Strange in Skin (16 page)

“Help me to understand then, Emry,” I pleaded with him. I could feel the tears swelling in my eyes,
and I didn’t want them to fall for fear that they would carry black mascara the entire way down my
cheek.

Emry began pacing between the narrow walls. He ran his fingers through his hair. I was beginning
to realize this was an unconscious habit of his. “I’ve retraced my steps from that night over and over
again. I don’t think I did, Anna, I swear, but at the same time, I really don’t know.”

I lowered my eyebrows. “That’s not helping me to understand when you say it that way.”

He growled in frustration and then took my hand once again and walked me over to the bench where
we sat down simultaneously. He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, trying to rid himself of the
irritation with the heavy sigh. It must not have made him feel any better as he buried his face in his
hands for a moment, and I focused my attention to the top of his head. I wanted so badly to run my own
fingers through his hair and comfort him. I raised my hand but then quickly placed it back in front of
me on my lap. I waited, trying to be patient, letting him gather his thoughts. I was praying that he
would be able to give me some sort of explanation. I couldn’t bear the thought of labeling him a killer.
Emry Logan
could not
be a killer. It seemed truly impossible now sitting next to him. Although in the
back of my mind my nerves stood on end from both desiring to be here and the desire to run out of
here, knowing this wasn’t safe but yet feeling safe by his side all at the same time. My mind spun out
of control with contradictory emotions that it was beginning to drive me slightly mad with the agony
of it all.

Emry looked up then, his blue eyes glistening slightly. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m just so
frustrated. I must be acting like a total lunatic.”

I smiled. With our eyes locked on each other, my heart began to flutter, and I took a deep breath
myself, feeling as if my lungs weren’t getting the proper amount of air. “Don’t apologize,” I told him,
my voice softer as well. I smiled again, hoping I didn’t look frightened or angry with him, but wanting
to enjoy this valuable time together. I wanted to help him to feel happy if only for a brief period of
time in this prison courtyard. He deserved that much at the very least. “You don’t have to tell me
anything if you don’t want to,” I added quickly, but not really meaning it. In truth, I wanted to know
every detail. His life was such a mystery to me.

“No. I want you to know everything.” He hesitated for a second. “It’s just … I don’t know how to
tell you without scaring you. I don’t want to scare you, although I understand if I do, but I mean, then
again, you are sitting here next to me face to face, so surely you’re not afraid.” He studied my face,
trying to assess my reaction.

I looked away. Was I afraid? Not of him, I didn’t think at least. I was afraid of this whole situation,
of where exactly this was headed, because I felt like every day led me deeper and deeper into this
emotional swirl that seemed inevitable to only spiral downward, me getting devastated in the end, but
then, I felt there was no escaping it either. Emry had my heart cornered. There was nowhere else to go
but toward him. He had finally given my life meaning, and the emotions I felt, no matter how insane
they were making me act, were ones I’d never experienced before, and they were amazing. I was
addicted to this craziness. No, there was no turning back now that I had decided.

“I’m a strong person,” I said. Then I took his other hand in mine, the first action I had taken toward
him, and I stroked his knuckles with my thumbs. His tan hands were smooth and warm. The very
sensation of his touch overwhelmed me as I longed to be in his arms just then. “I feel safe with you,
Emry.”

He looked down at our hands and then pressed his lips together firmly. “I guess I’ll just tell you the
whole story. I’ll begin with the part of the story of how they told me it happened.”

“They?”
“The cops that arrested me.”

“Oh.” I decided I should probably shut my mouth and not interrupt him or else he would never get
to tell me what was going on.

“I’ll just tell it my own way. Wes is my best friend ….
was
my best friend,” he began. His eyes
glistened with tears, and he quickly lowered his head so I wouldn’t see. “He called me up that
evening. It was just about dark. He had had a fight with some girl he was seeing. I can’t even
remember her name. He bounced from girl to girl every other week. Anyway, he wanted to go throw
back a couple of beers at this tower we always hung out at. It was way up in the woods, but there is
an old path back there so we could just drive up to it. So I met him there, and he had had a couple of
six packs with him. He just wanted to vent and tell me about this girl. He didn’t seem
that
upset. Then
after a while, the sun had set, and I was leaning back against the tower staring up at the stars.” Emry
paused for a moment, remaining still, and then I felt his fingers stroke the inside of my palms, the
sensation rippling up my arms. “Then I kind of blanked out. And when I sat up again, Wes was gone. I
called out his name and there was no answer. I got up and looked down over the side, and that’s when
I saw what I assumed was him down on the ground in front of the tower. He looked like a speck
though, I was so high up. And then I began to panic. I climbed down to him and tried to wake him up,
but he was dead. His eyes were staring up at me, his body was kind of twisted from the broken bones,
and there was blood everywhere.” He released his grasp from my hand to put it up to his face as I
imagined his remembrance of Wes’ body was too much for him to hold in.

I wrapped my arm across his chest just then and pressed my face against his shoulder. The scent of
his neck filled my nostrils, and I breathed in deeply trying to almost get a taste of it. He put his hand
up on my arm and his head on top of my head and we sat perfectly still like that for a few minutes.

“I didn’t get any bars on my cell phone up there, and I didn’t want to leave Wes like that, but I had
to. I jumped in my truck and raced down the road until I did get reception, and then I called 911. And
the police came up along with EMS. They got his body, asked me what I knew. I assumed he had
fallen, because I don’t remember hearing anything strange. He didn’t scream or call out to me or
anything.” I felt him sigh, his warm breath colliding with the skin on my ear. “The thing is, the police
didn’t seem to question what I had told them at all. Wes was gone and buried, and then one day the
cops paid me a visit. It was Buck Brady and some of his men. They began questioning me about what
had happened, and it felt as if they were accusing me or trying to get me to confess to something. I got
very angry, and then suddenly something happened.”

“What?”
“The next thing I knew Buck Brady’s body was slammed into a tree.”
“You hit him?”

“No.” He let it go at that. “They left, but then the next day, well, that’s when things got even
weirder.”

I pulled myself away from him so that I could look into his eyes once more. His side of the story
seemed totally legit to me. How could anyone think of him as a liar? “What do you mean by
weirder?” I raised my eyebrows in question.

He leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine. Our mouths were so close. I focused all of
my attention to his lips and memorized every aspect of them, unable to look away.
“Then they came to get me.”

“The police?”

 

“Well, yeah. There was Buck Brady again, two other guys with him that I assume were cops but
weren’t in uniform, and your dad.”

 

I jerked my head up so fast I almost fell backwards off the bench. “What? Why was he there?”

Emry shrugged. “No idea, but he wasn’t happy with me. Him and Buck Brady were actually pretty
mean. They gave me no chance to explain myself. They jerked me right out of the house and
practically threw me in the back of the car.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” My thoughts were spinning. What business would my father have
had with police matters? And him acting aggressively toward another human being, well, that was just
something he never did. My father wasn’t hostile. “But how could they arrest you? They didn’t have
any proof.”

“They had a witness.”
“But you said …”

He nodded. “Exactly. It was only me and Wes. They told me that this girl was there and had seen
the whole thing.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Her name’s Stacy Helig. She’s a waitress down at the diner. Sometimes she’d hang out with us,
too, but not that night.”

I repeated the name in my thoughts. I came up blank. Surely I would have seen her down there at the
diner though. We used to go there once a week to eat, if not more sometimes before my mother had
been hospitalized. “I don’t know that name.”

He stared at me and then lifted his palm up in the air. I placed my hand in his. It still felt slightly
uncomfortable. I felt strong emotions wash over me as his skin brushed against mine.

“Well, she said she saw me fighting with Wes and then push him over the side.”
“But you were the one who called the police,” I said in a defensive tone.

“Exactly.” He shrugged again. “They wouldn’t give me any more information about her. I suppose
I’ll get to hear more of her side in court when she testifies against me. But I think they pulled her out
of thin air.”

I lowered my eyebrows in question, not fully understanding what he meant.
He recognized my clueless expression. “They paid her or whatever to get her to say what she said.”
“But why?”
“To get to me. To have a reason to lock me up.”

I sighed. Now I knew why he was so frustrated. This whole situation felt so wrong. He didn’t
belong here, yet here he was, trapped and all the while, I was trapped as well being forced to be
away from him every day. And the question of my father being involved irritated me further. He
wasn’t exactly at the top of my list as good doers anymore, but I didn’t think him capable of harming
another’s reputation. Then again, I had never assumed him capable of cheating on my mother either. I
tried to shake the memory of him and Mrs. Anderson from my thoughts and return to the situation
before me now.

“Okay. So, here’s what I still don’t understand.” I stared straight into those beautiful blue eyes
again and bit my lip as I tried to concentrate on all the details of his explanation.

“You doing all right?” a voice called out just then.
I quickly jerked my hands away from Emry, abruptly ending all physical contact as I looked up

toward Paul who was peeking his head out the door. Emry had had his back toward him, so I didn’t
think he had seen anything out of the ordinary except two people talking on the bench.

“We’re fine, thanks!” I called back to him. Then I cursed myself silently for having being polite
right then. I forgot that I was still Amelia Roberts. I watched him go back inside. Emry never even
flinched or turned to look his way.

“You were saying?” he whispered, a smirk on his face from how jumpy I was.

His expression made me smile in response. I offered him my hand and he took it without hesitation.
“Well, you said you weren’t sure if you did it. I think you used the term that you ‘blanked out’ or
something along those lines. So what does that mean? How could you not remember arguing with
him? Were you so drunk you passed out, or did you fall asleep?”

He stood up and lifted me to my feet as well. He walked to the far wall and put his back against the
brick this time. “Anna,” he whispered.

“Yes?”
“Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong?”

I thought about the question. I felt like there was some hidden meaning behind what he was actually
saying. “Well, I’ve kind of blended in my whole life, but not really fit in anywhere either. Does that
count?”

He gave me a half smile but it vanished just as quickly as it had come. “Anna,” he whispered again.
The way he said my name ever so softly put me into an instant trance, making me feel slightly dizzy
every time I heard it escape his lips. He now took my other hand in his and brought my body closer to
his chest. I thought I could hear his heart beating. It sounded like it was thumping just as hard as mine
was. “I can do this
thing
, or something happens to me sometimes when I concentrate real hard.”
I let the words sink in. What on earth was he talking about?

“I know you’re confused, but I told you I would tell you everything, and please believe me when I
tell you that I have never even attempted to tell anyone this before.”
I waited while being still and silent. I felt as if I didn’t know anything anymore, the confusion
setting in as even those I thought I knew, specifically my parents, were complete strangers to me.
Emry was finally opening up, but I was almost afraid of what he was going to tell me. Would he say
he could twitch his nose and turn into a ferocious beast?

“Tell me,” I pleaded, because I did want to know when it came down to it. I didn’t want to be left
in the dark any longer. “You can trust me with anything, Emry, anything at all.”

He looked at me, his eyes soft as he peered down at me. “I know. I do trust you, Anna. You coming
here like this today, putting yourself out there, pretending to be my attorney,” he stopped to laugh. I
almost had forgotten that every time he looked at me now I still had this painted face, this tight dress
on and this blonde wig on the top of my head. “This is something I will never forget.” The way he
said it sounded as if he now owed me. “I need you to understand. It’s just so difficult to put into
words.”

“Please try.”

He sighed. “Well, it’s like I have this force inside of me. One of the things I can do is something
like where I almost lose consciousness in a way. If I really focus hard enough, it comes to me, but not
all the time. And lately, since I’ve been in prison, it hasn’t happened at all.”

I felt my head tilt slightly to the left, struggling to grasp this concept.