25. Emerson
EMERSON
I don’t know why I invited Mateo to bring Crew here Saturday.
I’m only at the station today because my brother practically dragged me here.
I was planning on spending the whole day in bed. Just like I have since the night Mateo almost ran me over in the parking lot
I didn’t mean to step out in front of his car, but I was too drained from a day of pretending I wasn’t running on empty to even look up from the pavement.
Christmas Day with everyone was exhausting, but there was a glimmer of something. Almost like a light at the end of a tunnel. Like maybe this is what it could always feel like.
I could feel a new version of happiness even with my mom gone.
I could surround myself with the people who remind me of what it felt like to be with her.
Content. Safe. Loved.
And then Mateo looked at me like he did.
Like he could see every crack I had spent months trying to cover up. Like he could see the parts of me that were just as battered and broken as I felt, no matter how hard I tried to pretend otherwise.
And it reminded me there was no point in hiding.
It brought me back to the last few weeks with my mom.
When the cancer was eating her alive.
When I was so terrified that I couldn't let myself feel it anymore.
I didn’t want to feel anything anymore.
So I didn't.
And there’s no point in pretending it’s anything different.
Because that’s all I was doing.
Pretending to be okay.
Pretending to be fine.
Pretending that I’m capable of feeling anything but numb.
“Who was that?” Jack asks when I walk back into his new office, pocketing my phone and sitting back down on the floor in front of the box I was in the middle of unpacking when Mateo texted me.
“Crew wanted to say hi,” I answer. “I invited him to come see the station Saturday.”
Jack nods.
“I don’t really know why,” I offer, talking more to myself than to him. “I don’t know if you’ll even be here Saturday, but Crew sounded so happy when I told him I was here, and… I don’t know,” I pause, not quite sure what I want to say.
“Sometimes we need to borrow happiness when we can’t find it ourselves,” Jack says, and it’s like something in my brain clicking into place.
My brother has always been someone who only says what he has to—never one for small talk or filling silences just because they’re there.
Growing up, I used to think it was because he didn’t have much to say.
It wasn’t until I was older that I realized it was the opposite.
He had plenty to say. He just wanted the words he said to count for something—to carry weight instead of getting swallowed up among the words that didn’t hold any true meaning.
He wasn’t quiet because he had nothing to offer.
He was quiet because he knew the value of his words
So when he pounded on my door this morning until finally using the key I gave him for emergencies, and found me lying in bed in the same sweater I wore on Christmas Day, he didn’t say anything.
Not at first.
He didn’t yell at me to get up.
He didn’t tell me to clean up the mess of my bedroom or ask why there were dishes sitting untouched on my nightstand or question how I couldn’t remember the last time I brushed my teeth.
He didn’t make me explain how hard I’ve been fighting to do the simplest things.
How getting out of bed had somehow become a mountain I didn’t have the energy to climb.
How every little task I used to do without thinking had become another reminder that something inside me wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.
Then he grabbed me a glass of water and held out his hand until I took it, helping me sit up. He gave me some time to shower and get dressed, waiting for me in my living room before taking me to go get something to eat and waiting patiently for me to finish my whole plate.
It was reminiscent of the way Mateo did the same thing, pushing water towards me the entire time.
And it made my chest hurt in a way I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from.
I thought it hurt to lose my mom. A visceral, all-consuming pain that doesn’t ease.
But my brother finding me in the state he did…
And watching him treat me with such patience.
That pain was worse.
Not because it hurt more, but because it forced me to see something I’d spent so long trying to ignore.
I’m not numb.
I’m burning. Actively. Constantly. Burning.
And the people who love me—Jack, Rumi, Ava, Anderson—have been standing close enough to feel the heat, watching me turn to ash while I insist there is no fire.
“So,” I start, taking items out of the box one-by-one, just to do something with my hands as Jack organizes a box of paperwork in a file cabinet. There’s tension in the air, like an elephant in the room that neither of us is addressing. “Are we going to talk about it?”
“About what?” he asks, dropping an empty box to his feet before grabbing another and hiking it up onto the desk.
“How you found me,” I answer softly, grabbing a pen from one of the boxes, spinning it between my fingers. “When you came over today.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Jack says, “not until you are the one who wants to.”
I let his words sink in, but I don’t say anything.
Admitting that there’s something to talk about is admitting to everything I’ve been avoiding. And I truly think facing it all might kill me.
“I cry every night.” Jack’s admission sits in the air, and my lips part in surprise.
He turns to where I sit on the floor, setting the pile of paper in his hands down on the desk.
“I barely made it through losing Bennett. I thought I’d never experience pain like that,” Jack explains, bringing up how he lost his best friend a few years ago.
“And then Mom’s cancer came back,” he continues, “and we lost her.” He shakes his head, dragging a hand over his mouth. “And it hurts a hundred times worse.”
I feel a prickle in my nose as pressure builds behind my eyes, and it doesn’t let up, no matter how much I try to will it away.
“And if I didn’t have Rumi to lean on, or Anderson and Ava, if I didn’t have Evee to live for,” he pauses, his green eyes boring into mine. “I don’t know if I’d be standing right now.”
I look down at the pen in my hands, the sadness building inside of me so overwhelming my knees would be buckling if I wasn’t already sitting.
“You have to lean on others to get through this, Emmy. You can’t do it alone.”
“I’ve been doing just fine until now,” I snap, anger building so suddenly at his words.
“Have you?” Jack asks, his voice raising slightly.
“Tell me, Jack. Where were you when she needed her medications? Or when she threw it all up because of the radiation? What about when she could barely sit up in bed to drink a fucking sip of water? Or when she tried not to cry at the pain?”
“Emerson—”
“Oh, that’s right. You weren’t. Because I was.” I throw the pen I’m holding into the box and shove it away from me.
“I tried my best to be there, Emmy. I really did. You have to know that I never wanted you to deal with all of that on your own, and I’m so sorry that I couldn’t be there as much as I wanted to be.” Jack's voice is pleading, and it causes a crack in my chest.
We don’t show emotion. We never have. I learned young—so did Jack.
So watching as he struggles to hold himself together has me losing grip on everything I thought I knew.
“Well, that doesn’t really help us now, does it?
” I snap, sinking further into the anger.
Because anger is easier. Easier than everything that’s threatening to destroy me right now.
“Because I was the one who was there to feel her hand go limp in mine. To hear the machines flatline. To hear her take her last fucking breath. I was there. By myself.” A drop of water falls onto my jeans.
It distracts me for a second, my eyes going to the dark spot in the denim.
I look up at the ceiling, wondering how the ceiling could be leaking.
“Where is that water coming from?” I ask as Jack comes down to kneel next to me.
“Emerson,” he says carefully, settling a hand on my shoulder. “You’re crying.”
I press a palm to my face, feeling the streaks of water on my cheeks, my eyes going blurry as I hit my breaking point.
I don’t remember the last time I cried.
Actually cried.
The kind where my body gives in before my mind has a chance to stop it.
Because I thought I had already dealt with this. I thought shutting it all away meant I had survived it. That if I stopped feeling the pain, it meant the pain had stopped existing.
But it didn’t disappear.
It just waited.
Every moment I forced myself to be strong. Every time I swallowed down the fear. Every time I convinced myself I was fine because I had to be.
It was all still there.
The hospital room. The machines.
The moment I realized there was nothing I could do to save her.
And now Jack, sitting in front of me, looking at me with the same helplessness I felt back then, and I hate that I’m putting him through this.
He’s looking at me the same way I looked at her.
Like he’s watching someone he loves disappear and doesn’t know how to stop it.
“I hate myself every day that I wasn’t there when she died,” he says, a tear falling from the corner of his eye. “And I hate myself even more that you had to go through that alone.”
I shake my head as if it’ll stop the words from landing where they imprint themselves on my heart.
Jack’s arms wrap around me until I feel his solid chest against my face, and I completely fall apart.