CHAPTER615
The knock on Arricks old bedroom door is too soft to be him, besides, he would walk in, and as it slides open, Emma walks in with a soft smile. She looks really pretty in a long floral dress that hugs her curves before flaring out around her legs in a really elegant way. It’s strappy and she has a good tan for the colder months, evidence of the family holiday Jake took them on a few weeks back. Her short wavy hair has blonder highlights and she looks glowy and ethereal, like always. Emma and Jake are the perfect example of a couple who have their shit together in all ways and I cannot help my envy in how happy they always seem to be together.
I miss feeling that way with Arrick.
I’m lying on the bed staring into space, still in my dress, drained, as she walks in and sits herself down on the bed beside me. I’ve only been up here around twenty minutes and expected Arry to come following me before now. I guess he is giving me space and is as tired with how strained being in the same room has become.
“No entourage?” I blink at her, looking past in case he’s looming behind her and see nothing.
“He’s with Jake, taking a walk… Brother time.” Emma answers my question and I sigh. Relieved that he’s not here yet also strangely disappointed. I cannot get a handle on my emotions.
“I’m being a bitch to him, you can say it… I know it.” I sigh, knowing he doesn’t deserve any of this, but I don’t know how else to be. I am in over my head in every way. I always dealt with things on my own and never had to consider someone else suffering the same thing; it’s all new ground.
“I think your being Sophie in pain, that’s a whole different thing and you know it… How are you? How are feeling? He said you never went to a hospital.”
“Please don’t. I run away from him when he starts with the inquisition, what makes you think I will want it from you?” I sulk childishly, instantly defensive and Emma ignores it. She knows me better than most.
“I think you need a woman’s ear … Someone who isn’t directly broken about your loss, Sophie… Arrick is making you feel suffocated and you are reacting the way you always react… Run and hide, wall goes up and everyone gets pushed away.” She takes my hand as I turn to face her, still lying down and sigh again.
“You got all that from dinner? Or from an insider source?” I sit up when she climbs up beside me and we mirror the same position as I scramble to lean against the headboard. Emma fixes her dress over her legs and exhales slowly.
“You know he talks to both of us when it comes to you two. I think Jake is Arry’s speed dial number in a crisis and Jake is a fan of speakerphone, so I can input.” Emma gives a little quick smirk and I look away across the room sadly. Arry’s room full of his old things and old pictures.
The room we used to hang out in and play video games for hours, watch movies or make plans to go away. The room where we used to lay on the bed and talk about nothing and everything or meet when we had plans. I spent as much time in here over the years as I did across the street in my own room, and this is the place we first ever had sex and became something more to each other. It seems a million years ago and hasn’t changed at all.
“I don’t know how to deal with him right now. I don’t know how to do anything except do what I am doing.” I shrug desperately and wish this weird achy cloud that descended over me days ago would just lift so I could see my way clear for five minutes.
“Pushing him away is hurting both of you. He needs you too, Sophie, maybe more than you need him right now. You deal with things differently.”
“I never used to push him away, maybe that means we’re not working anymore.” I can’t help that little tremor inside of me that feels a lot like guilt, heartbreak and despair, and shove it back down.
“You have never had to deal with something like this that affects you both equally… He was always your rock and it was your pain; I don’t think you quite know how to handle him in pain and it’s making you defensive. Arrick doesn’t know how to be what he has been for you when he’s consumed with his own grief. You are both walking blind and making a mess of it.” Emma slides her hand loosely in mine on the comforter and squeezes it gently.
“I was only pregnant for like five minutes; how can it make everything fall apart?” I get tearful, washing waves of something sliding up me and I am suddenly so utterly tired. I’m emotionally exhausted and this is all t so tiring.
“He’s a Carrero, they are notoriously bad for insta-love …Whereas you and I, we take a little longer to let it sink in and become real. It doesn’t mean that we don’t immediately feel something inside…We hide it from ourselves and let all the fear consume us.” She hits the nail on the head with that one. I know that the weeks leading to this were all shrouded in fear about what I was going to do.
“Is this my fault? … Because I didn’t want to be pregnant.” I say it out loud, a tremor in my voice and she grips my hand again.
“It’s no one’s fault, Sophie. Nature has a lot to answer for and there were a million possible reasons it didn’t progress. This was not your fault. Nothing you did made this happen.”
“Arry blames me too. I know he does. I wouldn’t expect him not to.” I croak as a part of me starts to warm with emotion.
“You know that’s definitely not true… The sun and moon rise in you, when it comes to him, Sophie. You are the last person in the world Arry would ever blame for anything. In fact, right now knowing him, he’s beating himself up for the fact he wasn’t with you and tormenting himself stupid that he caused this. He told me he left you in anger and I know he keeps questioning the importance of that.”
That thought makes me even more nauseous that he thinks he upset me enough to make this happen and blames himself. I know how he is about walking away from me during a fight and yet he did it anyway. I know how much that inner conscience of his must be obsessing over that tiny detail and I hate that. Another level of guilt to my heavy-hearted soul
“Why is life so fucking hard?” I burst out in frustration, shoving softer emotions back into my pits of hell. “Anytime it feels like something goes right, something comes at me to tear it all down again. I don’t know which way is up and it’s like I no longer care. I don’t feel how I should.” I’m so agitated with this rollercoaster inside of me.
Emma has always been a safe space to be honest, about everything, and right now, she is my Arry, because he can’t be what I need.
“How do you feel?” Emma probes gently, that soft tone she uses when she is trying to talk me through life. Councilor Emma to the rescue.
“I don’t know, empty… Numb, sort of… Sad, I guess, but not like heartbroken devastation like when Arry and I fall out. I thought I would feel more than this by now. I look at him, and his pain is there on full display and soul destroying, while here I am, like this. Like something in me is switched off. Shouldn’t I be sobbing or acting like we lost our baby?”"
