Tiny Crown

Chapter 13

The tv just droned on in the background as they ate. Neither of them spoke to each other. She would have described everything as awkward but Emilia had the feeling that it would be worse if one of them had tried to speak to the other.

He took her plate to the kitchen when she was done with the food. She sat on the couch, as patiently as she could. Her eyes drifted to the window, the car hadn’t moved. It would probably be hot inside of the car, the sun was shining on it and it was a black car.

“If you had to hold my hand, would you still want to go outside?” she heard. Looking away from the window and to Evan, she slowly nodded. Emilia knew it was so she couldn’t run away and with her heart, she wasn’t sure if she was in a state to run away. Especially since she had no idea where she was. If she had moved in with her aunt, she was at least several hours away from home. “And barefoot?”
She nodded again, quicker this time. “I don’t mind.”

Emilia didn’t care how eager she sounded as she followed Evan to the back door like a little puppy waiting to be let out. He unlocked the door and held her hand. Her hands were tiny compared to his but his hands were cold. Opening the door, he let Emilia walk out first. He followed, holding her hand firmly in his own. In Emilia’s opinion, his hand was holding hers a little too tightly but it was an opinion she would never voice.

The breeze was warm, despite them standing in the patchy shade of the trees around them. The grey stones beneath her feet were cracked and mossy and cold. Their rough surface scraped across her skin as she took another step forward. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and inhaled the fresh air. It was a relief to be outside again, to feel the gentle wind and warm sun.

She turned to look at Evan, he was smiling at her. She smiled back.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. He just nodded and let her bask in the golden rays of the setting sun. Emilia wasn’t sure how long she had stood there for and she didn’t care. The tiny taste of freedom was enough.

Eventually, Evan stepped back and led her back inside. She didn’t protest or make a fuss, knowing that she might get to spend another few minutes in the sun the day after, if she behaved and didn’t try to escape. Emilia felt a little like a pet, waiting to be fed, waiting to be let outside for a while. She hated it.

“Would I be able to go outside tomorrow?” she asked as he let go of her hand to shut and lock the back door.
“We’ll see,” he said. “As long as you don’t do anything stupid then… I don’t see why not.”
She smiled at him again as she rubbed her arms in a rather futile attempt to get rid of the goosebumps that had appeared. “Thank you.”

Emilia smiled to herself as she stared up at the ceiling. He hadn’t been angry at her today. In fact, he had lied to his own family to protect her several times. He had lied to his brother which didn’t surprise her. But he had lied to his own mother.

Those thoughts made it difficult for her to sleep for some reason. Sighing, she stood up and turned the light on. Squinting at its brightness, she headed over to the draws and started pulling them open. She was curious about what was in them, she hadn’t opened them yet and she hadn’t seen Evan open them. Pulling open the top draw, she found nothing. It was just empty. It was weird but somehow she wasn’t too surprised. The middle draw had some of what looked like his sister’s belongings, photographs, an old camera. There were a few cracked phones in there and what looked like an old school shirt.

At first glance, the last draw was fairly boring. It just looked like paperwork. But, as Emilia pulled some of it out and sifted through it, she quickly discovered it was school work. Evan’s school work. There were some letters addressed to someone called Chelsea who she could only assume was his aunt. His address was on them. She tried to memorise it but she couldn’t really remember it. Still, now she knew where she could find the address of the house she was currently in.

Evan’s handwriting was relatively neat. It was all joined together and fancy. A little envious of his penmanship, Emilia carried on sorting through it. She reached a letter that was addressed to his mother instead. It had a different address on it and she wondered why Evan had it. Reading through it, it detailed Evan’s incident at school, what was done about it. Apparently, a girl called Amy was a lot of help.

Slowly, she set that down and stared at it for a minute. That was why he had lost so many years of his memory. No one even knew exactly what had happened to him, not even his teachers and the staff at the school. In the draw, she spotted what looked like some more of Evan’s work. Except, the handwriting was different. It was shakier and the ink bled through the pages more. The letters were very rarely joined up too. Emilia realised that this must have been after the accident he had.

A lot of thoughts ran through her head as she tried to make sense of everything. Maybe he had put them in here just because he didn’t want to throw them away. But as much as she wanted that to be the case, because it was simple, there was a kind of nagging feeling that it wasn’t just that. The lock had been on the door for a while, according to Evan, and he apparently hadn’t planned on bringing her here. And from the letters, this house used to belong to his aunt.

Before she could think about it for any longer, Emilia put all of the papers back into the draw and shut it. She sat there for a while. She needed to sleep, she couldn’t afford to sit up all night thinking about it. She needed to sleep.