"Is that why you wouldn't look at me?" he asked, not even bothering to look at her as he asked the question indifferently, pulling onto the road.
She swallowed, feeling like a scolded child.
"Did we get all your stuff?" he asked, changing the subject.
She swallowed again, her throat feeling oddly tight. "Yes," she said very quietly.
At the tone of her voice Matt glanced over at her, saw her taut features and the slight strain in her face. He reached over instantly and grabbed her hand, wrapping his larger one around it. "Julie, I'm not mad at you," he assured her.
Words seemed to elude her, and she could only shake her head silently, trying to swallow the tight lump in her throat yet again.
"Stop that," he said, moving his hand down to just lightly caress her thigh.
But she felt the need to explain herself. "We didn't… I hate him."
"It doesn't matter," he stated.
"It matters to me," she retorted vehemently.
"Okay, then I believe you. Just stop worrying about it."
Julie stopped fussing about it then, but as she stared quietly at the hand he had resting on her thigh, she had the very distinct feeling that he was lying to her.
---
While normally it seemed like Emma was never home, now that Julie was living there it was almost as if Emma sensed that something was going on—and saw it as her duty to stop it.
Emma had never been especially friendly toward Julie, but it seemed to Julie –who reasoned that she could just be suffering from a paranoid guilty conscience—that she was constantly being spiteful, as if she suspected the real reason for Julie moving in and wanted to make her suffer for it instead of calling her out on it.
It almost felt like a game.
Emma even stayed home for dinner—which Matt made—and made what should have been friendly conversation with Julie about college.
"Oh, I remember when Matt and I were in college. We went to a Lutheran college, and of course the RA was very strict about boys and girls not being allowed in each other's dorms past a certain time." Emma giggled, caressing Matt's hand on the table. "Of course we found our ways around that."
Julie hoped her face wasn't as red as it felt as she forced a smile and took a bite of her salad without tasting it.
Once dinner was over and Julie single-handedly cleared the table, she made her way into the living room where, nestled on the same damn couch she and Matt had had sex on was Emma, Matt and Anna—the very picture of the perfect family.
Even though she knew logically that she had no right to care, it still made her stomach hurt to have it rubbed in her face.
"Jamie," Emma said, "Why don't you take Anna up for her nap?"
Julie nodded, not bothering to correct her about her name. "Okay."
"After that you can go to your room and study or something. My husband and I would like a little time alone," Emma said, smiling slyly at Julie as she caressed Matt's hand.
It took everything in Julie's power not to look at Matt then, to give them away completely. She waited in vain for him to say something, anything subtle just to reassure her that what
Emma was insinuating wouldn't truly happen, that it was just a trick to terrorize Julie.
But he said nothing. Not a peep.
So Julie managed to hold her fake smile as she took Anna, hoping her face wouldn't crack in half, and she made herself scarce, off to try to study and avoid the feeling of nausea that overcame her when she heard Emma talking sweetly to Matt.
---
It was a full week before she was able to see Matt alone again. Emma seemed to be ever present, but on the following Friday night duty must have finally called, and she had a "work thing" that she had to get to.