Beg, Borrow, or Steal (When in Rome, #3)(31)
So far, only the opposite is proving true.
Her eyes are bobbing everywhere. “Well—I aim to keep you on your toes.” She pauses and presses her lips together like she doesn’t know what to say next but isn’t eager to leave. “Okay, I should . . . go.”
“What’s with all the bags? Not going to your favorite corner table today?” I ask, not ready to let go of this moment yet.
“Oh.” She breathes a smile, and it jolts me back to the one she gave me on the road the other day when she didn’t realize it was me. I’ve been chasing the high of it all week. And the one after where she let me in her house. Where we talked like something damn near friends for the first time. Sort of like how we’re talking now.
“Not today. Madison is flying in for a quick trip. It’s been a long time since she’s been back, so I wanted to stock the house with all of her favorite things.” She’s got a little something from everywhere. Baguettes peeking out from the top of a Gemma’s Breadbasket bag. What looks like several different kinds of Doritos packed into a bag from the market. Even one from the Pie Shop that definitely has more than one pie inside.
“She probably doesn’t even miss them all that much, but I just thought—” She pauses and sets down her bags to pull her phone out. “Oh my god, I have service right here? It’s a miracle.” Her face lights up as she answers. “Hey, Maddie, are you about to board the . . .” She stops, and I watch as her smile slowly fades. She turns and takes three steps away from me. “Oh—no, of course you should stay! Oh my gosh, yes. Don’t even think twice about it . . . yeah, that’s a huge opportunity . . . oh please, I’m totally fine.” She forces a laugh. “I’m serious, Maddie, it’s all good. You caught me just before I left to get all the stuff.” A longer pause this time and with every passing second I see Emily’s shoulders sink lower and lower. “Okay. Have so much fun! Take pictures!”
She laughs again, then tells her she loves her before hanging up.
I don’t say anything as Emily silently replaces her phone in her back pocket and takes a few seconds, just staring out at nothing. Her shoulders rise and fall rapidly like she’s trying not to cry, and then she takes one final large breath and turns as she lets it out. A fake smile put right back in place.
“Was that Maddie?” I ask even though I already know the answer.
“Sure was,” she says in a chipper tone that grates on me.
“Is she on her way?”
Emily blinks several times—obviously trying to keep tears from building. “She had an important opportunity come up in New York and can’t make it home after all.” She bends to pick up each of her packages, and when I start to help she snaps at me. “I’ve got them.”
“Emily . . . are you okay? I know you were excited—”
“Stop,” she barks. “You don’t know me. I am perfectly fine. Everything is just fine.”
Emily walks away and I don’t try to stop her. In the past, I would use this encounter as another reason to keep hating her. To feed this animosity with unrelenting energy. We’ve had more than ten years of this cycle—so of course it’s easy to slip right back into. But the smile she gave me in the truck surfaces in my mind again, and suddenly, chasing this old feud doesn’t seem nearly as appealing as chasing that smile.
10 years ago
FROM: Jack Bennett <[email protected]> TO: Emily Walker <[email protected]> DATE: Tue, Dec 9 9:45 PM
SUBJECT: Library
Did you two just break up?
FROM: Emily Walker <[email protected]> TO: Jack Bennett <[email protected]> DATE: Tue, Dec 9 9:47 PM
SUBJECT: Library
What? No. He just left to go to bed.
Why the hell are you still here? Don’t you need to go home and polish your horns before a fresh day of terrorizing tomorrow?
FROM: Jack Bennett <[email protected]> TO: Emily Walker <[email protected]> DATE: Tue, Dec 9 9:49 PM
SUBJECT: Library
I just couldn’t think of another reason why he’d leave you alone in the library fifteen minutes before closing late at night if not because you broke up. But I guess it’s just because he’s an idiot.
I’m still here because I’m studying for the same test as you—the one I plan to score higher on than you.
(My horns are looking dull. What polish do you usually use for yours?) FROM: Emily Walker <[email protected]> TO: Jack Bennett <[email protected]> DATE: Tue, Dec 9 9:58 PM
SUBJECT: Library
He is not an idiot. He has an early shift at the cafe before class. And I don’t need him to hang around and babysit me after dark.
FROM: Jack Bennett <[email protected]> TO: Emily Walker <[email protected]> DATE: Tue, Dec 9 10:00 PM
SUBJECT: Library
Fine. You may not be scared of the bogeyman, but I am, which is why I plan to walk right behind you all the way to our cars and let him get you first. See you outside.
Chapter Ten
Emily
I’m on the floor and a little drunk.
I didn’t mean to get drunk. I was perfectly sober before I started drinking.
But Madison didn’t come home. I got all her favorite things, and I cleaned her room and I felt hopeful and excited for the first time in a while and . . . she canceled. At the last minute she was offered an opportunity to shadow a big-time chef in a famous kitchen. She couldn’t pass it up. I don’t want her to pass it up. But I also want her to come home. I need her to come home—but she doesn’t need me. No one needs me. And when they don’t need me, they don’t come around anymore either because I am a utility sponge. I am useful. And if I’m no use to someone anymore, they throw me under the sink.