The man sleeping beside her isn't like the men she's been with before. Tom is younger, quieter, generally more shy. He has black eyes, dark brown waves of hair, is clean shaven. He's soft and sweet. He holds her when she cries and whispers honeyed words into her mouth when they kiss, leaving a gentle hum to reverberate along her lips.
He gives her a purpose here like nothing else does. There is no meaning in what she does now, no reason in her circumstances. He makes Emily real.
She hates him for it.
The first time she let him sleep in her bed, he asked about her scars. His fingers had grazed them half a dozen times before that moment. He could have drawn their curves with great alacrity before he'd even seen them. There were two on her back, one at the base of her neck - from the bullets - and more on the front of her chest from the procedures to remove them: small, zig-zagged lines jutting into her, raised above her, marring what was once a smooth plain of white with angry pink reminders of the life she'd left behind.
That night, she'd told him of a car accident that would have killed her if it was real. She didn't tell him that she didn't like to fly or go into official buildings because of the bullet lodged near the base of her skull that makes metal detectors go off. She didn't tell him, while he examined her with his eyes, that she hates the way they look and feel and are. Because they remind her of Olivia and Elliot and Elliot running out of her sight and Olivia pressing so hard into her, trying to save her.
He touches her as if she is made of glass. He kisses her, always, like she is going to break in his arms.
She despises him for that, too.
Elliot was strong and rough and hard. She always assumed the forcefullness he showered her with was bred from the things he saw everyday. When he fucked her, it was a way to purge himself. It was something he couldn't do with Kathy, because, she guessed, he was more like Tom with Kathy, always afraid of breaking her. It was like talking: blatant, honest with Alex; edited with his wife. It didn't matter if Alex broke.
Tom stirs and gives her a small smile. "Emily."
"Hey."
"Can't sleep?"
She shakes her head. "No."
"Come here." She settles in his arms, her head against his chest, her hips against his. He kisses her forehead. "You're so tense. Work stressing you out?"
She wants to laugh. "I'm fine. Just tired."
He whispers, "Try and relax." She nods against him, breathes him in, deeply. "Goodnight, Emily."
She resents the way he whispers a name that will never truly belong to her into the darkness. It defines Alex as Emily and she wants to cry. Yes, she decides, she resents that most of all.