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“Emma?” Sarah’s worried voice hits me as I scrub 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 not to 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 envelop 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 surprises me; it 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. 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 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 just another version of my mother, letting a man hurt you and then crawling back to him again. She’s given Marcus so many chances in the past, and here he is 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 that the Jake of old would have thought nothing of screwing some girl from a bar or 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 the 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 to a schoolmistress.
“If he didn’t love you, then he wouldn’t have done anything at all, Emma. He stupidly did it because he was in an incredible amount of heartache. You hurt each other. He only found out later that you were bluffing about the other guy, but you still rejected him.” She walks forward, sliding 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 feel so angry and enraged.
“Well, he’s an idiot because he was everything 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.
“Because I’m scared,” I admit finally. “I’m scared 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 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 marriage and life. That I could be more than my career and give him something equivalent to all 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; self-doubt is 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.
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