Free Timepiece: An Hourglass Novel by Myra McEntire

in my chest, spread out, and settle.
    “We’ll find Jack. He won’t hurt her, or anyone else, again,” I promised. I meant it.
    “Em told me what happened, how you tried to take her pain.”
    My heart skipped a sudden, painful beat. “I thought she might.”
    Michael stared at the floor, feeling as unsure about how to proceed with the conversation as I did, but determined to have it. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
    “It’s not something I talk about.”
    “Do your parents know?”
    “Mom does. Dad? He has an idea. I don’t do it for just anyone.” But Em had been so small in my arms. Tried so hard not to cry. I’d rocked her back and forth when she broke, wishing she’d let me take it all away.
    She’d handled it on her own.
    “I guess what I don’t understand is”—Michael paused, searching for the right words—“after all those years of keeping it to yourself, why did you do it for her?”
    Michael’s guitar leaned against his dresser. He’d tried to teach me chords for years, but I only ever managed to remember three. I picked it up and played each one twice before slapping my hand down on the strings to silence the sound.
    “The morning I met her, I was hungover. Remember?”
    He nodded, curious, but willing to wait for my answer.
    “My emotions were wide open, and … she climbed right in.” I touched my hand to my heart, expecting an ache that didn’t come. “She listened.”
    Before Em, no one had listened to me in a long time.
    “She was completely devastated when she lost you,” I said, remembering just how broken she’d been. “Like a repeat of Mom, after Dad and the lab. You know how terrible it was.”
    “I remember.”
    Mom was larger than life, but so much of her life had revolved around Dad. I’d watched her close in on herself after the accident, convinced that her love for me was the only thing keeping her breathing.
    I discovered that I’d failed her the morning I found her unconscious on her bathroom floor. She’d been that way ever since.
    “I knew I could change it for Em. Make it better.” I stopped and stared up at the ceiling for a second. “I didn’t with Mom. I let her carry around all that grief instead of stepping in to take it. I didn’t try until she was already in the coma. There was nothing there. Too late. I didn’t do one thing that made a difference.”
    “Em said it hurt you, physically.”
    “That didn’t matter.” Emotional pain was layered. Taking it to ease one situation opened the doors to the past, where every emotion leaned against the one beside it. Pull out one, all the others fell. It was hard to know where to cut it off, if you got it all or if pain still remained to destroy, like cancer.
    “Did your mom know? Would she have let you take her grief?”
    “I would’ve insisted.” And she’d be here now.
    “No one knew what Jack was doing. I should have paid attention, done more to help you both,” Michael said.
    “You did enough. You took action. That’s why my dad is at my mom’s bedside right now. If anyone can bring her back, he can.”
    “Thank you,” he said, meeting my eyes. There was absolutely no pride in him. Everything he felt was for Em, about Em, about her best interest. “For taking care of her. If … anything ever happened, I hope you’d do it again.”
    Sorrow. Way too much for an offhand comment. I started to ask what he meant, when Em walked in, glass in hand.
    “Are y’all done?” Em hopped up onto the edge of Michael’s desk. She smoothed down her hair and then smiled, as if she was remembering how it got that way.
    “Yes.” I put the guitar back in the corner. “I’ll get out of your way.”
    “No, sit. I wanted to talk to both of you. About Jack.”
    I warily lowered myself into a chair shaped like a giant baseball mitt. Cheerful Em made me nervous.
    Putting down her glass, she cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking about Liam, and how he doesn’t want our help to find