Page 29 of Little Pieces of Light

Xander

I read the text from Emery and stopped on my way to the library.

All the study rooms are full. We have to meet at my house. Do you have the address?

I texted back, Yes.

It’d been emblazoned on my mind for seven years, and I’d handwritten it on more letters than I cared to count.

Her reply came fast. Oh, right. See you soon.

I rode my bike through Castle Hill, toward the coast and along Ridge Road, with every muscle in my body screaming from yesterday’s row practice.

I’d dreaded being moved to stroke seat but accepted the challenge, and it paid off.

Six minutes, forty-eight seconds was elite-level speed for a two thousand meter, and CHA hadn’t come close to touching it in years.

Even Tucker gave me a grudging nod of approval in the clubhouse.

Rhett’s expression promised murder at a future date.

He’ll push me off that bridge when we come to it.

I pedaled down Emery’s long driveway, where she was checking her phone as she leaned against her white BMW. With the sun peeking through the clouds, the strands of her blond hair glowed golden. She wore tight jeans and a soft, white sweater. All of her looked soft and warm and…

Luscious.

“Stop it,” I muttered under my breath as I approached, walking my bike. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said, then looked pained. “God, I forgot you don’t drive. I’m sorry, I should have given you a ride, but I’m not thinking clearly. Sort of panicking about that midterm.”

“It’s fine,” I said, glancing up at the huge white house. Ten of mine could fit in hers. The cars in the circular drive were luxury vehicles—not one rusted Buick. Everything about her house felt like a reflection of what I didn’t have.

“Are you sure it’s okay that I’m here?” I asked as I parked my bike.

Emery walked us through a side entrance. “Of course,” she said. “My parents know you tutor me.”

We’d come into a large, stainless steel and white marble kitchen where a portly older woman was preparing dinner.

“Hello, Miss Emery.” She smiled at me warmly, if curiously. “And who is your friend?”

“Hi, Belinda. This is Xander,” Emery said, rummaging in the pantry. She grabbed a bag of chips and two bananas and dumped them in my arms. “Something to drink?”

“Uh, just water, thanks.”

She retrieved two bottles of water from the fridge. “Bye, Belinda.”

“Bye, Miss Emery,” Belinda said and went back to her carrot-chopping with a small smile.

Emery led me through her immense, immaculate house. A house filled with everything one could possibly want, yet it felt oddly empty. And cold. We were halfway up the stairs when a woman started down.

“Hi, Mom,” Emery said. “This is Xander Ford. He’s the math tutor I told you guys about.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Wallace,” I said, noting that I’d been downgraded from friend to tutor in the presence of her mother.

Emery’s mom was beautiful, with blond hair and the same blue-green eyes as her daughter, but she seemed wraithlike. Almost hollow. As if she were made of paper and the slightest breeze would blow her away. She didn’t reply but stared at me with something like alarm on her face.

“Mom?” Emery said warily. “You okay?”

Her mother blinked and tore her gaze from me. “Emery, your father will be home at five o’clock.”

“I know.”

“ Five o’clock , Emery.” She gave me a final, hard glance, then continued past us down the stairs, leaving a trail of perfume and a faint whiff of alcohol in her wake.

“Sorry about her,” Emery said, looking away. “She’s…not feeling well.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll make sure I’m gone before five.”

She smiled at me gratefully and led me down a hallway toward her room. She caught me glancing to the right, to the other wing of bedrooms.

“Grant’s room is the one on the left,” Emery whispered. “I sneak in there sometimes. To visit him. Don’t tell anyone.”

“I never would.”

She smiled again, and I followed her into her room. Unlike the rest of the house, Emery’s space was warm and brightly lit, and everything about it was her .

Her room was at least three times the size of my loft and furnished like a living room as much as a bedroom. A pink reclining chair sat in one corner, a white desk stood under the window that overlooked the bay, and a fluffy pink throw rug lay over the carpet.

The dominant color was white with tasteful pink accents, little vases of flowers, and blank walls—except for two.

One wall was completely covered in collages.

Squares of paper populated with clusters of photos or images or sketches that ran along distinct themes: the 1940s, French provincial countryside, Art Deco glamour…

All of them saturated with taste and style.

This wasn’t just a hobby but professional-level artistry, like design blueprints for all the rooms Emery would never get to touch thanks to her father’s oppression.

But the wall behind Emery’s bed made me catch my breath.

Electric blue with a cherry blossom branch laden with little pink flowers arching down from the right corner, shedding petals here and there.

At first, I thought it must be wallpaper, but upon closer inspection—as close as I dared get to Emery’s queen-sized bed—I realized it was hand-painted.

“You made this?”

Emery was at her desk, gathering chopped up magazines and printouts for a work-in-progress. “Yep. I convinced my parents to let me decorate my room. I thought it would help show them what I was capable of but…nope.” She smiled sadly and held up a printout. “Prom ideas. My last chance.”

Aside from marrying me, came the thought, but I pushed it away. Of all the things we talked about over the past six weeks, my “proposal” wasn’t one of them. We’d both shelved it out of sight, stuffed it in a closet until—if—she needed it.

“Emery…your room is incredible.”

She glanced away, smiling. “Thank you.”

Anger swept through me that her parents could look at what she’d done to this room—transforming it into a safe, warm space that reflected Emery exactly—and not put her on the first bus to RISD.

She removed a decorative throw pillow from a chair in the corner, then dragged the chair beside the one already at her desk. She giggled at me standing there like a dope, my arms laden with bananas and chips. “Oh my gosh, you can put those here.”

We sat together as the late October clouds rolled over the Narragansett, and I felt as if I’d been lured into a trap.

Being in Emery’s bedroom was dangerous. It was suffused with her: her warmth and softness, her artistry—but heat too.

An electricity or energy that made the air feel combustible.

Radioactive. It didn’t help either, the way she sipped her drink, touching her tongue to her lips afterward, or the way she glanced up at me from under her bangs, as if we shared a secret only the two of us knew.

This was a bad idea.

The radiant energy of Emery’s room, her nearness, herself…

decayed the walls I’d put up to protect myself until they were flimsy and paper-thin.

I didn’t trust I’d remember how to chew food, so I drank water for my throat, which had gone dry.

Eventually, we pulled out the study materials, and Emery assumed her usual position: elbow on table, cheek propped in her palm, pencil tapping idly in her other hand.

“The midterm is going to cover hyperbolic functions, right?” I said, flipping open the math text, seeking refuge in the safety of cold, sterile numbers. “So let’s start here…”

“How’s your dad doing?” Emery asked. “Still working on the unified theory?”

I smiled at her gentle concern and the fact she would do literally anything besides math.

“Yeah, he is,” I said. “But it’s a struggle. His equations keep running into infinities, especially when they come up against phenomena like entanglement.”

Emery arched a brow. “English, please.”

I chuckled. “He’s using super hard math—the kind that makes this stuff look like basic arithmetic—to try to make sense of entangled particles.”

“What are those?”

I frowned. “Don’t you think we should study? You’re paying me for this time…”

She waved a hand. “In a minute. Please continue.”

Emery’s eyes were bright and curious. Expectant.

Not to mention, it’s impossible for me to say no to her.

“Well, if quantum particles have previously interacted, they can become intrinsically linked. Whatever happens to one particle instantaneously happens to the other, no matter how far apart they are. Light-years even. That’s called entanglement.”

Emery wore a small smile. “Sounds like you and me.”

My heart suddenly skipped a beat—her words like an alarm that had woken it up. “What do you mean?”

“We met for the first time when we were ten. Maybe that ‘previous interaction’ bound us together, even after you moved away. And maybe that’s why you moved back to Castle Hill and why I needed tutoring.

We’re linked.” She toyed with her pencil, not looking at me, her cheeks dusted with a faint blush. “Entangled.”

I should’ve told her that was silly, romantic nonsense and not at all how particle physics worked, but I swallowed it all down. Because that’s sort of exactly how it worked. And because she was right. Meeting her had changed me forever.

“Right, well…we should get back to it.”

She heaved a sigh. “If you insist.”

As with nearly all of our tutoring sessions, it only took a few minutes of actual work before Emery stopped paying attention to the math. Again. I felt her gaze on me and cleared my throat. “Emery…”

“You’re dressed like your eyes.”

“Sorry?”

“Blue sweater, brown pants.” She grinned. “Did you color-coordinate on purpose?”

“Um, no. I don’t ever think about my eyes.”

“Really?” Emery gushed. “Because I just can’t with them.”

“You can’t…what?”

She laughed. “Get over how amazing they are. As someone obsessed with color palettes, I need to take a closer look. Can I?”

“Um…sure.”