Chapter Sixty-Seven Gemma
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Gemma
Bang, bang, bang.
The knocks at the door wake me. I groan, pushing the duvet back and climbing out of bed. I didn’t sleep a wink. Instead, I sat in bed propped against my headboard with a tub of cookie dough ice cream and ate my feelings until I got brain freeze, then ate some more.
He leaves today.
I check my phone. Ten missed calls. Nine unread messages. I drop it back on the bedside.
I’m such a fool to have let myself get hurt like this again. The only way to have your heart broken this deeply is to feel this deeply in the first place. My heart isn’t just crushed—it’s shattered. Obliterated into pieces so small I’m not sure I’ll find them all.
I was so naive to think it could ever work, that this would end any other way than one of us completely fractured. Only, it’s me bleeding.
Look at Anna and Mason. They’ve been married for the better part of eight years. I thought they’d be together forever—Mason was completely besotted with Anna, he worshipped the ground she walked on, and that turned to complete shit.
We don’t get to pick and choose the things that leave us beyond words. We don’t get to select the hand we’re dealt. So, it’s easier to not feel. It’s easier to bury those emotions deep, because if this is what I get for loving? Then I don’t want it.
Is any love worth this kind of pain? The kind where it feels like someone’s twisting a knife between my ribs until I can’t breathe?
Twelve hours ago, I would have convinced myself that yes, it is worth it. But sitting here while my heart cracks open and spills all over my Egyptian cotton leads me to think absolutely not.
Bang, bang, bang.
“I’m coming!” I call out, my voice hoarse from crying. I grab my glasses from the bedside table and shove them on, shuffling to the door. I look every bit as tragic as I feel. My eyes are puffy, and I have mascara smudged halfway down my face. And yet I don’t have the strength to care.
At least I took out my contacts.
I swing the door open to find Anna holding two cups of steaming coffee.
“Thank God. Took your sweet time,” she says, pushing past me. I follow her wordlessly as she strides through my flat and into my bedroom, where she immediately starts rifling through my wardrobe.
I rub my eyes, wincing as my fingers come away black with yesterday’s makeup. “What are you doing?”
“Fixing this.” She tosses a pair of jeans and a cashmere jumper onto my unmade bed.
I frown. “What?”
She huffs, spinning around to face me with her hands on her hips. “You heard me.” She nods toward the clothes she’s pulled out. “Get changed. Now.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, even though I have a feeling I already know. Anna only gets this determined when she wants to prove a point or Costa Coffee has a two-for-one deal on banana bread.
“To stop you from making one of the worst decisions of your life.”
“Anna, I already made the worst decision of my life. Remember? I told you about the time I let those guys use me as a human sushi board and they put wasabi—”
“Jesus Christ, not that!” she says, flapping her hands. “I’m talking about Max.” Her eyes narrow as her gaze finally sweeps over me. “You look absolutely dreadful, by the way.”
I cross my arms defensively, my eyes darting to the digital clock on my dresser. “It’s 6 a.m.”
“Did you sleep at all?” she asks, her voice softening.
I gawk at her. “Anna, do you have any idea what happened last night?”
Her eyebrows squish together, confusion clouding her face. “Yes. I spoke to Max. Which is why I need you to get changed and come with me.”
Max didn’t tell her?
“Anna, there’s no point. He’s with Casey,” I say.
She freezes. “What are you talking about? Max isn’t with Casey. The only person Max wants is you, Gemma.”
I shake my head. “I saw them together. With my own eyes. Her hands were all over him and he was—”
“No,” she interrupts firmly. “He’s not with her. Last night wasn’t what it looked like.”
“I know what I saw.” My voice cracks.
She steps forward, her hands gripping my shoulders. “Casey saw my Instagram stories. I stupidly tagged the wedding venue, and she followed Max home.”
“What?” The word comes out as barely a whisper.
“She tracked him down like some unhinged stalker. You caught him trying to get rid of her, not reconciling with her.”
I stare at her, my brain working overtime to process. “That can’t be right… her hands were on him. He was holding her wrists…”
“Because she was grabbing him and he was trying to get her off!” Her voice rises. “For crying out loud, Gem. He chased after you, you know? He rang me as soon as he got Casey escorted from the building.”
My eyes widen. “Escorted?”
Anna nods fervently. “She followed him home from the wedding, Gem. She’d been trying to contact him for weeks—messaging me, calling him from new numbers when he blocked her.
The doorman had to call the police when she refused to leave.
She’s been given a formal warning to stay away or face stalking charges. She’s gone, Gem.”
“Oh my God,” I say, my hand flying to my mouth.
I drop my gaze to the floor, unable to speak. Afraid to believe that maybe I got it all wrong.
“He called me at two in the morning, totally distraught.” She pauses. “In all my life as Max’s little sister, I’ve never heard or seen him so cut up about anyone.”
Tears burn behind my eyes. “Anna…”
“He loves you,” she says softly.
“I can’t…”
“You can, Gem.” She drops her hands, her eyes flicking to the empty ice-cream box on my bedside. She sighs. “Look, I’ll support you with whatever you decide to do, but you can either come with me or stay here and cry into your empty ice-cream tub.”
I look up at her. “I’ve screwed this up pretty badly, haven’t I?”
“A little.” She smirks. “But we can fix this. You’re going to put on some clothes, wash that raccoon makeup off your face, and get your arse out that door.”
“Where are we going?”
Anna’s responding smile is pure mischief. “The airport.”
“Ouch!” I say, slipping a foot out of my shoe and rubbing it.
“That’s what you get for wearing two right shoes, you tit,” Anna says.
I huff in irritation. “What if he doesn’t want me anymore? What if this is a bad idea?” I flip down the sun visor and pinch my cheeks, desperate to add color to my death-warmed-up complexion.
Anna side-eyes me as she weaves through traffic. “Who are you and what have you done with Gemma Clarke? Since when do you not have any confidence?”
I throw my hands up in exasperation. “I know! This is exactly the issue! This is why I’ve only ever felt with my vagina for years—love is disgusting!”
She snorts. “No, it isn’t, and I say that with my whole incredible double-D chest—love is beautiful. Even when it breaks you.”
I’m taken aback. How can she sit here, after she and her husband agreed to divorce, and still tell me that love is beautiful?
“You really believe that?” I ask. “Even now?”
She laughs, but there’s something raw in it. “Surprisingly, yes.” She glances at me. “Don’t you think that’s what life is really about? Being completely wrecked by the things that happen to you—the good and the brutal? That’s what makes us human, Gem. We feel everything so intensely.”
Her expression softens. “I’m going to be real with you right now.”
I lift my brows, bracing myself.
“April told me about Todd. About how selfish he was. And I’m so sorry you’ve felt like you’ve had to build these massive walls to protect your heart because that vanilla piece of shit couldn’t love every part of you.”
My posture slumps as the old wound tears slightly. “I wanted too much. I was too much.”
She shakes her head. “No, Gemma. You were never too much. He was just too small.”
I close my eyes.
“Here’s the thing,” she adds with conviction. “Loving is brave. And yes, when you feel something so strongly, and when your heart inevitably breaks, it doesn’t just crack. It shatters into a million little pieces—”
“Anna, I don’t know where you’re going with this, but it’s not sounding very hopeful,” I interrupt.
“I’m not finished,” she shoots back. “You might not get to choose who destroys you or how badly it aches, but you do get to choose what you do with the wreckage afterward. So, as you sit here crying over my brother—who I’ve watched fall apart for the last week because some twat named Todd broke you years ago—just remember this. ”
She takes a breath, her eyes burning. “The same heart that’s breaking right now is the same one that’s going to feel incredible happiness when you finally let the right person show up for you. And Max will show up, Gemma.”
I stare at her, tears threatening again. “I’m scared,” I whisper.
She shrugs, her eyes glistening. “Love, divorce, babies, taking risks, starting over—we’re all scared. But none of us are alone. You, me, and April? We have each other. We always will.”
And she’s right. No matter what curveballs life has thrown at us, we’ve always gotten through them—together.
When April’s parents passed away in the car accident, Anna and I took shifts to cook meals and make sure she was eating, sleeping, and functioning like a human being instead of drowning in her grief.
When Lucas broke her heart by cheating with women online, we held her while she cried herself sick and bought her a dildo (my idea).
We don’t believe in “I told you so.” We believe in being each other’s constants, no matter how muddled and complicated things get.
April and I are going to be there for Anna through every moment of her divorce, and if she’s brave enough to walk away from her marriage because Mason can’t give her what she truly wants—a family—then I can walk toward something that scares me shitless.
I can be brave enough to fight for Max.
“Besides,” Anna says, swatting a stray tear away, “if Max screws it up and hurts you, I’ll help you key his Mercedes.”
We laugh, tears clinging to our lashes.
I squeeze her hand, sniffling. “Okay,” I breathe, and something softens where I’d been holding tight. “I’m doing this. I’m gonna keep fucking your brother.”
Anna yanks her hand away like I’ve burnt her, gripping the steering wheel. “Jesus Christ, Gemma. We were having such a nice moment!”