Emma looks around in enchantment at all the
colors. The walls are painted a pale green; the sofa and matching
seat are a combination of sea-foam with bamboo colored lines. From
the windows, different colored panes of glass are hung by wire from
the ceiling. The glass panels cast magnificent reds, yellows and
blues against the walls. Sea shells and clear crystals and
gemstones line wooden shelves. Wooden wind chimes hang above a row
of different varieties of violets outside on the deck.

“It’s an amazing view,” Emma says as she looks
to the empty beach and the deep blue lake beyond. In the distance
she can make out the pier that she first met Hope. She begins to
wonder where hope is now.

“That’s why I love it,” Justine says as she
looks out and sighs contently. “It’s like an ocean, living here. I
mean—I can’t tell the difference.”

“This is my bedroom,” Justine says as she leads
Emma to a small room with a twin sized bed adorned with a dark blue
blanket with fireflies printed upon its surface. The walls here are
white, but so much art hangs from the walls that the white wall is
only visible in the small cracks that exist between the paintings.
A TV sits in the corner on a nightstand and a bamboo curtain with
different colored beads tied to the slats rests against the room’s
single window.

“I love the paintings in here,” Emma says as she
gazes upon the large expanse of artwork that surrounds her.

“These are the ones I can’t seem to part with
and sell in the store,” Justine says as she nods. “Although I am
running out of room…”

Justine then leads Emma to a nearby room. A
large table is folded to the side and pieces of glass and wire are
stored in drawers. An air mattress rests upon the ground in the
small room. “This is where you’ll be sleeping—unless you want my
room. I realize it’s pretty small and kind of cramped. This is
usually my workshop.”

“This will be more than fine,” Emma protests.
“It is enough that you’re willing to let me stay.”

“Willing?” Justine asks with a laugh. I’m happy
to have company.”

“This is the last part of the tour,” Justine
says as she shows Emma the bathroom. The walls are painted
different shades of blue and mimic the lake view outside. White
waves mixed in with glitter line the walls like crashing waves
against the shore. A grouping of glass bulbs hang from brown nets
in the corner. “Just a bathroom, I’ve kind of tried to spruce it up
a bit—other than that just a shower and a toilet.”

“Did you paint this?”

“The walls…? Yeah, I did this a long time ago,”
Justine says as she runs her hand against the wall.

“It’s beautiful,” Emma says as she lets out a
short laugh. “It is by far the most beautiful bathroom I’ve
seen.”

“Thank you,” Justine says as she smiles and runs
her hands through her brown hair and ties it into a band behind her
head.

“So you’re artist and do jewelry—“

“I dabble in a bit of everything, well I used to
do more—these days I keep to art,” Justine says as she kicks off
her sandals and walks barefoot to the couch. “I used to dance,
ballet, not professionally or anything—I haven’t done that in a
good while. I play guitar occasionally, and…I write. Also, not
professionally, I’ve finished a few novels but, they’re just
sitting on my laptop.”

“That is impressive,” Emma says with a hint of
jealousy in her voice as she sits in the seat next to the couch.
“I’m not good at anything.”

“Everyone’s good at something,” Justine says as
she shakes her head. “They just haven’t found out what it is
yet.”

“Oh trust me,” Emma says as she laughs. As she
begins to say that she never has possessed any talent at all she
has a brief flashback to being at the local college—she used to be
a graphic design major. It seems like a memory from another life.
“I… used to want to design websites, like the layout of things. I
guess, I kind of gave up on that dream though when life kind of got
messed up.”

“I gave up on everything,” Justine says as she
nods and looks around the room uncomfortably. “I gave up on life
not too long ago—so I know how it feels. I’m sure that given enough
time that you’ll pick it back up again, and if not—I’m sure you’ll
find something you enjoy to replace it.”

“Why did you give up on everything…on life?”
Emma asks and then instantly feels regretful for doing so—it seems
like too much of a personal question to ask. “You don’t have to
answer that if you don’t want to. I sometimes…yeah—sometimes I just
blurt out questions or say thing without thinking them out
fully.”

“No…” Justine says as she stops Emma from
continuing to feel bad for asking. “The short of it is, I went to a
party with my boyfriend and two of his friends. We were all
drinking, and I drank a little too much and got sick. I went to
throw up and when I returned to the campfire they had doused the
flame out. My boyfriend stripped me and he and his friends took
turns raping me—when I tried to resist they beat me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Emma says as she lets out a
short gasp. “It is amazing that you are doing so well now.”

“Well, I went through a very strange
experience,” Justine says as she nods. “A very dark experience—it
took a lot of help and a lot of time. I still have my bad days, but
life is better. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t haunted by what
happened, but I continue to move on—how about you? What’s your
story?”

“I don’t even know where to begin,” Emma says as
she places a fist against her chin and bites the bottom of her lip.
“I guess it started when my boyfriend was struck by a car and
killed, I attempted to commit suicide by hanging myself in my
bathroom—but the bar snapped and I just ended up falling to the
ground. My mom found me and finally got me help. I spent about
three years believing that I was someone else—that it was my sister
who killed herself successfully and that I survived on.”

“So you actually lived life as someone
else?”

“Yes,” Emma says with a nod. “In that time my
mother died, and I was in therapy to help with my severe anxiety
issues in the hopes that I would remember.”

“What caused you to remember?”

“I fell down and hit my head in the bathroom,”
Emma says, she is now in territory that she has left out from her
sessions with Dr. Riley. “When I woke up my ‘sister’ was there and
she forced me back into my old room. Once I was in there I realized
who I really was and a large part of my anxiety and depression
disappeared—that was…about four days ago. Since then I’ve
discovered that my mother was having an affair with a man who
eventually killed my father, and attempted to kill me—and that my
father was not even my real father, just some man my mother married
so that she would not have to live poor.”

“That is a lot to take in,” Justine says as she
folds her thin legs and raps her fingers against her knee. “Are you
angry at your mother?”

“I think so,” Emma says as she gives it a
moment. “I mean… she was just trying to give me a good life—but her
actions, along with the man who tried to cut my wrist, ended up
causing someone’s death. I cannot convince myself that my mother
did not know what Brian Metcalfe had done to my stepfather—I wish I
knew for sure if she had a part in it. Either way I know that she
helped keep it a secret. So I think for that I kind of hate her. It
erases the sadness I felt when she died, not completely. I just
can’t see my mother same way I did when I think about her.”

“I’d imagine that would be very difficult,”
Justine adds. “I don’t talk to my parents anymore. They didn’t even
do anything wrong. I just could not bring myself to tell them what
had happened to me. In a way I’ve grown to hate them—and they
didn’t even do anything wrong. I just can’t face them anymore.”