Page 77 of Lessons In Grey

Desperation at its lowest.

God, what was wrong with me? Why would I ever do something like that?

While they continued to work, I took in what sat before me. Eventually, I came across a small box, no bigger than a shoebox, sitting at the top of one stack closest to the corner. I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach it, straining my already sore body. I gasped when I finally pulled it off the top and nearly stumbled back into the wall painfully.

The tape had worn away on this box. Just a generic shoebox. Nothing special about it at all, no real weight to it. Just a normal, everyday shoebox.

I walked over to a bench just on one side of the drive, my leg tired from all of the walking I hadn’t planned on doing. I should have been in class now. Sitting, studying. The limp had gotten slightly worse, but my leg just needed some rest.

I never understood why they put a bench facing the drive leading up to this garage. I suppose the rich did a lot of things that didn’t make sense just because they had money to spend. In this moment, however, I was glad for it.

I stared at that box, balancing it on my lap carefully. I couldn’t open it. Why couldn’t I open it? They were just old memories. My sister was in this box, so why couldn’t I just…open it?

It would have been something good for Rachel to try and work through with me, but all I ever remembered talking about with her after the accident was how I was settling in with my dad, and then how I was dealing with Helen and Jordan. Never had the conversations been about Charlie or mom. Not once.

“Grade school.”

I jumped, head whipping around, pain exploding down my spine, my heart racing, only to shift when I saw that it was just my dad.

He was making his way over, hands in his pockets, neckwrapped in a scarf, a wool coat and a beanie covering the rest of him. It honestly didn’t feel that cold out, but maybe it was. Maybe I was just too numb to feel it.

I watched him for a moment before turning back to the box. I really didn’t have it in me to talk to him right now.

But he didn’t take the hint, rather, he took a seat beside me. “I never understood why you guys made things for each other. Bead bracelets, clay statues, Christmas ornaments covered in dry leaves. You two had plenty of money to buy something nice for each other, but you alwaysmadethings.”

I rolled my lips together, the irritation already growing under my skin. “That’s because we never cared about the money. We didn’t care about the horse camps and the tablets and the phones. We made each other handmade gifts because when you make something, it means you took time out of your life to sit down and pour your love and effort into something you created. Something that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. How could you possibly understand that?”

He sighed. Always sighing. It was as if he couldn’t get enough fucking oxygen. “It was always you two against the world,” he watched as Grey carried a large box over to Syn’s truck. “Nobody could get between the two of you.”

“No.” I tapped the box a few times, watching as Grey slid the box into the truck, hopped up into the back, picked it back up, and carried it to the back of the cab. He walked to the edge of it and found my eyes as he jumped down. My heart picked up. Shit.

“Jordan tells me you tried to kill yourself the other night.”

My blood ran cold as I turned to face him. “What?” How thefuckdid he know about that?

“He says he found a blade in your bathroom, he saw marks on your arms. Why did you do it, Emily? Was it because I didn’t give you enough attention? I’m sorry about the long hours, you know how work gets sometimes.”

My jaw dropped, my eyes wide. “Attention? You think I wasdoing it to get attention?” I breathed out.

“Why else would you fail?”

I could see the innocence in his eyes, but I felt the rage in my own grow and bubble and boil. My eyes filled, my hands started to shake. “I did it over a month ago, dad, if I had wanted attention, you would have heard about it sooner,” I gasped.

I turned away from him, trying to breathe, trying to clear my head. “You never listened to me, did you?” I asked, turning back to him. “Not once. Over and over and over again, I tried to talk to you about the shit in my head, and you never fucking listened.”

“Sweetheart, that’s what Rachel was for, and you fired her.”

I couldn’t believe this. I couldn’t believe what he was saying to me. “I never wanted to talk to Rachel, dad, I wanted to talk to you! Charlie and mom fucking died! They died, and youmarriedyour secretary three months later? You married the lady you were fucking behind mom’s back three months after she died!”

His anger started to show at my accusation then, as if he hadn’t realized that I had known about his affair since it had started. “I loved them, Emily, but there is a time to mourn and a time to stop. I stopped. I got over it. I moved on with my life.”

I scoffed, rolled my eyes, and turned away from him, focusing on the cars. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t handlethis. Why did he even come out here? He certainly wasn’t going to convince me to stay, he didn’t even want me here anymore, he said as much when I told him what my plan was on Saturday morning.

“Do not roll your eyes at me, young lady. Whatever you think, I love you and I have always loved you. Whatever reason you decided to try and end your life, I promise you that it will get better. Life will get better, you just have to be patient—”

I stood and spun on him, the pain shooting up and down my spine, the box gripped firmly in my hand. “Patient?” I seethed. “God fucking dammit, I swear to God if I hear that word one more time. It is never going to change, dad!” I shouted painfully. “You still don’t believe that I’m fucking depressed, you think Racheljust gave me those pills to shut me up.”

“Clearly they didn’t work,” he lectured.