50. EMERSON
50
EMERSON
Three Summers Ago
Every minute I spend with him rearranges my life. Which is ironic because in the years we’ve known each other, we’ve spent barely two months together. Sixty days. One thousand four hundred and forty hours. Eighty-six thousand four hundred minutes.
But what about the time we weren’t together?
That’s one million five hundred-seventy-six thousand eight-hundred minutes that he’s been changing me.
Everything I thought I believed and wanted is slowly changing. He’s changing it. My trajectory is shifting, spinning, and re-aiming, pointing at him as if Liam, loving him, being with him, everything with him is supposed to be the trajectory of my life.
It might have taken me this long to realize that.
But it only took five minutes to ruin it all.
“Need to turn around?” the driver asks me.
“No,” I tell him while I look out the window. Liam breaking down on the sidewalk, is finally out of view.
He didn’t stop calling my name. Through the tinted window, I saw the regret pour out of him, how he ran his hand nervously through his hair, and the small trembles in his body.
“He grafting?”
“I don’t know what that means?”
“Trying to win ya ova?” The driver’s accent is extremely brash, making it hard to understand him.
“Oh. No.”
“Shame. ”
Shame. I feel ashamed. Humiliated. I can’t believe that’s how he spoke about me to his friends. Embarrassed that I even thought to show up.
After pacing around Cal and George’s place earlier, I decided to go and see him.
Callum had already left. He didn’t know I was coming.
I didn’t know the words I wanted to use, but I knew I wanted to tell him I loved him—in front of his friends. I love Liam so much that I was willing to say it publicly.
I was nervous when I showed up. I contemplated the decision a hundred times before grabbing the restaurant’s door handle and walking in.
Tuning out my inner voice and listening to my heart, I headed to their table.
His voice carried a comfortable distance that rang in my ears when I heard it. It was like smelling chocolate chip cookies and instantly being transported to a favorite memory of home. His voice is home to me and drove my certainty about being there.
The confidence to tell him I love him. I no longer loved the feeling of being with Liam. I’m wholeheartedly in love with him.
My ears were a radio, hearing his voice but not what he was saying, till they tuned in, finding the station that cleared out all the fuzz.
I could hear Liam. Loud and clear.
I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t. I kept walking toward the table. The closer I came to their table, the worse it got.
She’s fucked in the head.
I wish I had never met her.
I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t stand there with all of their eyes on me. Already an outsider to their group, I was curious if they, too, had thought this way about me.
As I walked out the doors, I had already called an Uber. I set the pickup for down the block just in case Liam came after me; I didn’t want it to be easy for him to find me right away. It was the right decision, for once, because he did come after me, but not quickly enough. It could have been quick enough if he hadn’t sat there like a coward who got caught.
I wish I could tell the driver that I agree with him. It is a shame.
“Best o’luck,” he calls to me as I get out of the car after not speaking for the past ten minutes. Luck doesn’t even come close to what I need.
Opening the door to his flat, my bags are at the bottom of the stairs.
LIAM
It’s the worst day to have decided to drive my car to brunch. I used the valet when I arrived and am now waiting for them to return with my car.
Minutes I don’t have being wasted. I need to get to my place.
That’s where I’m assuming she went. My gut is telling me that she’s there. And I’m going to trust my gut—I have to. Since the day I met Emerson, I had a gut feeling that she was the one, and I know I’m not wrong.
I’m still in disbelief that she showed up at brunch. Cal said he didn’t know she was coming. I tried to get more information out of him, asking if she talked to him this morning. He wouldn’t spill, which I respected. Was quite cross at first, but I understand now. His friendship with her is much like that of siblings, I realize.
I didn’t mean what I said.
I didn’t, even if it’s hard to believe. I saw so much red that anger took over me. It was in the pilot seat of my brain, and steered it to an unknown destination.
Like the valet currently. Where is my car?
I have to get to Emerson. I have to talk to her.
They are taking forever. I should have called a taxi, or Uber, or ran.
I can’t lose her .
Last night didn’t even feel like losing her. It felt like a momentary pause for her to sort out her shit, and then we could hit play again, and damn it, she was coming to hit play.
I messed up.
I curse at myself as Cal drives me to my place. He didn’t trust my state to be behind the wheel.
Three steps at a time, I sprint up the stairs of my building. There was no patience for the lift today. Cal is right behind me.
“Emerson!” I croak out as I throw open the door.
Inside my flat, I find her bags gone. The key I gave her on the coffee table.
I shouldn’t have packed them. If I hadn’t, she’d be upstairs right now packing. Or maybe she is up there now?
I sprint up the stairs, opening the door to my room, praying she’s there.
“Emerson?”
No response. I check every room. She’s not here.
Back downstairs, I lean against the wall, staring at the spot where her bags were sitting.
She had been here.
She had come to me and left.
She had come to my place and left.
She left. Emerson left.
She’s gone.
Emerson’s gone.
I slink down the wall. My knees come up in front of me, my head falls into them, and I cry. A flood of waterworks explodes from me, and I don’t want them to stop. Callum sits next to me.
“Promise me,” I say to Cal.
“Yeah?”
“Promise me you’ll stay friends with her,” I request.
Callum nods, and we return to silence. We sit there for an hour before George joins us, positioning himself on my other side .
Probably sounds messed up, but I want to remember this moment. Learn from my mistakes and when to shut my fucking mouth.
Loving Emerson consumes me.
Loving Emerson will never be a mistake. It might hurt now, but it was utterly glorious, riveting, and purpose-giving.
That’s what I want to remember.
Since I laid eyes on her, she has consumed every part of my body. Her complicated smile and emerald green eyes, the way that when she laughs too hard, she snorts and hiccups simultaneously.
It’s moments over FaceTime when I catch her cooking dinner with a glass of red wine in one hand and the spatula in the other, dancing to her not-only-shower shower playlist without a care in the world. Listening to and supporting me in chasing my dreams. Always willing to accept a call, even when the time difference was inconvenient. She brought out the best in me. A light on the grayest of London days. It was moment by moment, but I fell more in love with her each time.
There’s an ocean of moments between us that remind me she’s special.
You don’t meet many people in your life like Emerson.
You don’t experience love in your life like Emerson. Let me reassure you (and myself) that though she doesn’t believe in it, she knows how to give it. She wouldn’t properly call it love, but it is.
When people like her love you, you know you can’t ever let them go.
And to think I’m being forced to let her go.
Getting over Emerson is going to consume me.