Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-Six
THE BABY SHOWER WAS A SUCCESS. JACKIE HAD COME through with a suggestion for a monogrammed diaper bag that looked cooler than most regular purses. Matt’s cousin had loved it and his extended family had welcomed Emma with open arms. Emma and Matt had spent the weekend together in San Diego and it was finally starting to feel like a real relationship—except for the whole lack of sex and nudity part.
Emma wasn’t used to having to bring her pajamas into the bathroom to change, but she didn’t want the first time Matt saw her naked to be her attempting to pull up her pants. He had ended up following her lead and they made it the whole trip without crossing any boundary that wouldn’t be allowed in a PG-13 movie. It sort of felt like they had jumped decades ahead in their relationship, from dating to being an old married couple who went straight from dinner to bed without any funny business. Emma had hoped the waiting-until-marriage pact would add a tantalizing element to their months-long foreplay, but it suddenly seemed like if the main course was off the table, Matt wasn’t that interested in snacking. It was almost a full-time job not to take it personally, especially considering she’d worn her fancy pajamas.
Now that Emma was back in Los Angeles, she was once again confronted by the fact she had to finish her book. She’d somehow managed to make her way through the majority of Michelle’s edits but still had absolutely no idea what to do about the last chapter. In the original draft, chapter eight had been nothing short of a tribute to her love for Ryan. She’d interviewed him for it, and they’d discussed how they planned to “keep the spark alive” and prioritize their union above everything else. The pages were laughable now, but it did feel pretty satisfying to have it in writing that Ryan once said, “We make a great team.” It was nice to have proof of his hypocrisy.
What kind of teammate ditches their partner without any warning? Not a good one. She hoped whoever he dated next was ready to be left hanging and humiliated.
Unless he married his next girlfriend, and their implosion hadn’t been about his secret fear of commitment but his dislike of Emma specifically. This possibility still caused Emma physical pain to think about, which was why she had been doing her best to avoid it. But her defense mechanisms weren’t working properly anymore, and she could feel her mood sinking into despair as she physically sank onto her bed. She needed to figure out how to write about what had happened without traumatically reliving it. Maybe if she could figure out a way to spin it into a lesson or something. People loved reading about turning hardships into life lessons. Normally, Emma pushed back against the internet-fueled need to learn something from every horrible experience, but if the capitalization of trauma would help her finish this book, she could sacrifice her morals for a few thousand words.
She just needed to figure out how to do it. And that might require a little help.
“Well, don’t you look fancy,” Will teased as Emma approached his table. Once he had agreed to meet for a brainstorming drink, Emma hopped into her car without bothering to change out of her ripped leggings and big comfy T-shirt that she only now remembered had a vaguely Florida-shaped stain near the hem. She assumed it was a good sign she hadn’t thought about looking presentable for Will; her crush was clearly on its way out.
“I’d roast you back, but I’m too thankful you’re here,” Emma replied as Will stood up to hug her. As his arms wrapped around her waist, it felt like someone had given her crush chest compressions—it was very much alive and well again.
Why does he have to smell so good all the time ? she wondered. Does he have no shame?
“Anything for my favorite ex-slash-coworker.”
“Wait, does that mean I am your favorite ex and your favorite coworker? Or just your favorite ex-slash-coworker?”
“Great question. That I will not be answering,” he said with a smile. “What’s the big book emergency?”
Emma groaned and looked around for a waitress. They had met at one of the painfully cool breweries near Will’s place downtown. It had a big outdoor area and horrible service. Emma tried to make eye contact with an employee who purposefully turned the other way.
“Basically, I need to rewrite the entire last chapter. And my editor wants it to be about Ryan but—”
Emma felt all the oxygen vanish from her body. In a single instant she was reduced to her most basic form. She was no longer a human, but a wild animal trapped in front of its most lethal predator. Nothing had come close to preparing her for this moment. Nothing.
“Emma? Are you okay?”
Emma gave the slightest shake of her head to indicate that she was far from okay. Being okay was now a distant memory that felt more like a dream than her recent reality. If only she could force her body to spontaneously combust to escape her fate. A fire alarm would work too if she ran fast.
“What is going on?” Will asked, increasingly concerned.
“He’s here,” Emma whispered.
“Who, Matt?” Will turned around to look. Emma was too frozen with dread to tell him to stop. She watched in horror as her ex-fiancé waved and headed toward their table. Ryan was dressed in his favorite Patagonia jacket and what appeared to be new khaki pants. Emma, having been in charge of the laundry, was intimately familiar with his wardrobe.
“Oh fuck, is that Ryan?” Will asked as he turned back around.
“Get me out of here,” Emma growled.
“How?”
“Get me out of here, now!”
“Hi,” Ryan said as he appeared at the head of their table. “I thought that was you.”
Emma looked up into the face of the man she had once planned to spend the rest of her life with. His eyes were still hazel, and his neat beard still covered the scar he’d gotten on his chin from playing flag football as a kid, proving that he had continued to exist without her. Emma’s body longed to embrace him while her mind screamed that she was in danger. She felt conflicted about what to do next. So she did nothing.
“I’m Ryan,” he said to Will after Emma had failed to respond.
“I know,” Will replied icily.
Emma felt a surge of affection for Will. She wasn’t going to have to get through this interaction alone.
“What are you doing here?” Emma asked. If he told her he was on a date, she was going to throw up—and not metaphorically. Her chronic acid reflux was already acting up from stress.
“Grabbing a drink with my boss.” Ryan gestured over his shoulder to a forty-something guy completely absorbed by his cell phone.
“Did you need something?” Will asked, catching Ryan off guard. As an unfailingly polite person, Ryan was not used to being met with anything other than civility and smiles from strangers. It thrilled Emma to see him being poorly received by someone.
“I just wanted to say hi. I’m happy to see you’re doing well.”
“Why do you think I’m doing well?” Emma asked with an aggressive raise of her eyebrows.
“I just figured…” Ryan gestured at Will as if the presence of another man absolved him of any responsibility for his past behavior. He obviously hadn’t been staying up late consuming her Neutral Third Party content like she had hoped. If he had, Ryan would know Will was actually her podcast cohost and she was currently engaged to a man with some of the best teeth she had ever seen.
“You figured what?” Will inquired, providing excellent backup.
“I’m not looking to start anything. I just wanted to say I’m glad to know we’ve both moved on. We obviously made the right decision—”
“ We didn’t decide anything. You left me.”
“I don’t think it was that simple. Things had been off for a while.”
“Is that why you proposed? Because things had been off?”
“No, of course not. But I think we both realized we weren’t compatible in the long term.”
“I don’t recall realizing that,” Emma replied. “Maybe you had that conversation with someone else.”
Ryan put up his hands as though he was being unfairly attacked. “Listen, I just came over to clear the air. I guess that was a mistake.”
“Seems like you’ve made a lot of mistakes lately,” Will said. “Have you considered, I don’t know, apologizing?”
Ryan shook his head as if he was the only sane person in the room, which infuriated Emma. She might be the one with an anxiety disorder, but at least she wasn’t the selfish asshole who refused to take any responsibility for his actions.
“I’m gonna head back. Have a good night,” Ryan said as he turned to leave on his high horse.
“Wait,” Emma shouted louder than she intended to.
Ryan tentatively turned around. While Emma had initially froze upon seeing Ryan, she could feel her nervous system waking up and shifting into fight mode. She knew this might be her one chance to tell him how she really felt and reclaim some control of their narrative.
Emboldened by opportunity, Emma stood so she could face Ryan properly as Will sat back to watch, a pleased smirk on his face. It was rather fun to have a hype man.
She looked up into her ex-fiancé’s exasperated eyes and declared, “Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, I know you came over here to prove to yourself that you haven’t done anything wrong. That you aren’t the villain in this story but some sort of benevolent fortune teller who prevented a disaster by leaving me with no explanation. I want to tell you right now, none of that is true . Yes, I am moving on. But you don’t get to take credit for that. You don’t get to blow up my world and then take ownership over the renovation. I am the reason I am going to be okay. Not you.”
“I never said—”
“I’m not done,” Emma replied. She took a deep breath to help nail the landing. “I need you to understand that I am not mad at you because you broke up with me. People are allowed to leave relationships if they don’t serve them anymore, that’s couples therapy 101. I am mad at you because you had so little regard for my feelings that you didn’t even involve me in your decision. You didn’t give me a chance to work on whatever you secretly decided I needed to work on. And you didn’t have the courage to stick around, even for a second, to help me pick up the pieces of the life we built together. The moment you determined I wasn’t the ‘right’ girl for you was the moment my existence and emotional well-being no longer mattered because all you care about is yourself. And that , Ryan, is why you are a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve to sleep at night. No matter what your doting mommy tells you.”
“Fuck yeah!” a woman’s voice rang out.
Emma turned to see that half of the brewery was staring at her and Ryan, completely engrossed in their drama. The table right next to them, serendipitously filled with college-aged girls in sorority T-shirts, even started to clap. Will immediately joined in, along with about a dozen other people.
Emma felt a swell of pride as Ryan turned bright red. Unsure of what to do, he made a break for the exit as some people cheered his departure, leaving his boss alone and confused. It was the kind of public humiliation that would normally make Emma feel racked with guilt. Right now, though, she felt too good to feel bad.
Will stood up and wrapped his arms around her. “That was absolutely terrifying,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve never been more impressed.”
“Thank you.”
She felt the same way about herself.
***
“Let me get you a drink,” Will said as they entered his apartment. “We need to keep celebrating.”
“First, I must pee.” Emma raced toward the bathroom.
After leaving the brewery they’d stopped at another bar to process what had just happened, and Emma’s bladder was dangerously full. They’d decided to go back to Will’s for financial reasons after two rounds of twenty-five-dollar cocktails. Emma was still riding the high of having said exactly what she wanted to say in exactly the way she wanted to say it. She’d spent many sessions telling clients that closure was something you had to give yourself, but holy shit did it feel good to tell Ryan the truth to his face. She’d long suspected that he had rewritten the story of their breakup in order to live with himself. Not that that was unusual. People hated feeling like they were bad, so they often went through elaborate mental gymnastics to justify their behavior to themselves and the people around them.
Good luck not feeling bad now, Ryan.
As Emma washed her hands, she tried not to wonder how Ryan had explained his abrupt relationship-ending behavior to his friends and family. She could only assume they all thought it was her fault since everyone loved Ryan. He was such a nice guy . But seeing him tonight made her question if her assumptions about him had been wrong from the beginning. Sure, Ryan presented as a grounded, incredibly kind, rational person. But Emma had technically only met him less than two years ago. For all she knew, Ryan could be the kind of person who regularly blew up his life. She’d had a roommate like that in college—before the roommate had dropped out of school to pursue something akin to environmental terrorism. Except Emma knew Ryan’s whole family and no one had mentioned this kind of pattern.
Who was the real Ryan? The man who once asked her to be his girlfriend in a mailed letter because she’d jokingly said he should put his request in writing, or the self-centered asshole who’d just tried to gaslight her into thinking their breakup had been a mutual decision?
Maybe accepting that she would never know the answer to that question was the last step in finally getting over him.
“Everything okay in there?” Will shouted. “Because I just found some novelty schnapps that I think we should drink immediately.”
Emma opened the bathroom door to find Will standing in the hall with a huge grin on his face. He proudly held up a bright blue bottle of alcohol and said, “It’s blue raspberry, which doesn’t even exist in nature.”
Emma laughed and headed toward his couch. “Why do you have that?”
“Inside joke with my college friends. We always try to gift each other the grossest alcohol available. I got this bad boy for my thirtieth birthday.”
“Oh good, the blue raspberries will be nicely aged.”
“Exactly. You get it.”
Will joined her on the couch and reached for the two shot glasses he’d already put on the coffee table. Emma suddenly noticed what was also in front of them.
“Oh my god,” she exclaimed. “Unicorn Laura!” Emma grabbed the hand-painted plate that Will had strategically placed on top of his pile of New Yorker magazines as a surprise. “You’ve had her this whole time?”
“Yep. I picked her up after our date. I kept planning to give her to you but then it felt weird after we stopped hooking up.”
“She’s beautiful,” Emma murmured as she gently stroked Laura’s colorful mane.
“She’s yours, if you still want her. You’ve earned it.”
“Thank you,” Emma said with tears in her eyes. It was an emotional night, and the alcohol was clearly catching up with her. She should probably stop drinking before she did anything stupid, but being responsible all the time was an unrealistic expectation to put on herself. Plus, she was morbidly curious to see what the blue concoction tasted like.
“This one’s for you.” Will handed her a shot and Emma saw that the glass was from Amsterdam. The one in his hand was from Chile.
“Is there anywhere you haven’t been?”
“Of course. I refuse to go to Glendale on principle.”
Emma laughed. Glendale was about forty minutes away and completely lovely. “Why?”
“Just to be contrarian and have something ridiculous to say at parties. It makes people furious.” Will raised his glass and clinked it against Emma’s. “To Laura!”
Emma braced herself and opened her mouth. The chemical smell hit her before the extremely sweet taste. She forced herself to swallow without gagging, which was a real feat.
“Wow,” Will said as he smacked his lips. “That’s the worst one yet. And my old roommate once bought me Belly Button Beer.”
“Please tell me that’s not what it sounds like.”
“Then I will tell you nothing at all.”
Emma laughed again. She always laughed when she was with Will. Men spent so much time at the gym to impress women with their ripped abs, but nothing got Emma’s juices going more than a sick burn or clever callback. She’d fallen for many a loser solely due to their text banter.
“Should we do another one?” Emma asked. She knew it was reckless to get wasted with a guy she maybe still had feelings for when she was engaged to someone else, but Emma wasn’t going to let herself cross any line she couldn’t come back from—even if she felt herself inching closer and closer toward it.
“Absolutely,” Will replied as he reached for the bottle only to be distracted by the sound of an incoming message on his phone. He took it out of his pocket and a painfully familiar smile broke out on his face. It was the smile of someone who had a crush. “Sorry, one second.”
Emma watched as Will carefully typed out a response. She felt her chest tighten with jealousy.
“Who are you texting?” It was hard to self-censor after blue raspberry schnapps.
“You know that girl Anika wanted to set me up with?”
Emma nodded, not liking where this was going.
“We’ve hung out a few times. She’s a graphic designer and she keeps sending me these self-made memes about sound engineers—” Will stopped talking when he looked up and saw Emma’s face. Clearly it had betrayed her specific instructions to appear chill .
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Emma squeaked. “I guess I didn’t realize you were dating someone.”
Will turned to face her on the couch, putting his phone down on the table. He had the makings of a smirk on his lips. “You’re the one who told me to go out with her.”
“I know. I just hadn’t realized it had already happened. Multiple times.” Emma reached for the bottle in an obvious attempt to change the subject. “Let’s do another one.”
Will quickly grabbed the bottle before she could get it. “Not so fast. I want you to admit that you’re jealous first.”
“Why? Are you a sadist?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s just nice that the tables have turned.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Emma said as she lunged for the bottle only for Will to deftly hold it above his head.
“You have to say it or no more schnapps.”
“Oh no, whatever will I do without the synthetic taste of a fake fruit,” Emma cried as she stood up from the couch. “I guess I’ll have to make do with all that nice wine in your kitchen.”
But before Emma could execute her plan, Will sprung up to block her path. They were now wedged in between the couch and the coffee table, and his face was only a few inches from hers. She could smell the mix of alcohol and sugar on his breath. Will took a step closer, and Emma took a step back. He then took another step closer, and Emma couldn’t seem to get her legs to work.
“Tell me why it bothers you that I’m seeing someone,” Will said barely louder than a whisper.
“I can’t,” Emma whispered back. “We shouldn’t talk about it.”
“I thought therapists say you should talk about everything.”
Emma slowly shook her head back and forth as he crept even closer. The combination of multiple drinks and the intoxicating smell of what she had come to identify as Will’s shaving cream gave the whole interaction a dreamlike quality. Emma wasn’t sure if she was really in Will’s apartment or if she was tucked away safely in bed. Because if it was somehow a dream, she could get away with anything. And she desperately wanted to misbehave.
“Emma,” Will said, reaching his arm out to tuck some of her unruly hair behind her ear.
Without thinking she grabbed his hand and held it to her face. His skin was warm and more familiar than it had any right being. He took her gesture as an invitation to close any remaining space between them. He used his hand to tilt her face up toward him.
“Tell me if you want me to stop and I’ll stop.”
Emma said nothing, which really said everything. She watched as Will let what remained of his guard down. They locked eyes and she could see how much he wanted her, which was both thrilling and terrifying. She felt the same unignorable need flowing through her body, but she also heard an alarm bell going off. If she kissed Will right now, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. There was no level of mental gymnastics that would justify her cheating on Matt, not after everything he had been through.
So just as Will’s unfairly soft lips were about to hit hers, Emma pulled back. “Wait.”
Emma grabbed Will’s arm so he wouldn’t think she was rejecting him. “If we’re going to be together, we should do it the right way.”
Will looked at her, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Well, for starters, I need to break up with Matt. And you should probably let that graphic designer know that you’re about to marry someone else.”
Will pulled away from her as if he’d been shot. Or flashed by someone he did not want to see naked. “Whoa, Emma. I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
Emma felt a terrible sinking feeling in her chest. She wondered how many more times she would completely misread someone’s feelings for her before she died. She’d started young, mistaking her kindergarten crush’s valentine as a declaration of love when really his mom had forced him to make one for everyone in the class—including the pet hamster. Thank god no one had paid attention when she idiotically professed her love for him on the playground.
“What exactly did I misunderstand?” Emma said, with a sharp edge to her voice.
Will had the decency to look guilty. “I don’t want you to think I’ve changed my mind about the whole Save My Date thing.”
“Then why did you try to kiss me?”
“Because I like you. And I think you wanted me to.”
“Hold on, you can’t blame this on me. You know how much I care about getting married and following through with my plan. My dad literally paid the final deposit on all the flowers today .”
“And you know how much I hate the idea of getting married just so you can have the same elaborate wedding you planned with someone else.”
“I obviously thought you had changed your mind.”
“And I thought you had changed yours. Otherwise, I would never have almost kissed you.”
Emma and Will stared at each other, neither knowing where to go from here. As the remaining drunkenness left Emma’s body, she felt a wave of relief that she hadn’t sacrificed her relationship with Matt for another failed attempt to make it work with Will. She couldn’t keep doing this to herself. For whatever reason, this J.Crew-wearing, world-traveling, incredibly sarcastic podcast producer seemed to be her new Achilles’ heel. If she wanted to successfully move forward with her life, it wasn’t safe to be around him.
“I don’t think we should be alone together anymore.”
“Okay,” Will agreed.
“Obviously we have to finish the podcast.” The show had been in Apple’s top one hundred since it had come out, making it a runaway hit. Even in her emotional state, Emma knew it would be fiscally and professionally irresponsible to quit in the middle of the season. “But we should record the rest of it in studio. With Anika.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“And we shouldn’t text or call each other anymore. Only email.”
Will nodded.
“And I’m not going to take Laura. Because of what she represents.”
Will seemed confused about this one but Emma knew it wasn’t smart to keep such a fond memento of their time as an almost-couple. She didn’t need a constant reminder of what might have been.
“Whatever you want.”
“It’s not about what I want . It’s about what we need to do to finish the show and not ruin my relationship with Matt. Because he’s a great guy. A really great guy.”
“And I’m not a really great guy?”
“Honestly, Will, it doesn’t matter what you are anymore.”