Lies That Bind: Emma's Story

PROLOGUE

Emma

My dad left us when I was seven, and my mom immediately moved my sisters and me halfway across the country so we could be near my grandma, her mom. My mom – a scientist – took a job teaching science in the local public high school so that her daily schedule would be closer to ours, and my two younger sisters and I attended the elementary school in the same district. Maya was in first grade, and Kara was in Kindergarten. I was in second grade, but when I tested high in reading and math on the admissions tests, the teachers decided I would be sent to the third grade classroom for those two subjects.

As if being the new kid in school isn’t bad enough; being singled out because you’re smarter than your same-age peers makes you an absolute pariah. My classmates hated me from the very first day.

The third graders didn’t seem to care for me either, though for the most part they were less vocal about it. Once in awhile I would get a sneer or a glare that might as well have said, What makes you think you’re so smart? But it was nothing compared to the things my second grade classmates were saying on the playground during recess and after school.

I began to dread the lunch and recess hour. I tried to sit alone at one of the smallest tables in the cafeteria, but the other kids weren’t content to live and let live. And since I came from third grade math to lunch, and went from recess straight to third grade reading, the time always seemed to be ripe for jeers and nasty comments, or at the very least, a foot stuck out in the aisle just at the last second I was walking by. The playground was worse, with its wide open spaces and vast array of creative torture devices.

When we left the building one Friday afternoon late in December, right before Christmas, I had high hopes that two weeks away and mountains of new toys would cause them all to forget about me and my daily exodus from the classroom. But my hopes were in vain, and the first day back from the break, I found myself sprawled on the cafeteria floor alongside my splattered lunch, blood dripping from a horizontal cut in my chin where I’d hit the tiled floor.

Too upset to let myself cry, I calmly carried my tray to the garbage can, dumped the whole ruined mess, and hurried out of the cafeteria and down the hall to the restroom. Even locked in the end stall, sitting on the back of the toilet with my feet on the seat, I kept my crying silent. I hadn’t seen who had tripped me, and as I hadn’t taken any retribution, I highly doubted they would hunt me down just for the fun of it. But I wasn’t taking any chances.

I also wasn’t going to take any more chances with the cafeteria for the rest of the day. Or year.

Trying not to hiccup or sniffle too loudly, I held a wad of toilet paper under my chin in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. There was no way I was going to get out of explaining this one to my mom. I could make it sound like an accident, as I’d had to do a few other times since the beginning of the school year. But this was more than just a bruise or a skinned knee.

As I winced against the pain, it crossed my mind that I could start doing badly on my math and reading homework, and then maybe the teachers would decide I shouldn’t be in third grade for those subjects after all. But I didn’t entertain the thought for long. It went against everything in my nature, and I knew I would never be able to intentionally do badly on anything. Besides, it was probably too late in the year to make a difference anyway.

The sound of the bathroom door opening startled me out of my deep thought. Panic took over, and I held my breath, praying silently that it was just a teacher here to use the facilities and then leave.

There were a few footsteps – it sounded like two people – and then a pause.

Emma? It was another student, a voice I didn’t recognize, but it didn’t sound threatening. I didn’t know if it was worth taking the chance. I kept quiet.

Emma? Are you in here? A different voice this time, a teacher.

I swallowed. The footsteps walked toward me, and stopped at the stall next to the one I was in. I could see the student’s shoes, neat little black boots that I would have given my left arm for, zipped up over dark skinny jeans.

If – if you’re in there, it’s just me, Kendall. I’m in your – I’m in the class where you come for math and reading.

Just what I needed: abuse from all sides.

I saw what happened in the caf, she continued without waiting for a reply. I – I told Miss Harper. She sounded hesitant.

Emma, if that’s you in there, can you please come out? I would like to make sure you’re okay.

The other person was Miss Harper, the third grade teacher whose class I attended twice a day.

She spoke so kindly. I was compelled to give in. Slowly, I stepped down from the toilet and reluctantly opened the stall door. At the sight of the blood-soaked wad of tissue I was holding to my chin, Miss Harper rushed forward and knelt down in front of me.

Let me see, she said gently, carefully pulling my hands away from my face and examining my chin. We need to get you to the nurse, she concluded.

I nodded, unable to speak for fear I would break out in sobs. I realized then how badly my chin hurt, and how afraid I was that my classmates would hurt me even worse the next time.

Miss Harper led me to the nurse, who gingerly cleaned my cut with hydrogen peroxide and patched it up with two tiny butterfly bandages. She gave me a Tylenol from the medicine basket with my name on it in her cupboard, and told me I would have to rest on a cot in the back of her office while she called my mom at the high school to let her know what had happened. That freaked me out the most about the whole ordeal. I was very anxious about my mother’s response to the incident, and sat shaking on the cot until the nurse returned to inform me that she had spoken to my mom.

Kendall stayed by my side the entire time.

I was relieved to learn that we had completely missed recess during our time in the nurse’s office, so we walked together to Kendall’s classroom for reading class.

That was the day Kendall Preston and I became best friends.

Kendall

From the moment I saw that jerk Alex Hannigan trip Emma in the lunch room, I knew someone needed to tell the teachers what was going on; someone needed to stand up for her, because it wasn’t fair, her against a bunch of second and third graders.

And the moment she opened the door to the bathroom stall and I saw the blood dripping from the split in her chin, I felt this overwhelming need to protect her. I was so thankful that Miss Harper let me stay with her in the nurse’s office instead of making me go out to recess. I would have just sat on the swings and worried about Emma anyway.

When it was time to go back to class, the nurse told us she was sorry we had missed recess. Emma didn’t seem to mind any more than I did. And I thought it was good that we were both going to the same classroom so we got to walk together.

That was the day Emma Parker and I became best friends.

The Pathetique Second Movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 is a beautiful piece, full of emotion and the feel of dedication. It also sounds like it wouldn’t be overly difficult to play for someone who has been playing for almost twenty-five years, especially someone who has played Mozart and Chopin for competitions.

But the Pathetique is a secretly tricky and complicated piece hiding in the wool covering known as beauty.

When a pianist hears the piece for the first time, she immediately wants to go in search of the sheet music, and feels confident that the playing of said sheet music will come easily, even expects that it will take very little time for the music from the recording to play effortlessly from her own piano’s keys.

And then she gets her hands on the music, sits down at her baby grand piano, sets her fingers delicately on the keys...

And promptly loses every ounce of confidence she ever had in her own playing ability.

Emma

Oh... man... I slowed down and skidded to a stop, breathing heavily and trying not to start wheezing.

My best friend Kendall was just a half step behind me. She passed me and jogged a short curve back toward me, then bent nearly double at the waist to try to catch her breath.

Over the past nine months, we had run over two dozen 3K’s and 5K’s, as well as a handful of 10K’s over the past four months. Now we were training for our first half marathon. That race was scheduled for mid-November, almost two months away, and we had three more 10K’s to run before then. In the meantime though, all of our training was for the half marathon. It could only better our endurance and therefore our times for the upcoming 10K’s.

I looked at the timer on my watch. We only timed ourselves once a week until the last two weeks before the race.

One hour, twenty-two minutes, forty-two seconds, I announced. We’re getting better.

Kendall took a couple more deep breaths before straightening up.

Yeah, we are! Nice job, Em.

I nodded and took a drink from my water bottle, still trying to silently hold off my asthma before my best friend noticed. She tilted her head and raised one eyebrow at me.

I sighed. Fine, I said with an exasperated air. I pulled my inhaler from my shorts pocket and took two deep puffs separated by thirty seconds. Happy? I asked grumpily.

Kendall ignored me. What are we doing now?

I took another swig of water. You said Aaron is working all day, right?

Right. He’s been on since yesterday morning. Kendall’s boyfriend of three years was a third year resident vying for chief resident in the Emergency Room at our county hospital, and he often worked long hours.

Robert left this morning for his trip. I tried not to sound like I was having a pity party. I hated it when my boyfriend, whom I had been dating for just over two years, had to go on business trips; but it came with the territory of being the vice president of a head-hunting firm. Even though I had my house and he lived in his own condo, we still ate dinner together almost every night, and spent most of the weekends together.

On a Saturday? Isn’t that kind of unusual? We started walking toward the lot where we had parked my car.

Yeah. But he has a cousin in Denver that he wanted to catch up with over the weekend. Then he has the three interviews on Monday, then drives to Colorado Springs for two interviews on Tuesday, and he’ll be home Wednesday.

Kendall was watching me with something akin to sympathy plastered all over her face.

Good thing I have a best friend to hang out with, or this weekend would really suck, I said with a forced chuckle.

She nodded, giving me that look that said I was definitely not fooling her.

It’s fine, I promised. I needed to change the subject. Let’s see what movies are playing today. We can catch a matinee and lunch, and then hit the mall. I need new boots before winter. We had reached my Hyundai Sonata, and I leaned back against the trunk, pulled out my phone, and tapped on the local movie theater app. How about ‘Midnight in Summer’? I asked.

Oh, yeah, I’ve been wanting to see that.

Cool. I unlocked the car and slid into the driver’s seat while Kendall went around to the passenger side.

As I turned the key in the ignition, I heard a familiar beeping sound that automatically sank my high spirits.

Kendall shot me an apologetic glance as she unclipped her pager from the waist band of her running shorts. I didn’t have to ask; she only wore a pager for one reason: she was on call at the hospital every other weekend from Friday night through Monday night. She usually used her phone as her pager, but she used an actual pager when we were running, since it took up less space and easily clipped to her running shorts.

Could you just take me straight to the hospital? It must have been pretty urgent if she didn’t have time for me to take her back to her house to get her car.

Of course. I pulled out of the parking lot and turned to head toward the highway that would take us to the hospital.

It was a silent ride. There was never much to say when Kendall got paged. She was a therapist with a practice she and her cousin ran together; she was never able to tell me what had happened. Sometimes she told me general things, like whether it was someone she’d treated in the past – there were a couple of Emergency Room regulars – or whether there had been some kind of accident or disaster. But this afternoon she stared out the windshield, preoccupied. I decided it would be best not to ask questions right now.

I pulled up into the ambulance bay at the ER to let Kendall out.

Hey! I stopped her before she shut the door. You didn’t get lunch. Do you want me to bring you something?

I can grab something in the cafeteria. Thanks.

Okay. Call me when you’re done, and I’ll come pick you up.

Her anxious forehead relaxed a bit. Thanks, Emma.

I nodded.

As I turned out of the hospital parking lot back onto the highway, I glanced at my dashboard clock. It was noon. I could go home, fix a sandwich, and practice the piano. But with the mood I was in, I would likely end up moping in front of chick flicks with a pint of ice cream until Kendall called me; I was too prone to letting myself fall into those kinds of funks. I needed to do something to keep from feeling sorry for myself.

I decided to stop at the deli by the University and pick up a salad. I took it to the park, parked in the lot that was up on a ledge looking over the lake, rolled down the windows, and put my new Piano Guys CD into the CD player. I knew I had papers in my bag in the back seat; I could be using this time to grade them. But I decided to ignore work for a little while longer; I was busy enjoying my salad, good music, and a beautiful view.

When I finished the salad, I took a drive through the park. We were in the last days of September, and the leaves were all glowing in their bright, emphatic hues. Impulsively, I pulled over to the side of the quiet road to snap a few pictures with my phone camera. The scenery was too gorgeous to ignore.

Pulling back onto the road, I decided it was safe to go home. I was sufficiently out of the pity party zone and could make myself pass up the ice cream to sit at the piano.

Kendall

We were in middle school – seventh grade, to be exact – when several girls in our class decided it would be fun to take up bullying as a side hobby. Apparently junior poms, extensive gossip, and having an exclusive lunch table didn’t keep them busy enough; they also had time to practice for auditions for the next Mean Girls installment

The entire seventh grade watched them make their way through what appeared to be a mental list of girls they felt were inferior – or, in retrospect, superior – to them. Looking back, I wondered where the teachers were during this time; the amount of verbal and emotional abuse they got away with, not to mention the physical bullying they inflicted whenever they could, was ridiculous.

Some of us were brave enough to stick up for the bullied, but most students, afraid of becoming the next unwitting targets, stayed safely at arms’ length, some even laughing at their various abuses in some twisted form of down payment on their own future safety.

Emma being... well, Emma... couldn’t stand not to help the students who were being bullied.

Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t stand back and watch – I was constantly getting in the faces of the bullies and telling them to back off the other kids. But it was different with Emma; for starters, she had skipped fifth grade, which automatically made her a prime target. She was also the sensitive one, and it was obvious. Sensitivity rolled off of her like steam off a tar road in summer time. And that meant that whenever she took another student under her wing – a student who had just been mocked or terrorized or tripped – she became the easiest target next in succession.

I could see it in their eyes every time Emma intervened; they wanted so badly to go after her next. I knew the only thing stopping them was that they’d have to face me.

But one Friday, I was kept after class by my biology teacher; she wanted to discuss my topic of choice for an upcoming project. Since this was my last class before lunch, I didn’t make it to the cafeteria in time for the bloodbath. (Okay, that was overly dramatic. But it was the way I thought about it as a twelve year old.)

When I left the classroom, I hit the halls to the cafeteria at a dead run. I was filled with dread, just knowing what awaited.

By the time I skidded through the cafeteria