Chapter Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Seven
Emmy still felt sexually sated when she woke, but not sated enough to avoid grumpiness at having the sun intrude on her slumber. Blinking her eyes open, she frowned at the window like it was responsible for all the world’s ills.
Then she frowned harder. Wasn’t that the wrong window?
She bolted upright in bed, her sheets—her sheets—pooling around her hips.
The window was hers. The bedroom was hers.
This was her apartment. They’d made it back!
She swung around to see if Will was still sleeping, but her heart dropped into her stomach at the sight of the empty space on the bed.
Feeling desperate, she touched the sheets, ran her hands over them, trying to feel some lingering body heat. But they were cool to the touch.
“No. No no no.”
Scrambling out of bed, she searched her tiny apartment for any sign of him.
Maybe he’d woken before her and gotten out of bed to look around or search for coffee.
The kitchen and her makeshift office were both empty.
The bathroom? Silly of her not to check there first, but she’d been sure he would go for coffee first thing.
She went down the short hallway and saw that the bathroom door was cracked open.
She didn’t hear any sound from within, but knocked just the same.
Nothing.
“Will?” She pushed the door open slowly, revealing another empty room.
She stood in the doorway of her bathroom, wearing her rubber duck pajamas, staring at the unoccupied shower as if Will would appear if she waited long enough.
Somewhere on the street, somebody honked their horn.
She heard the gentle swish of tires on asphalt and, a few seconds later, the distant wail of an emergency vehicle’s siren.
Inside the apartment, she heard nothing but the frantic beat of her own heart.
She went back to her bedroom and found herself standing uselessly in one spot again.
He wasn’t there. The thought kept repeating itself in her head, but she found she couldn’t process it.
At no time in the last couple days had she really, truly considered the possibility that she would leave the book and he wouldn’t.
She’d had her doubts once, but they had been quashed when she realized Will was her true love.
He was her It, for God’s sake! They were supposed to get married and have babies and live happily ever after!
So where was he?
Maybe he had gone out for a walk. It was his first time in the real world. He’d definitely want to get a look at it. But… he wouldn’t leave without telling her. At the very least, she knew he’d leave a note. Did he even have clothes? He was naked the last time she’d seen him.
That thought quickly led to another. She had also been naked when she’d fallen asleep.
Why was she wearing her pajamas?
A new and terrible thought entered her brain. So now the endless refrain of He’s not here expanded to: He’s not here. And I was never there.
What day was it?
She went to her nightstand and grabbed her phone.
Her breathing picked up as the screen came to life, revealing that it was…
Wednesday. The morning after she’d gone to sleep.
She had lost no time. She hadn’t missed May’s wedding.
She hadn’t even missed the rehearsal dinner. Or a single shift of work.
She should be thrilled.
She felt like she was going to shatter.
Her eyes tracked down to the book. That fucking book. It was on the floor next to her side of the bed. No, she thought a little manically, not her side of the bed. Both sides were her side because Will wasn’t there.
No problem, Emmy thought, snatching the book off the floor. No fucking problem.
She blinked back tears, imagined weaving a thick sheet of gauze around her heart to keep it from breaking.
Not a problem, she thought again, sitting on the side of the bed.
She cracked the book open and flipped through.
She’d start over at chapter one. If she’d gone in there once, she could go in again.
This time she’d find a way to get them both out. And if she couldn’t find a way, well…
Emmy paused, her thumb holding the book open, and felt her breath hitch.
Well what? she thought bitterly. If I can’t find a way to get him out, I’ll just stay? Live my life with him? Grow old together?
Even if that were a viable possibility, she hadn’t made it a full month in the book before one of the characters had gone absolutely insane.
How long could she last before she was stuck in the house, afraid to leave or even open a window for fear of staving off yet another misguided declaration of true love?
She couldn’t go back.
Her breath hitched again. The gauze loosened and slipped off her heart. Her lungs burned like she was trying to breathe broken glass.
She couldn’t abandon her family, live her life in a literal fantasy world. Not even for true love.
He wasn’t coming to her.
She couldn’t go back to him.
The first sob broke free as she fumbled for her phone, and the book tumbled to the floor once more. She tapped May’s name in her contacts.
May picked up on the second ring. “Hey, you. What’s up?”
The sound of her voice made Emmy nearly dizzy with grief and love and relief. She pressed the phone to her ear, willed herself to respond. Her voice croaked on the single word she managed to get out. “Onēchan.”
Big sister.
It was an endearment she hadn’t used since she’d been a child. She didn’t need to say anything else.
“I’ll be there in ten,” May said, and hung up.
Emmy let her arms fall limply into her lap. She put all of her energy into breathing in and out. Slowly. In and out. No thinking. No feeling.
Not yet.