27. Emma
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
EMMA
“All right,” I tell Grams as I set my coffee cup in the sink at her house. “I’m headed back to the Big House after work tonight.”
“Okay,” she says in her weathered, gravelly voice.
She hasn’t asked me why I’ve been coming to stay with her every weekend for the past couple of weeks, and I’m grateful for that. She did wonder if Aaron would come to dinner last night, and I told her he was busy. For all I know, he is.
I haven’t spoken to him much since he showed up at the back door of the flower shop and told me I deserved someone better than him. I don’t even know what that means because Aaron is a great guy. He’s by far the best boyfriend I’ve had in years.
Every time I think about the park plot presentation, a string of guilt pulls my stomach tighter. Yes, I’d been frustrated with him. That didn’t mean I wanted to break up with him.
I’ve been able to make it through evenings at the Big House because Claudia is super busy with her end-of-year tasks as the city planner, as well as her wedding. Ry and Hillary have moved out, so it’s just Lizzie and Tahlia. Both of them know Aaron broke up with me—and that I don’t want to talk much about it.
Every time I replay what happened at the park, I realize I was a little too angry, a little too irritated, and a little too frustrated. But I also realize I didn’t call Aaron any names, I didn’t accuse him of anything, and I have no idea what’s going on in his frazzled mind that makes him think I don’t want to be with him because of one little thing.
Then I think, if we can’t make it through a little spat, how are we going to make it through life? Certainly, we’ll get more curveballs and fastballs and wild pitches than him clamming up at a park presentation.
And then I spiral because I think, of course you will, and look how you went off on him.
I know I’m a little bossy. I know I like being in charge, and I know I like having a plan. Last time I checked, I couldn’t be arrested for any of those things.
I sweep a kiss across Grams’s cheek and head out the door. I have so much to do for Claudia’s wedding this Friday. In fact, wedding season is in full force, and hers is not the only one I have on my calendar .
The flowers make me happy, even if the reason I’m creating the gorgeous bouquets and perfect boutonnieres is for a reason that makes me sad. Sad isn’t even the right word , I tell myself as I get behind the wheel and start the quick drive over to the flower shop.
No, it’s something much deeper than sadness. It’s a yawning inside my soul, a yearning for something that other people seem to find, and I can’t. I know Lizzie and Tahlia feel the same way, which is why it’s okay to be there with them on weeknights.
But on the weekends, when Hillary and Liam come over, and Ry and Elliott stop by for Sunday breakfast before church, I just can’t be around them. It’s a little too fresh and a little too raw. I’m hoping whatever excuses Tahlia and Lizzie have made for me will last a few more weeks—just to get through the wedding and the announcement of the winner at the park.
I’ve walked through all the park plots—something Aaron and I were going to do together—and I think we have as great a shot at winning as anyone else. I’ve wanted to text him and tell him that so many times.
I want the two of us to be huddled over his desk, looking at the pictures he’s taken on his phone of the other plots, trying to figure out if we’ll win or not. I want to be able to text him with my two a.m. worries over whether what we did in the plot was enough and maybe theorize about some other things we could have done.
I want to hold his hand as we wander the Summer Faire together, because I decided I didn’t have time to sign up. He did, though, because he always does, and that’s only made him even busier than he was before.
Thus, I’ve stayed quiet and away.
Now that I’ve had some time to gain clarity and do more thinking, I know none of that would really accomplish anything. The plot is what it is. But it’s a seething need inside me to talk about it, and I’m sure Lizzie and Tahlia are sick of it.
Grams seems to have an unending well of patience for me to say the same things over and over to her, but I’m pretty sure if I try to stay at her house for another weekend, she’ll demand answers. And I’ll have to tell her that I ruined the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.
The problem is, I ruined it by being me , and I don’t know how to not be me. I don’t know how to be someone else. I don’t even want to be someone else. I want someone to love me for who I am, even if I’m bossy, even if I get too upset over a presentation, and even if I’m highly irritable. It’s not like I’m like that all the time. I had a bad few minutes after a very good presentation.
I sigh as I key my way into the back of my shop, my crate digging into my chest and stomach as I use it to push open the door. Inside, I flip on the lights and greet Sir Chills-a-Lot. “Good morning, Sir Chills-a-Lot. I hope you’re ready to be extra cold today because we’ve got a lot of work to do. ”
I have a lot of pickups for a Monday as well, because there’s a funeral I flowered happening this morning and a rehearsal dinner for a wedding tomorrow with orders that need to be picked up this afternoon. I’ll be in and out of the walk-in cooler all day, fulfilling orders, making arrangements, and taking care of customers.
It’s exactly what I need after a slow Sabbath day of stewing over Aaron, sighing over Aaron, and trying to figure out how I can talk to Aaron.
I have no need to go next door to the hardware store, and he never has a need to come get flowers. He’s only ever come to the shop when I’ve asked him to help me, but I can’t see myself doing that now. He did it before because we were friends, and then because he was my boyfriend. Now, he’s neither of those things.
My chest tightens, and the emotion moving through me can only be described as grief. I sniffle as I mourn the loss of him in my life, letting tears track down my face as I realize how big of a hole he’s left behind.
I work all day, making beautiful masterpieces, Aaron never far from my thoughts. I’m going to have to break the silence between us at some point. I simply don’t know how yet.
Later that night, after all of Monday’s promised arrangements have been picked up and delivered, my shelves are stocked for Tuesday, my orders are filed into their correct color folders, and my crate is sitting on the shelf in the kitchen at the Big House, I pull a box of pancakes out of the freezer. My plan is to hide in my room with something playing on my tablet and plenty of blueberry pancakes with lots of butter.
Before I can escape upstairs, Tahlia gestures to me from across the living room. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
I look up the stairs, then set down the box of pancakes on the bottom step and go to see what she needs. She has the master suite on this side of the house, the only bedroom on the main floor. There’s a half bath off the kitchen, a full bath at the back of the living room, and Tahlia has a full bath in her suite as well.
Her room smells like tangerines and flowers, the scent of her favorite perfume that she special-orders from the Dominican Republic after she visited there once and bought it. I shouldn’t be surprised to see her bed neatly made, the lamp on in the corner of her reading nook where she has a double-wide recliner, an ottoman, and a bookshelf stuffed with pretty pastel novels. I’m not.
But I am surprised to see Lizzie chilling on the bed. She puts her phone down and looks at me as I enter the bedroom and freeze. I know immediately what’s happening. Somehow, Tahlia moves me out of the way and closes the bedroom door.
“I don’t need an intervention,” I say.
“Yes, you do,” Lizzie says back.
Tahlia nudges me, and as Lizzie scoots over, I climb onto the foot of it and crawl up to the pillows. I lay down in the middle with a sigh, and Lizzie curls into me from behind while Tahlia lays on her other, normal side. She looks at me with soulful eyes.
“You’ve told us almost nothing,” Tahlia says. “And you’re not even sleeping here on the weekends. My heart hurts, and I just want to help you.”
She reaches out and tucks a lock of my messy ponytail behind my ear.
“I know,” I say. “It just hurts.” I close my eyes, and I can feel Tahlia and Lizzie exchanging a glance over my shoulder.
“You’ve fallen in love with him,” Lizzie says. “Maybe it’ll hurt less if you just admit it. Tell us what happened and let us help you.”
“It’s not going to help,” I whisper.
“Sure it will,” she says back. “I’m a really great brainstormer, and I’m sure we can come up with something you can do to get him back.”
She puts her arm around my waist, and I clasp my hand with hers.
I still don’t say I’m in love with Aaron, though I probably am. I’ve never admitted that, not even to myself, but none of my other breakups have ever hurt this much. They hurt, don’t get me wrong, but in a totally different way. They hurt my pride and made me feel stupid, like I couldn’t see Tucker for who he was. Like I couldn’t tell that Chris had another girlfriend in another town.
I’ve been embarrassed that I wasted so much time on Ethan—time that I’ll never get back. With each breakup, it’s taken me longer to get back into the dating pool. And with Aaron, I don’t even want to, because if I can’t have him, “I don’t want anyone else,” I whisper out loud.
“We know you don’t,” Tahlia says. “You’re in a bad way. You have to let us help you.”
I’m definitely the weepiest roommate, and I let myself cry in the soft solace of Tahlia’s bedroom.
“Maybe I’m in love with him,” I say. “And maybe he messed up at the park presentation. He just stood there. We had everything rehearsed, and he just stood there. I had to do it all, and I was frustrated and irritated, even though it went really well.”
“Yes,” Lizzie says. “You said it went really well.”
“It did go really well,” I say. “But because of me. He just froze.”
“Okay,” Tahlia says. “That’s happened to me before when I’m presenting in front of the faculty.”
“There’s just so much emotion tied up in the park project,” I say. “My flower shop could really use that twenty-five thousand dollars, and I know Aaron doesn’t need it at all. So then I feel guilty that I made him build this amazing bench and picnic table and do the whole project with me when he probably didn’t even want to.”
“Are you putting words in his mouth?” Lizzie asks .
“Yes,” I admit quietly. Because he’s never told me that he didn’t want to do the park project. In fact, he’s the one who did the proposal when I was too busy with Ry’s wedding.
“So we fought at the park,” I say. “And I hate that I let that monster out of myself. But you know, I have a right to be frustrated sometimes too. The fact is, you guys, he broke up with me because of me . He broke up with me because he doesn’t like me that much—because I was irritable and angry, and I said mean things to him.”
I wipe my eyes because I hate the hot feeling in my face when I cry. “I don’t know how to say I’m sorry, because I made him feel bad about himself when he’s the most wonderful, thoughtful, kind, hardworking man I’ve ever been out with. He’s got some…”
I trail off because it’s not my place to say the things Aaron struggles with. “He has some issues of his own that he’s dealing with,” I say. “And I compounded them. Basically, all the bad things he thinks about himself, I confirmed for him. And he doesn’t want to be with me.”
“Did he say that?” Tahlia asks softly but earnestly. “Did he say, ‘Emma, I don’t want to be with you’?”
I give myself a few moments to think about it, my tears drying up. “No,” I say. “He said he wishes he could be the man that I deserve.”
Lizzie and Tahlia let a few minutes pass, not brainstorming for how I can get Aaron back. The silence is both comforting and stifling .
“It’s okay,” I say finally. “I’ll figure it out eventually. I’ve got to get through this wedding and one next week, and then the announcement for the park is the week after that. Maybe I can show up in his office with breakfast sandwiches for lunch, and he’ll forgive me.”
“I’m sure he’s beating himself up the most,” Tahlia says. “He doesn’t need to forgive you. He thinks you need to forgive him.”
“It was just a bad few moments,” I say. “Everyone’s allowed to have a bad few moments, aren’t they?”
“Of course, sweetie,” Lizzie says.
“Maybe you can just start by texting him something easy,” Tahlia suggests.
“Like that you saw the Lindsey build and that he finished it,” Lizzie adds.
I’ve been stalking Aaron on social media, and Lizzie caught me the other day looking at his feed. I even commented that he’d finished the Lindsey addition before I realized Aaron and I weren’t together anymore.
“Maybe,” I say, though I can’t see myself just texting him out of nowhere. I take a deep breath and continue with, “The reason I stay at Grams’ is because it’s really hard for me here on the weekends when everyone comes over, and they’re all happy-happy in love. I know you guys feel like that all the time, so I’m just a huge jerk that I can’t handle it. But right now, it just hurts too much. At Grams’, I don’t have to deal with any of that.”
“I think Lizzie is right,” Tahlia says. “You should text Aaron friendly things, like you did before when you were friends. Get through your weddings, get through the park announcement, and then you can decide what to do after that.”
I nod and let my eyes drift closed again, because I’m so, so tired. The only time I’m not thinking about Aaron is when I’m asleep. And mercifully, Lizzie and Tahlia let me drift off right there in Tahlia’s bed. My dreams, however, are not as kind.
I wake up with the stark realization that Aaron and I have been paired to walk down the aisle together at Claudia’s wedding. And I haven’t told her yet that we’re not together anymore.