Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Alex
june
The clap of thunder is jarring. I have to focus hard on where I am. Who I’m with.
Home. In bed. Emma. Safe. And the adrenaline subsides.
She’s cuddled up next to me, a leg draped over mine. My arm, beneath her head. We fell asleep just like this, talking past midnight. We talked for hours, lying like this.
She’s become my safe place. No matter what I do or how I act, Emma keeps showing up every day, month after month, with a smile for me. Using her soft voice when she knows I’m close to losing it. She can read me, and it pains me that I can’t do the same for her.
She listens more than she talks. It’s my first time being with someone who talks less than me. She’ll answer questions and tell me about her day and classes, but more often, she just gives me space and time. She’ll wait for me.
When the thunder rolls again, I slide my hand into her curly blonde hair, touching a kiss to the top of her head.
My sweet girl.
It’s taken six months of marriage, but slowly, we’ve warmed to each other.
The first few months were admittedly rough.
I was still thinking about Jess. A lot. Was still struggling with being.
..here. But that’s fading. The scar is closing.
I’m healing. And it feels like it’s all because of her.
Aside from the fact that we aren’t intimate, it’s the healthiest relationship I’ve ever been in.
Do I wish we were fucking? Most days, yeah. Every time I touch myself, I see Em on her knees. For me. Only me. When I shower, and my cock is hard, begging for touch, I see her. I don’t know when I stopped seeing long dark hair… Or more so when that stopped surprising me.
But everything with Emma feels good. Just like it is.
We have routines and weekly plans now. After…
she moved away, I introduced Em to Brit and Liam.
And CT, too. We have dinner with Constantine at least twice a month.
We go camping on the weekends whenever the skies are clear, and we hike to the hidden cove daily.
The edges of our two lives have blended over the months, seamlessly.
So, on our sixth-month wedding anniversary, I’ve already decided: I’m going to ask my wife out on a date.
“You’re awake early today,” she whispers against my chest.
“It’s storming out.”
“Nooo,” her disappointment is obvious. We were supposed to hike to a camp near the hot springs this weekend. It was her “reward” for acing her finals. She chose it, not me.
“What if, instead, we…go out…on a date?” I can feel her body tense beside mine.
“Are you sure you’re ready for that?” Her whispered question is almost as startling as the loud thunder that follows it.
I thought I was. Aren’t I?
I am. “I like you, Emma. And I thought, maybe you liked me too?”
“I do, I really do, it’s just…” She trails off. “If things don’t end well…well, we would have to get divorced. And we could never go back to being like this.” She’s not explicit, but I know what she means.
We’re friends who do things that friends don’t do. We think about each other in ways friends don’t. Dating would be a step away from what we are, but maybe a step in a better direction.
I hope.
Emma
Being stood up by my husband feels very on-brand for me.
Worrying my bottom lip between my teeth, I check the time on my phone again. He’s 58 minutes late now.
Emma
Everything okay?
Alexander
Cant make it. Sry.
What the actual fuck? I look around at the house I’m currently waiting in. He can’t make it home? To his own house? It’s a bad joke. Done in poor taste, without a doubt. My skin itches, and I want to claw this stupid dress off my body.
And then cry a little bit.
Scooting off the couch, I pick up the heels I kicked off a half hour ago and drag my ass back into my room, shutting the door to my room. It isn’t really mine anymore, though. He’s practically moved in. His clothes are folded in the dresser drawers beside mine.
His toothbrush is at the sink right alongside mine.
I undo the zipper on the back of the dress that had taken me 15 painstaking minutes just to figure out how to get up on my own. I can’t be bothered to hang it neatly like it was. I just kick it off, letting it land in a far corner of the closet.
I grab a pair of leggings, a baggy flannel shirt, and my slipper moccasins and get dressed to take myself to dinner.
Ugh. He hadn’t even spelled out “sorry.” It was just “sry.” I wasn’t even worth an extra finger stroke.
It’s hard to say what’s making this feel so fucking shitty. Is it that he isn’t here right now, or that whatever we had is now dead? I was so worried about it because I knew.
I knew it would never work out. I even knew that whatever we were wasn’t going to last. It was too fragile; he and I were always on the precipice.
Always teetering on the edge of the next thing or nothing.
I wasn’t ready to leave the shore, but Alexander Palomino said jump with me.
And I did. Because I’ve fallen in love with him.
This ranked high as one of the stupider mistakes I’ve made.
Grabbing the keys to my car, I feel even more idiotic when I think about Blanks. He said they were inseparable, but he was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t shown up. Alex hardly even said his name.
I stopped missing him when I realized he really wasn’t coming back, but I still feel a twinge of longing whenever I drive my car or wear the jacket he bought me.
Stupid, Emma. So stupid.
Coltons looks packed tonight, the summer crowd officially infiltrating the small town.
I wouldn’t be heading there in slippers, alone, on a dead night.
Meaning, there was no chance in hell of me going when they were slammed.
I also hadn’t been since Blanks took me.
Alex didn’t venture out, and I sort of took his cue and didn’t either.
So I turn right at the fork and pull into a parking space outside Maggio’s.
We’ve ordered pizza from here a handful of times, never staying to eat. But I can’t be at home tonight. I hate that I call it home.
I step into the pizza “parlor” that feels a little ancient, but in a homey way, and honestly debate ordering a large pizza just for myself. It’s that kind of night.
An older man scribbles down my order: medium pizza with jalapenos and artichoke hearts, and a beer. Cold, don’t care what kind, then he gives me a sympathetic smile when he asks, “For here, or to-go?”
And I say, “Here, only need one plate.”
Definitely that kind of night.
Me, my beer, and my one plate sit at a table in the nearly empty establishment. There are a couple teenagers at one table, but other than them, the place is empty. They don’t even notice I’m here, which is just fine too.
I left my phone in the car — on purpose — so I sit with nothing to do and no one to talk to until someone walks through the door of the pizza joint, and my stomach falls out of my ass. Fucking amazing. I simply don’t have it in me to people or small talk right now.
“Emma,” he says, almost surprised, maybe awkwardly. Okay, definitely awkwardly. The baby is strapped to his chest, and I smile at him. CT smiles and coos when he sees me.
Now, CT is my kind of person. He smiles a lot and doesn’t talk.
“Hi, Liam.” I wouldn’t say I’ve gotten close to Brit and Liam because I haven’t, but I know them now. Enough to say hi if we run into each other out in public. But I wasn’t calling to hang out with them, and they weren’t calling me, probably because we don’t even have each other’s numbers.
“Waiting for your pizza?” He asks, bouncing the baby who’s making grabby hands for me.
“Yup.” The one plate is looking really sad right about now.
He notices and says, “Sorry,” sounding actually, really sorry.
I laugh awkwardly because I’m embarrassed and say, “For what?”
“I mean, I was a little worried Alex wouldn’t take it well.” I shrug, avoiding saying something stupid because I have no fucking idea what he’s talking about.
“Just give him time to cool down. It’s not every day you find out your ex is dating your best friend.
” I swallow the stomach acid threatening to come up and nod, like I get it, but I don’t.
He shoots me another sympathetic smile, then greets the older man working the counter, picking up his three large pizzas.
I have never been more jealous in my entire life.
I’m jealous of the smiling baby he’s holding. I’m jealous of the three pizzas going home to a full house. I’m wildly jealous that the whole lot of them always seem actually happy. Just gorgeous, rich, and sickeningly happy. That’s not the life for you.
When he leaves, he shoots me a sympathetic look, and I want to crumple on the spot.
I don’t, because that would be poor form. Instead, I wave and say bye to CT.
Once he’s gone, I finish off my beer, staring into the depths of the empty glass, and pray that it’ll refill itself.
After wolfing down my three slices and another beer later, I call it quits on Maggio’s.
The nervous energy thrumming in my veins pushes me out the door. It drives me home. It knows what I’m going to do before I’m even doing it.
With shaking hands, I head upstairs, treading lightly like I’ll get in trouble if I get caught.
He never said not to go upstairs, but it always felt implied. Even now, I feel like I’m breaking a rule. Maybe even the cardinal rule. What’s he going to do, though? Kick me out? Okay. Divorce me? Fine.
All the doors are suspiciously shut, making me want to roll my eyes that I’ll have to snoop actively. I can’t just wander.
Opening the first door in the hall, I’m preparing for the worst, but all I find is a completely nice and unused guest room. Oh. It’s decorated plainly, without a single personal touch.