CHAPTER260
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.
“Emma, I believe he’s the one for you, mistakes aside. I truly believe you’ll never find another love or happiness in the way you found it with him. He seems to know what you need, almost instinctively, and he gives you it. He understands you. You have no idea how rare that is.” She tightens her grasp on my hand and gazes at me fondly. Those tropical blue eyes twinkling with love. “You changed someone like him, Emma, he changed you, you have no idea how huge that is. I don’t think he’ll ever look anywhere else again if you give him another chance, no, in fact I know he won’t.”
“I can’t just push aside what he did.” I sigh.
“But you can learn to forgive him, and you can only do that by talking to him and seeing what happens next.” She strokes back my hair from my face wiping away some of the wetness on my cheek. “You can’t wallow in here and hide away forever.”
“It hurts me when I think of him, or even see his name on a text or an email. I can’t bear to open any that he’s sent; not even the letter Mathews brought the first day.” I shrug at her hauling my hair across my face twisting it harshly. Lately, every anxiety driven habit and fidget I’d learned to control has returned tenfold, reminding me of him and his warm hands pulling my fingers from my hair. I yank my hands away clenching my fists to curb the urge.
“You’re doing what you always do, you’re pushing it away, denying its effect on you. It’s hurting you trying to catch it all in that little black box in your head, but it won’t work with this. You look awful.” Sarah smiles at me but I can see the concern in her eyes. “I’m not telling you to run back to him with open arms, just go see him … Or let him come see you. Talking is the only way forward.” The way she inclines her head with a knowing look gives me a tingle of suspicion. Something in that ‘know it all’ expression makes me stop and take note.
“He’s talked to you, hasn’t he?” I finally click that she knows more than I managed to say through hysterical tears, and she changed her whole attitude in the last few hours since my call. I’m not dumb, only Jake could’ve given her the insight that I don’t have. The way she’s been fighting to give him a chance when only hours ago she wanted to rip that pretty head from his wide, strong shoulders."
