“Emerson Blakemore, why will you not eat?”

“I told you, I’m not hungry.”

“Mores for me, then,” Lucy said with a shrug, taking a bite out of the large cherry pastry she’d just bought at the local coffee shop. She had a thing for sweets, and she was already getting flakes of it on her scarf. “I’m sorry your interview is bad. Are you to go home for the holidays?”

“I doubt it,” he replied, stuffing his hands in his sweater pockets and leaning back in his chair. He wasn’t really cold, but Lucy had made him put his sweater back on. He’d never head the end of it from her if he hadn’t. “I don’t have to think about that yet, though. It’s only September.”

To be honest, Emerson really didn’t want to go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. The last thing he needed was to be surrounded by a bunch of relatives who wanted to stick their noses in his business and interfere with his life. What would they say about him being kicked out of school? What would his mother say? He worried about her reaction the most.

“Emerson Blakemore, do you even listens to me?”

“Huh?”

Lucy shook her head, stuffing the last bite of her pastry in her mouth. She had been talking, but he hadn’t been listening.

“I says, mi padre is to make zeppole today. Do you wants?”

“Oh. No, thanks.” He shrugged. He didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, so the thought of fried dough rolled in sugar didn’t really appeal to him. “You remember what happened last time.”

“Of course I remembers!” Lucy laughed, and Emerson felt his face get hot. “You was… how you say… umm..?”

“I was drunk.”

“Ah, yes! You was drunk. You eat three of them and throws up in my sink!”

Emerson felt his face get hot again as Lucy laughed about it.

It had been when they’d first met at Cicada Hollow University. Lucy’s roommate had a big party, and Lucy had invited him. He didn’t remember too much of the night because he drank way too much. So much, in fact, that when Lucy had given him some of the fried dough, it immediately made him ill, and he had vomited in her bathroom sink.

“I remembers too, you open the door on Chase Dawson!”

“Don’t remind me,” he said with a scowl, running his tongue across his front teeth. “I had to get three implants at the dentist after he decked me.”

“Emerson Blakemore…” Lucy’s brow was furrowed and her smile was gone. “What is wrong today? You are troubled, yes? Mores than just your interview.”

“I’m fine.” He told her that a lot, but she never believed him anyway.

“You lie, Emerson Blakemore. What happens to your face?”

“What do you mean?”

Lucy rolled her eyes and dug through her shoulder bag for a small compact mirror. She flipped it open and held it up so Emerson could see his face, forcing him to finally take a good look at the damage Chase Dawson had done.

Both of his eyes were dark with bruises all around, dark purple closest to his nose and an ugly greenish-yellow around the outer part of his eyes. He had a large, swollen gash on his brow, and a split on his lip that would probably leave a scar once it healed. Between the job interview and spending time with Lucy, he had almost completely forgotten about what had happened.

“It’s nothing,” Emerson lied again, as if she would believe him with his face looking like that. She shut the mirror and gave a hard frown.

"You still lying to me, Emerson Blakemore. You fight Chase Dawson again, yes?"

Emerson didn’t bother answering the question. She always knew when he was lying anyway, so he knew it was pointless to try. She let out a long sigh.

“So, why you fight for this time?”

Emerson kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to upset Lucy any more than she already was about him fighting, and she didn’t press the matter. She just sighed again, reaching out and putting her hand on his arm.

It felt good to have someone who cared so much about what happened to him. While everyone else just wanted to keep him out of trouble, Lucy actually wanted him to be all right. Spending time with her was worth more to him than anything Chase Dawson might do to him.

“It’s getting dark,” Emerson noted as he pulled his arm away, looking out the window. The sun always went down earlier in the fall and winter. “I’ll walk you back to your dorm.”

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“You are hopeless, Emerson Blakemore.”

You have no idea, Lucy.

While they walked, Emerson couldn’t get the interview out of his mind. Did they think he was stupid? How could they expect him to sign a contract without even telling him what it was for?

He only had one more day before he was going to get kicked out of his apartment. What was he supposed to do? Sure, he was desperate for money, but he wasn’t that desperate.

Was he?

“Will you be good, Emerson Blakemore?” Lucy asked. She went up a few steps in front of the dorm so she could be eye-to-eye with him, and the concern on her face was overwhelming.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said, shoving his hands back into his pockets. It was getting cold.

“I still don’t believe,” she said, but didn’t press the matter. Instead, she smiled before she rushed down the stairs and hugged him tightly. “You call me if you need anything, yes?”

“Nope.”

She punched him playfully on the shoulder before she went back up the stairs. She looked at him once more time as she opened the door, and Emerson smiled, giving her a small wave. She just shook her head.

“Emerson Blakemore, you big jerk,” she said, then went inside, leaving Emerson alone in the cold.

He waited for the light in her room to turn on before he turned away, he shoulders dropping as he sighed.

His mind was going a mile a minute, trying to figure something out while he walked around town for hours. He dreaded going back to the apartment without the rent money.

He had been up the whole night before, filling out applications and making phone calls. The biggest problem was that Cicada Hollow was a small town where everyone knew everyone, which meant they also knew what kind of trouble Emerson was always getting into. Who would hire a guy they knew was just some troublemaker?

“Hey, Blakemore, wait up!”

Emerson slowed his walking to allow Adalwolf to catch up to him. As always, his friend was dressed to the nines, with an expensive looking peacoat over a suit that probably cost even more.

It must be nice, Emerson thought, to have the money to buy nice new clothes. All of his clothing was the same stuff he’d owned since high school, which luckily still fit him. He couldn’t help but feel envious, although he knew it was his own fault for not being able to afford nice things. Adalwolf was a hard worker, and he didn’t pick battles that he knew he couldn’t win.

“What’s up, Wolf?”

“I just got out of work,” he said, walking beside Emerson. His breath came out in small puffs in the cold air. “Any luck in the job search? You never answer your phone. I just wanted to see how things were going.”

Emerson didn’t say anything. What was there to even say? Adalwolf was the one who’d warned him about the ad, and he had been right, but Emerson had staked a lot on it anyway. There was no way he could come up with the rent money in less than twelve hours. He was fucked.

“That bad, huh?” Adalwolf questioned when Emerson didn’t answer him. “I’m telling you, Blakemore, just come back to school. Since you’ve been gone, Dawson has gotten himself into a ton of trouble on his own. Dean McCallister isn’t going to single you out anymore—he couldn’t if he tried. Dawson’s dug his own grave—he’s one big slip-up from getting his own ass tossed out.

“No, thanks,” Emerson said. Even if what Adalwolf was saying was true, he still didn’t want to deal with it. Chase Dawson getting kicked out of school wasn’t worth the beating he’d probably have to take to see it happen. He had enough of that life. “I guess I’ll just have to live under the bridge after all, collecting tolls.”

“You’re such an idiot. Let’s get some breakfast—I’m buying.”

“Wolf… it’s like one in the morning. Isn’t it a little early for that?”

“It’s never too early for breakfast!”

Emerson tapped his fingers anxiously on the table as he and Adalwolf sat in the diner in the middle of town. It was open twenty-four hours, usually catering to the students from the university. Luckily, they were the only two people there at the time—the last thing Emerson wanted was to run into any old classmates.

“Coffee?” a young girl asked, holding the pot up. Adalwolf nodded and she filled their cups, eyeing Emerson before she walked away.

“Can you stop that?” Adalwolf asked brushing Emerson’s hand off the table. “I know you’ve got a lot on your mind, but you’re stressing me out too.”

“Sorry,” he said quietly, and he placed his hands on his lap.

Emerson couldn’t help it. Camlin had told him to get him the rent money by Friday, and it was Friday. What the hell was he going to do? He might’ve had a chance if he hadn’t lost the money from his last paycheck. Then, maybe he could’ve given Camlin half the rent and—”

“Blakemore!”

Emerson snapped out of his thoughts and looked to Adalwolf, who was glaring at him with annoyance.

“What?”

“Stop it. You’re shaking the table. I almost spilled my coffee.”

Emerson realized that he’d been tapping his foot anxiously. He pushed his chair back away from the table, just in case he started doing it again. He felt like he was losing it—he’d never been so anxious in his life, not even when he’d been arrested.

“Sorry,” he repeated, and Adalwolf furrowed his brow.

“Look,” he said, letting out a long breath, “you need to do something besides getting yourself all worked up over something you can’t fix. Focus on what you can fix. Go back to school. You could even forget this shitty little town and go back home. Why are you sticking around when there’s nothing here for you?”

“I can’t go home, Wolf. I’ve put my parents through enough. They’ve been cleaning up my messes since I was a kid—I need to do this on my own, no matter what happened. And I just can’t go back to the university. We’ve talked about this a thousand times.”

Adalwolf didn’t press the matter. He sat back in his chair with a sigh and sipped his coffee. Emerson wished he wouldn’t worry so much.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Will you?”

Would he? He was just making excuses to not go home or back to school, wasn’t he? What was the real reason he was letting his life fall apart? Emerson wasn’t sure he could even answer his own question of self-sabotage.

“What are you going to do with all your stuff?”

“I don’t really have anything important—the stuff I need would probably fit in my backpack.”

Adalwolf walked with Emerson back to his apartment. As they turned the corner, Camlin was outside, adding trash bags to a pile of others and broken furniture. He grinned when he saw Emerson.

“Just in time to get all this shit outta here, Blakemore!”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Emerson rushed forward and yanked a bag out of Camlin’s hands. “Get your grubby paws off my stuff!”

“I told ya, Blakemore, this was ya last chance. I ain’t messin’ around no more. You’re out! Take this shit and beat it!”