She lied to Belinda, too. August came, and Belinda fell into Emily’s arms. If Belinda had believed she was going to Black Creek for needed space, she now knew that wasn’t true. The space between Belinda and her storied Esme was the space of a breath. The next weeks were a euphoria. First they were ardent, then completely abandoned, then consumed and consuming. Their love was like a tropical disease. While I didn’t doubt then, and I don’t doubt now that Belinda still loved Stefan, it was in Emily that she first found the fullness of sensual delight. First freedom, first rebellion, first sexual passion; there was no more flammable a brew. Emily couldn’t eat or sleep or breathe, either. There was nothing she wouldn’t do.

Only Stefan stood between them.

“They had private jokes,” Emily said, wincing at the memory, if not the burns on her belly. “She would say, green peppers or something and they would just crack up for half an hour. He had her in the way I really wanted. But I guess I had her in the way that Stefan really wanted.”

Still, Stefan reasoned that history was on his side—not just their history as a couple but Belinda’s history as a conservative Christian. Jill would never approve. He had to wait for this passion to burn itself out.

After all that passion went up like gas lightning that awful freezing night, Emily’s rage and grief found their natural target in Stefan.

“I wanted him to pay for what he did,” she said. Prison could not be cruel enough; she hoped that some evildoer would slash his handsome face. She hoped he lived in fear, as she did. Consumed with the notion that Belinda would come back to haunt her, she took to sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor of her bedroom, so that the bed was between her and the door. She made me remember Stefan’s early weeks at home, the way he slept on his bedroom floor. She forgot to eat. Sometimes, she forgot to breathe and had to remind herself that she wasn’t at the bottom of a pool. “I lost maybe thirty pounds.”

When she read something about Jill’s dating violence protest group, SAY, it was the key to her lock. She reached out to Jill who took Emily under her wing. “I knew Belinda, so it was like I knew Jill. I guess I adapted to her. And having me around made Jill feel closer to Belinda. At first I would just demonstrate with the other SAY members back when Stefan was still in prison. Then it got to be like I would have dinner with Jill and sometimes sleep over. And then I moved in.”