Chapter 15
EMMA
It’s been a week since the festival, since the last time I saw Alex and watched him walk out my front door, telling myself I was done thinking about him.
I have not, in fact, stopped thinking about him.
Which is why I’ve thrown myself into painting again.
The studio, if you can even call it that, is finally set up.
The second I had picked up that paintbrush, something inside me settled.
I’d missed it. The bristles gliding across the canvas, the colors blending together in a way that’s somehow both chaotic and intentional.
It’s the only time my brain goes quiet lately.
No overthinking, no spiraling—just me, the paint, and whatever mess I’m trying to untangle in my head.
When I’m not painting, I’m with Liv and Sophia, occupying the time with coffee-fueled gossip and impromptu shifts at the bakery.
Sophia swears I’m helpful, but I’m pretty sure I only get in her way as I run to sample every pastry as soon as it comes out of the oven.
She never complains about it though, at least not to my face.
Even with the distraction, I can feel it, the slow decline.
The creeping exhaustion that clings to me, making even the smallest tasks feel monumental.
Walking up stairs, carrying groceries, standing too long—it all leaves me breathless.
I’ve been pretending it’s nothing and that I’m probably just tired, adjusting, or being dramatic.
But if I’m being honest, I know that I’m not.
I don’t say anything about it though, not to Liv or Sophia, or any of my brothers. But Cam notices, of course. Which is how I end up in the passenger seat of his car, staring out the window as we drive to my cardiologist appointment.
I hate these appointments. I hate the sterile walls, the smell of antiseptic, and the too-cheerful receptionist who’s more annoying than she is comforting.
The check up is routine, but heavy. Tests, scans, and a long talk with Dr. Rivera that leaves me feeling like the air has been sucked from the room.
Things aren’t looking good for me.
My heart is getting weaker. The ICD and medications are no longer working as well as we hoped they would.
I listen to everything being said, nodding in all the right times, but I can’t stop fidgeting with the rings on my fingers—an anxious habit that has gotten worse with every passing year.
Cam is quiet as he stands beside me, listening to every word and asking questions that I don’t even bother thinking about.
His hand on my shoulder feels like the only thing keeping me from floating away.
As we walk out of the building, Cam sneaks glances at me every few seconds as if I might fall apart at any moment. Maybe I will at some point, but not yet. Right now I feel hollow, like someone scooped out my insides and left nothing but a shell behind.
“Can we go to the bookstore?” I ask as we reach the car.
Cam blinks. “Seriously?”
“Dead serious. No pun intended.” A sarcastic smirk displays across my face.
He sighs, but doesn’t laugh or try to argue. We pull out of the parking lot and drive the short distance into town, to Paper Trails.
The second I step inside the bookstore, the scent of old pages and leather bindings wrap around me.
It feels comforting and intimate. The store hasn’t changed much, if even at all.
Walking by here the other day didn’t prepare me for the gut punch of actually being inside. A tidal wave of memories flow back.
Me, trailing my fingers along the spines of books, trying to pick the perfect one.
Alex, rolling his eyes but still standing beside me, waiting. He was always waiting, always patient. He didn’t care about the books, but he cared about me.
The two of us, sitting cross-legged in the corner, sharing a single copy of Pride and Prejudice.
I insisted he had to read it because he needed some culture in the form of classic literature.
I secretly loved the idea of the broody, quietly intense guy getting flustered over Mr. Darcy.
Of course, he refused to read it on his own.
Said he didn’t “connect with the prose”, whatever the hell that meant.
So, week after week, I read it aloud to him right here in this corner.
He’d interrupt me every five minutes to argue that Darcy was an emotionally stunted egomaniac. I would pretend to get frustrated and roll my eyes, telling him that was the entire point. He was supposed to grow throughout the book. That’s what makes it a love story.
He’d roll his eyes. I’d smile back. And somehow, we’d never get through more than a chapter at a time.
Either of us could’ve bought the damn book and read it anywhere else but this bookstore, but we didn’t. We kept coming back here like it meant something. I don’t think we would’ve kept the routine anywhere else. Coming here was our thing.
I squeeze my eyes shut for half a second, willing the past to stay where it belongs. But still, I find myself heading straight to the classics corner without needing to search. I know where it is.
My hand lands on the worn spine of a paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice from the shelf. I flip through the pages, hoping that it will be the same copy we read through all those years ago—the one where we dog-eared our favorite chapters for “future reference.”
A small ache stabs at my heart when I realize it’s not the same one. It's as if a part of me is gone forever, in that copy. A younger version of me, in love with a boy who was patient and loved the parts of me that I tried to throw away and was convinced no one could ever love.
I grab it anyway and clutch the book to my chest as I walk to the register before I can overthink it, or start to think about this same corner of the bookstore being the first place I realized I was falling in love with Alex after our first kiss.
Cam doesn’t ask why I’d insisted on coming or why I bought the book.
He doesn’t say anything at all. He simply gives me a nod as a way to ask if I’m okay or got what I needed.
I nod back in silent response as I climb back into the car.
He drives me home, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel rhythmically.
It feels like he’s trying to figure out what to say, but can’t come up with anything of substance beyond the condition of my heart and all the other medical jargon that was spewed out during my appointment.
No one knows what to say to me anymore. Not Leo, Cam, Frankie… or even Liv.
Everyone that knows about the failing heart inside my chest seems to be at a loss for words beyond regular small talk.
I get it. If the roles were reversed and one of them was in my situation, I don’t know that I would have the right words to say either. But being on the receiving end is shitty. I feel like a ticking timebomb with everyone constantly on edge, waiting for me to explode… or in this case, die.
A few months ago, the silence might’ve bothered me, but not anymore. I physically do not have the energy to care to fill it anymore. There’s nothing to talk about that hasn’t already been said a million times.
When we pull up to the yellow house, Leo’s work truck is in the driveway. As I walk through the front door, I find him crouched in the kitchen, his sleeves rolled up with a wrench in hand, as he fixes a leak under the faucet.
“I remembered this faucet had a leak that I never got around to fixing,” he says without coming out from under the sink. “Figured I’d fix it before it flooded the place.”
“Appreciate it,” I say, setting my bag down by the entryway.
Leo finally pokes his head out after a beat. His eyes find mine and I can feel him studying me, trying to find any clue on how I am feeling.
Ticking timebomb.
“Cam told me how the appointment went.”
Cam must’ve called him to talkin about all the wonderful news while I was in the bookstore.
I force a smile. “Yeah, well. Not the best Yelp review, but I’ll live another day… for now.” The joke is weak, barely even a joke, but it’s all I’ve got.
Leo doesn’t laugh. Getting to his feet, he sets the wrench down on the counter and crosses his arms. “You scared?”
The question slices through my chest. I open my mouth to deny it and brush it off, but my throat locks up. No one has asked me that question yet, probably out of fear of what I’m going to say.
That I’ll say I’m terrified of dying. That I wake up some nights convinced my heart is going to give out before the sun comes up. That I lie there, staring at the ceiling, counting beats like I can bargain with each one.
Please just one more.
Just one more.
Just. One. More.
Everyday I go through the motions. I smile, I laugh, I make sarcastic comments about my heart like it’s some kind of punchline, trying to convince myself that if I say it before anyone else can, maybe it won’t feel like it’s swallowing me whole.
I’m so goddamn scared I don’t know where to put it all. There’s no box big enough for this kind of fear.
No one tells you how grief starts before the ending.
You mourn your own life while you’re still living it.
You sit at a table with the people you love and wonder if it’s the last time.
You look at your siblings or best friends and feel your heart crack because what if you don’t get to see them anymore after that moment?
What if this is it?
Then there’s the guilt. For the way they look at me with pity in their eyes when they think I’m not watching. Or the way my brothers worry in silence and Liv treats me like I’m made of glass.
I don’t want to die.
But I’m scared I will.
And I’m scared it’ll hurt.
And I’m scared that it won’t.
That it’ll just… stop.
And the world will keep turning like I was never even here.
But I don’t tell Leo any of that.
“Yeah, Bear,” I whisper. “I’m scared.”