Delicate Monsters Read online

  Emerson sat and ate soup in the kitchen. Cream of broccoli, a whole can. Without Miles, the atmosphere in the apartment felt lighter, less oppressive. Emerson hated that he felt that way, but then again, Emerson hated a lot of things about himself.

  From his back pocket, his phone buzzed. He pulled it out and looked.

  It was from May.

  His heart fluttered like an uncaged animal. And all she’d typed was: Hey.

  Hey, he typed back.

  How’s your brother doing?

  He’s fine.

  Still at the hospital?

  Yeah. Home tomorrow. They’re keeping him overnight out of “an abundance of caution.” Caution runs out in the morning, I guess.

  Well, I’m glad he’s feeling better.

  Me too. Look, I’m really sorry I left like that at lunch.

  Don’t be sorry. I get it.

  I want to see you. Where are you?

  Trish’s. Come by. Trey just got here. Giovanna too.

  Jesus, Emerson thought. Trish’s. Of course.

  I’m coming, he typed impulsively, before sneaking a glance at his snoring mother, at her soft blond hair and delicate features that looked like Miles’s.

  “Fuck,” he said out loud.

  *

  The party was raging by the time he got there. The Reeds owned a huge swath of land out near the Glen Ellen border, not far from some of the area’s fancy health spas. Lucky for the Reeds, their wealth also afforded privacy: their property butted up against a golf course to the north, miles of thick woods to the south. From where Emerson sat in his car, he could see straight down into their private valley—there were dozens of cars strewn haphazardly across the back field and rap music boomed from the house, loud enough to shake the Mustang’s windows.

  He parked on the shoulder of the main road. A risk: the car could be sideswiped or rear-ended by anyone flying around the hairpin turns, but the alternative was actually driving his father’s Mustang down onto the Reed property. Something about that felt traitorous. Like he was setting up camp with the Confederacy.

  Or joyriding into hell.

  He got out of the car, locked it. Shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and began the dark walk toward the main house. The music grew louder, and Emerson’s head throbbed sickly.

  May, he reminded himself. That’s why he was here.

  May, May, May.

  She was his delicate turn of the ankle.

  She was his ice slowly melting.

  God, he wanted her.

  So bad.

  As he drew closer to the party, Emerson tried picturing himself as a Trojan horse, a creature on offense, filled with weapons of his own. He had to think of himself this way, as something bold and powerful, just to keep his feet moving. In truth, he had no weapons, no tricked-out horse, and walking into this party felt more like crawling into the walls of a brazen bull than anything strategic. All because Emerson hadn’t forgotten what Trish Reed had done in seventh grade, only one day after her DA father had filed child abuse charges against his innocent mother. It was something he would never forget.

  Or forgive.

  “No wonder their dad killed himself,” Trish had whispered to a group of attentive girls in the schoolyard on that warm spring day, just loud enough for Emerson to hear. Her green eyes had been wide with concern, but her low voice and flush cheeks betrayed the thrill of fresh gossip. “He probably knew what their mom was doing. I bet it drove him crazy. I bet that’s why he did it.”

  Emerson’s mind spun with rage. He’d stormed right over to her. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

  Trish folded her arms, lifted her chin. She was middle-school perfect, all clear skin and budding breasts, like a well-bred rose on the verge of her bloom. “I know your mom’s in jail right now.”

  He’d blazed white-hot. “That’s not what I mean! Take back what you said about my dad. It’s not true!”

  She’d faltered then, her haughtiness sliding into horror as she realized what she’d done. Trish said nothing more, but it was too late. The ugly truth about his father’s death was written all over her pretty face. Everyone knew.

  And finally, a full three years after the fact, Emerson did, too.

  *

  The crowd was impressive. No doubt about that. It looked like half the high school had shown up and then some. There was even a live band playing in the field, shadowy figures who stood in the tall grass with their guitar pedals and microphones, cranking out broken chords and broken lyrics, with their amps pointed straight toward town. Like they were begging for the cops to come. Like they were tempting fate.

  Then again, who the hell was going to arrest DA Reed’s daughter?

  Using his elbows, Emerson made his way from the wide front porch to the back of the house, where tiki torches lit the night and topless girls splashed in a hot tub set beneath the branches of a towering redwood tree. Like wet gifts on Christmas morning. He craned his neck in every direction but couldn’t see May.

  Next he tried squeezing into the actual house by way of the game room, which was where a DJ was set up and people were dancing. Bad idea. It was too packed for him to even reach into his pocket for his phone. Smashed up against backs and shoulders, and wedged tight to a speaker, Emerson grew sweaty. Then queasy, like maybe he really was inside one of those brazen bulls, being slowly roasted from below. Someone tried shoving a beer in his hand, but he pushed it away.

  Where was she?

  “Take it!” the beer shover shouted, and Emerson was this close to knocking the drink to the ground when he realized Trey was the one holding it. He breathed a sigh of relief. Took the beer. Downed it.

  “You seen May?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “May!” he shouted.

  Trey pointed to a doorway directly behind Emerson. “In there.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Just did a shot with her. Girl’s nuts tonight. Go get her.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  Trey gave him a thumbs-up. Danced off into the crowd.

  *

  Sure enough, May was right where Trey said she’d be. The room was an alcove off the kitchen and she stood at a marble island, playing quarters with the rest of the girls from the volleyball team. And not very well. Something in the way she leaned and swayed told Emerson she’d probably had more than her fair share of alcohol tonight. Southern Comfort, from the looks of it.

  She also took his breath away. May wore a dress that was gauzy and pale, with fabric so thin he could see straight through to her legs, her hips, her ethereal softness. She was so beautiful an actual moan escaped Emerson’s lips, leaving him torn between wonder and lust, as if he might either weep with joy from being in her presence or else walk over, lift that dress up, and have his way with her, right there in the kitchen, in front of God and everybody.

  But then, like the day they’d shopped together in the creamery and she’d asked about his brother, it seemed May could actually read his mind, because right as the most forbidden of thoughts bubbled into Emerson’s consciousness, she turned.

  And she saw him.

  He blushed. Held up a hand in a shy wave of greeting.

  What happened next was like a dream. Or a movie. She bounded for him, falling straight into his arms, her body warming him in the best and realest of ways. All around them, people whistled, laughed.

  May looked right into his eyes and smiled.

  “You,” she said.

  chapter fifteen

  Sadie watched Emerson from across the room. She stood with her back against the kitchen wall, shoulders pinned to plaster, plastic cup of tepid beer held in one hand. A steady stream of huge guys and skinny girls pushed past her, but Sadie’s attention was homed in on Emerson Tate and the long willowy black girl who had her hands all over him. Sadie hadn’t expected to see Emerson after hearing about his brother and the hospital. But now that he was here, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.


  Not even if she wanted to.

  The girl he was with was wasted. Beyond wasted: she was a sloppy mess. Sadie could see that the same way she could see male-patterned baldness and a future of divorce and despondency in the asshole who’d just spilled his drink on her good jeans. There were about fifteen shots written in the way the girl’s legs twisted around themselves. Emerson tried holding her up, while at the same time tugging her skirt down. The girl writhed away from him once, throwing her arms in the air and dancing to the music beneath the spinning beam of a projected disco ball. She had no bra on, and her giant breasts shuddered and shook with each flail of her body. To Sadie they looked like flying udders, which was to say, gross, but the straight guys in the room clearly disagreed with this assessment. They stopped to gawk. And point.

  Emerson reached to grab her, to stem the tide of spectacle. The girl grinned, put both hands on his cheeks, and kissed him hard. Sadie stood on her tiptoes, straining to see more. Emerson was kissing the girl back, but his eyes were open and he had one hand on her side and had begun walking backward, dragging her with him.

  A loud crash came from outside, followed by yelling. The crowd’s focus shifted, people turning midstride and heading for the French doors that led out to the backyard. There was more yelling, but over the music, Sadie couldn’t tell if it was happy yelling, like cheering, or the sound of a witch hunt starting up. Chad better not be involved in anything untoward. She’d abandoned his drunk ass on the patio near the keg and a game of beer pong, and Sadie didn’t think he’d do anything too stupid, like get into a fight or hit on the wrong girl. Chad was more likely to be the kid puking his guts up in the rose garden or caught dry humping pool toys at the end of a party.

  That’s what she hoped, anyway.

  Someone backed into her then, smashing her foot and sloshing her drink onto the floor.

  Goddamn it.

  “Sorry,” a gruff voice said, and Sadie’s head snapped up, because it was Emerson talking to her. She said nothing, just stared at him, at his blond hair and handsome jaw. He didn’t say anything else or even seem to realize who she was. He just kept walking, dragging the drunk girl with him. They headed toward a staircase that had a string across it, along with a neatly handwritten sign with the message DO NOT FUCKING GO UPSTAIRS penned on it.

  As he read the words, Sadie saw determination set in Emerson’s eyes. Or was it hunger? She couldn’t tell.

  Then she watched as Emerson ducked beneath the string, carried the girl up the stairs.

  And vanished.

  *

  Sadie waited a few minutes before following. Patience was one of her few virtues, and she bided her time standing against the kitchen wall, staring at a predictably provincial rooster clock on the other side of the room, watching the minutes go by. She waited until even more high school students showed up, flooding the space with a rising tide of high fives and chest bumps. She waited until a bottle of crème de menthe was knocked to the floor and no one did anything about it, just tracked mint-flavored stickiness all over the damn place. She waited until no one remembered the drunk girl who’d tried to pull her dress up over her head or the guy who’d kept her from flashing her business to the entire party.

  Of course, Sadie understood Emerson hadn’t been acting out of kindness when he’d pulled the girl’s dress down. He was a guy, after all, and guys liked to believe in some bizarre fantasy world where girls didn’t think about or have sex—unless it was with them. As if the human achievement of populating the earth with seven billion people hadn’t let that cat out of the bag. Then again, Sadie was familiar with a few of Emerson Tate’s other fantasies. She highly doubted the willowy girl would go anywhere with him if she possessed the ability to see into his past.

  When the moment was right, Sadie walked to the stairwell and stepped over the string and the sign with an air of pure confidence. She wasn’t acting, either. It was confidence she actually felt. And it worked: no one stopped her or said a dissenting word.

  She padded up the steps on quiet feet.

  The home’s second story was opulent and dimly lit: a long corridor of wide-planked flooring ornamented with plush runners and flickering copper sconces. With one ear cocked back to the stairwell, Sadie sidestepped her way down the hall, peeking into every room. She expected to catch all sorts of couples going at it, horny girls shaking off their bras, horny boys trying to shove their hands into honey pots.

  But there was no one. Weird. Whoever’s house this was must be mean as hell or else a card-carrying NRA member, since everyone here seemed driven by the same self-absorbed ruttiness that ensured babies would be made in the backs of cars and off-limits bedrooms at high school parties for all eternity. Like the pull of the tides, Sadie knew, no one was immune to longing like that, not even the shy, self-doubting kids, the ones who would never make a move or do anything but cry themselves to sleep over their failings and inadequacies. They probably wanted it more than anybody. Maybe it was because they knew how distant their dreams were from reality.

  Maybe that’s what made them so easy to hurt.

  Sadie remembered the first time she’d stepped foot into Roman Bender’s dorm room at their boarding school. How she’d looked around, taking in the whole space, the whole of who Roman was. What she’d seen there reminded her of her father during their trip to China. A certain bleakness. A distinct sort of misery.

  The inside of his room had been ascetic and grim. Roman read Camus. He played acoustic guitar. He was both dutiful and predictable in his depression. Even his bed sheets were drab—musty and stained with unwashed desire. Worse, Sadie could tell by the uncomfortable way he sat squirming at his desk that he was probably hard right then and there, simply by being in her presence. Nature was cruel like that, swelling his body with hope and possibility, when surely even his own mind knew better.

  How could she want a boy like him when he needed so much?

  “I’m not good enough for you,” she’d told him briskly, both because it was true and because she thought it was a kind thing to say. Sadie wasn’t used to being kind and, well, clearly she’d blown it, because Roman hadn’t answered her at all. He’d just cleared his throat, once, twice, a third time, then stared at his shoes and the bare wood floor with his hangdog eyes.

  Standing there, in the wake of his self-loathing, Sadie grew bored. Her attention drifted toward the window, to the world beyond. Outside on the campus lawn, every object shone and shimmered in the New York sun, vivid and alive. A dog barked. The trees were in color. Boys in varsity jackets tossed a football around, and girls with perfect bodies did cartwheels in the grass. But the dreadful silence inside that dorm room stretched and stretched, until Sadie couldn’t stand it any longer. Roman wasn’t vivid, but he was alive, and she decided right then and there that if her efforts at kindness weren’t enough to keep him from falling further in love with her, she’d have to do it another way.

  Her way.

  A strange noise snapped Sadie back to the present. She frowned. Was that the sound of someone crying? Whatever it was, it had come from behind a closed door farther down the hallway. Sadie crept forward, pressed her ear to the keyhole, and listened.

  It was a bathroom. It had to be. She heard water running.

  Then whimpering.

  And coughing.

  Sadie wrinkled her nose. Ew. It sounded like that willowy girl was yakking up her night’s worth of drinking. And then some.

  There was more whimpering. Then a soft male voice.

  “You okay?” That had to be Emerson. He sounded both brusque and weary.

  There was no answer.

  “You want me to take you home?”

  Still no answer.

  “May?”

  Silence.

  Sadie crouched by the door for what felt like an eternity, waiting to hear something, anything: more puking, someone taking a cold shower, Emerson snarling at the drunk girl to get her shit together. But there was nothing, and Sadie crouched there fo
r so long she began to wonder if they’d left the bathroom through another door and moved into a different room. A yellow sliver of light sliced the space between the door and the floorboards, and she sprawled on her stomach, straining to get a glimpse inside.

  She saw nothing.

  She waited longer. More minutes ticked by until Sadie’s patience came to its inevitable end. She had to know what was going on in there. Her body hummed with anticipation.

  She reached up and grabbed the doorknob.

  The heavy wood door creaked open, very slowly.

  At first Sadie wasn’t sure what she was seeing. It took a moment for her mind to catch up, and she noticed the parts before the whole: the willowy girl who wore nothing but her underwear and lay passed out on the white tile floor, bare brown tits pointing straight toward the ceiling, her face slack, and her eyes closed. Her gauzy puke-stained dress had been rinsed out and lay draped over the edge of a clawfoot tub, water dripping from its hem to the floor. And finally, Emerson himself, who sat on the very edge of the toilet with his pants around his ankles. He was gazing down at the girl with the funniest look on his face, and he wasn’t touching her, not exactly, but he was doing something, and to see what it was brought a smile to Sadie’s lips. In fact, she stood straight up and grinned ear to ear, like a fox with a full belly licking its paws after a hard kill.

  Well, well, she thought.

  Emerson Tate hadn’t changed at all.

  part 2

  Little Lamb

  Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

  —Genesis 22:7

  chapter sixteen

  “Get over here and suck me, girl.”

  “Squirrelly little shit.”

  These were the words that greeted Miles when he got to school Monday morning, which were then followed by jeering laughter. Not his. Naturally, the invitation was one he declined—or more accurately, ignored—and Miles made a mental note to avoid the west side entrance to Sonoma High until the end of time. This was in addition to the other places on campus he was loath to go, like the third-floor bathrooms, the school library, and any area that wasn’t well lit or well populated. There was a terrible injustice, he thought, in being an introvert who was afraid of being alone.