Chapter 189

I spend the next several days locked in my own solitude, leaving only to buy groceries then returning home. I’ve mindlessly sat through so many hours of daytime TV and horrible romantic movies that make me want to throw books at the screen. Sarah should be back soon, and I don’t want her to see what I’ve become; some slobbish, tear-stained, mess of a girl who’s been living in a sea of junk food, chocolate wrappers, and screwed up tissues.

Classy look, Emma; really holding yourself together, aren’t you?

After a much-needed pep talk and a long agonizing look in the mirror I am finally so sick of my depressive mood and disgusting behavior. I force myself to get up and stop moping around like a broken-hearted zombie, doing anything to stop mulling it over in my brain.

I busy myself with cleaning the apartment, wiping away hours of lying around sobbing into tissues eating carbs; the endless sea of clothes on my floor I can’t bear to look at, all tied viciously to memories of him. I need to get myself together and show Sarah I can be who I used to be. I can pretend at being in control for her sake, by looking as I should, and having our home as neatly kept as we usually do. I won’t inflict this person I’ve become on her when she gets back. I’m ashamed of who she is.

I have texts from him and emails, all unopened, the bunches of flowers and expensive gifts sent to my door all turned away. Jake’s trying so hard to reach through my wall of silence and contact me but as I told him on every returned gift card:

Leave me be, give me time. X

Every time the bell goes, the pain of being betrayed rears its ugly head, with each bunch of gorgeous flowers more extravagant than the last, chocolates, jewelry, and even a stuffed bear holding a broken heart. Each one causing a flood of tears and a ravaged heart. It’s been hell trying to tell the couriers to take them back, that I don’t want any of them. Inflicting my sobbing, manic, blubbering, messed-up self on any delivery guy brave enough to try to give me any of Jake’s gestures, flapping my hands to motion them out of my sight. It’s all too much to bear and now I’ve muted the intercom, so drivers assume no one is home.

I can’t fault him for trying to reach me, not a day has passed that he hasn’t tried, but I’m not ready to face this or him just yet. My head is a mess; my body is a mess; my emotions are a mess. I feel like I’ve been cut loose and left adrift. I can’t focus on a single thing. I’ve never experienced this kind of torment. I thought being sent away by Jake, to his dad’s company, was the worst pain I would ever endure in my life, but this tops that. This is excruciating.

At night, I barely sleep and reach for him when I do. I dream of him and each dream gives way to my old night terrors, waking me up in panic, causing me to dive toward my headboard. I pull my covers to my chest trying to fight off the shadows coming at me as I drag myself out of my mind, desperate to fully wake up. Those nights are the worst, drenched in sweat and fear, gasping in panic as I slap at the shadows around me. I wake up, often hoping that it’s all been a dream and that I’m in his apartment again. Held captive by his limbs, and he’s right there beside me to make me feel safe, but every time, my body gives way to sobbing when I realize where I am.

I’ve cried so much I’m not sure how my body still has any fluids left but it seems I have a never-ending supply reserved just for him, exhaustion is the only thing which helps numb the pain; my head is foggy with fatigue constantly.

* * *

“Emma?” Sarah’s worried voice hits me as I’m scrubbing the cooker for the fiftieth time, her arms flying around me as she sees me. I didn’t even hear her come in. I finally caved a few hours ago, in a phone call while she got ready to travel home and told her why I was here, unable to talk through tears but she finally understood.

“Oh, my God! I was frantic the whole flight, desperate to get back to you.” She croons, holding me tight and I relax into her embrace, holding myself together, telling myself to not fall apart. To not be the girl who crumbles when her friend asks how she is.

“I’m okay, Sarah … Better than I was the last couple of days.” a numbness has started to envelope me most of the time, making me able to cope with menial tasks and mindless routines in an almost zombie like state.

I turn in her arms and spot Marcus scurrying away with cases to her room, a typical man avoiding female tears, a real charmer. Jake would have brushed them away for me and asked me to tell him all about it. He would’ve wiped the floor with the likes of Marcus and his evasive behavior to female tears. I push down the thought and bite my lip.

I can’t keep torturing myself this way. Stop thinking about him.

“Is this it? Are you really walking away from what you had?” She gazes at me with an intense frown. “He made a mistake, Emma … He’s human.” Her revelation takes me by surprise; makes me stop what I’m doing and gape at her.

“On our call, you were all for me kicking him the balls if I remember.” I point out in surprise, a look of complete disbelief etched on my face, in truth I’m more than a little hurt.

“Yeah, but then I had time to simmer and think about everything, Ems … Jake really loves you. I don’t think this is something he’d ever repeat.” She looks incredibly sincere at this very moment.

Why am I shocked? She’s given Marcus so many chances in the past and here he is again. She’s just another version of my mother, letting a man hurt you then crawling back to him again.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m beyond confused.” I admit, glancing down between us at the way she’s holding both of my hands tightly, a sudden urge to haul her into my arms and cry. I don’t miss the old me who never allowed this kind of touch between us. It’s comforting and so necessary to me right now.

“Emma, think about it, he could’ve done more than a kiss … He could’ve taken her back to her hotel and done the deed. As soon as he kissed her, he knew he’d fucked-up, right?” Her hopeful blue gaze bores into my face and I try to ignore it. I can’t deny the Jake of old would have thought nothing of screwing some girl from a bar, even screwing Marissa if he was drunk enough. He’d done that already, the baby proof of that. I quash down the vile thoughts of his body entwined with hers, revulsion pushing up my throat at the traumatic visions going through my mind.

“So, you think I should just forget it … Brush it off as nothing?!” I snap, yanking my hands away, of all people I expected Sarah to be on my side.

But not this!

“No of course I don’t, he’s hurt you, Emma. But I think you can move past this and be with him again when you’re ready.” She sounds so young and pleading. I don’t want this version of Sarah. I want her jokes on what she would do to maim him in her unrelenting loyalty to me; dragging his name through dirt, calling him all the cusswords she can think of. Instead she’s championing him making me feel anger that has lain dormant the past few days.

“It’s not just the kiss … It’s who he kissed!” I stamp, pulling myself away heading to the couch and slumping down. Trying hard to simmer the wave or irritation growing in my belly. “It was her … Marissa. The one person I hate more than anyone and the one person that can truly kill everything between us.” the tears sting my eyes at the mention of that bitch’s name, and I bite them back defiantly. Not while her name is on my lips, I wouldn’t dare.

That bitch will never get my tears.

“It probably wasn’t a choice, Emma, just a coincidence. Someone or anyone that happened to throw themselves at him because that’s how much he was hurting; how irrational he was being … There was no attraction in it.” She raises her hands almost in exasperation and meets my furious scowl.

How are you so sure, Sarah, because I don’t even know!?

“If he loved me then he wouldn’t have so cruelly kissed her.” I spit, her stance unmoving, arms folded across her chest as though dealing with a petulant child. Her voice is steady and stern with a look in her eye that belongs on a school mistress.

“If he didn’t love you then he wouldn’t have done anything at all, Emma, it’s because he was in an incredible amount of heartache that he stupidly did it. You hurt each other. He only found out later that you were just bluffing about the other guy, but you still rejected him.” She walks forward sliding down beside me regarding me, pleading, and takes my hands gently but I turn my face away defying her defense of him.

“He should’ve known I would never do anything like that, and I didn’t reject him, I just said it was too soon.” a tear rolls down my cheek; my head is in chaos again. I never seem to be able to get any of this straight in my head, at exactly whose fault this is, if I should’ve done anything differently, or how we could’ve prevented all this.

“Men can be idiots, especially drunk and emotional men. He was already hurting because he felt like you rejected him. With an ego like his I’m sure that was a devastating thing, Ems, and the other guy comment sent him over the edge. Maybe he just figured you had finally realized he wasn’t what you wanted anymore.” She’s trying to sound soft, but I just feel so angry and enraged.

“Well then he’s an idiot because he was everything that I wanted and needed. I would’ve followed him to the ends of the fucking Earth.” I sob, unleashing a heart-breaking cry so raw even Sarah is silenced by shock. She watches me with large blue eyes and her lip trembles.

“Emma?” she finally whispers, leaving me to calm to a gentle sniffing, my anger deflating before she continues, “If he’s everything to you then why would you reject a home with him?” She watches me closely, regarding me with a confused and gentle expression on her face.

“Because I’m scared,” I admit finally. “I’m scared that I’m not enough to keep him with me for a lifetime. I’m scared of letting someone else take the lead and losing all that I am. I’m scared of this new life he’s offering me that could be taken away at any minute.” It’s then that I realize I’ve never believed in myself, never thought I could keep someone like him for more than a few blissful months, let alone a marriage and life. That I could be more than my career, and give him something, anything equivalent to all that he was trying to give me. Even now I feel like I never really deserved any of it.

I have so much to thank my mother and her lovers for; a self-doubt so huge I’m too scared to let myself be happy. Jake is right, I’m incapable of ever fully letting go or letting him in all the way.