Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
I dip my chin in acknowledgment. “We needed each other. Her parents were very strict and had expectations of her future that she didn’t fit into.
She wasn’t as strong an athlete as her brother, but they pushed her to be.
Her aspirations were never to follow in her mother’s Olympian footsteps or her father’s business-oriented mind.
She enjoyed the idea of helping people and would often talk to my foster mother’s late husband before he passed about the medical field.
The older she got, the more she realized she wanted to go to school for that. ”
“And her family didn’t agree,” Winter guesses, sounding sad for the girl who got me through so much growing up.
I nod. “Her father is a very tough man to please. He has plans for everyone and expects the people in his life to follow his orders and do as he says without complaint. But Emaly isn’t like her family.
She’s full of love and loyalty, but she isn’t the type to bend at will.
She’s always supported her brother’s love for skating and his success, but never received the same in return.
To her father, going to college and med school was an act of treason against the Yokav name.
He disapproved of the path she was taking, so he told her he wouldn’t pay for any of it.
Not school. Not housing. Nothing. He thought that would stop her, but it didn’t. ”
Winter’s lips twitch up higher, and mine do the same. Emaly has always been strong-headed. She’s hardly the type of person you can boss around. If anything, she’s the one doing the bossing. In a loving way, but still.
My smile slips. “One of the reasons that Emaly couldn’t become a professional figure skater is that she’s always been sick.
As a kid, she’d constantly get colds. Her immune system wasn’t strong enough to fend off viruses.
Then she started getting pains. Small ones at first. The doctors thought it was from all the exercise she did and suggested physical therapy and ice baths.
But none of that helped. Her body wasn’t in any condition to train the way she was being forced to.
It was draining her, and the doctors couldn’t figure out why. ”
I take a breath and think about the defeat in her eyes whenever she’d come back from another appointment that led to a whole lot of nothing.
I hated how she wanted to impress her parents, especially her father, to no avail.
She’d make herself show up every day on that ice until she literally collapsed in the middle of it and started crying uncontrollably.
Emaly is not a crier.
I knew something was wrong that day.
Even her mother, as emotionally absent as she tended to be, could see it.
“Her father cut her off in so many ways, and I hated that. It wasn’t Emaly’s intention to disappoint him.
She simply wanted to do what would make her happy and successful.
She spent a lot of time at my foster home, speaking to my foster mother about her husband’s schooling, and even got a reference letter that helped her get into college.
She managed to do all of that on her own with loans, scholarships, and organic connections she made in the community.
Em thought if she could prove to her father that she could make a name for herself, he’d be proud of her. ”
Winter wets her lips. “But that wasn’t the case.”
“No,” I murmur, fisting my hands. “It wasn’t.
And I’m not sure if it was the stress of it all or something else that made her ten times sicker than she’d ever been.
We decided to room together in a two-bedroom apartment that we could barely afford when we were straight out of high school.
We both went to college and tried to help each other as best we could.
I got a decent athletic scholarship, and her grades earned her an academic scholarship that covered a solid three quarters of her undergrad tuition.
But she was starting to deteriorate in front of my eyes.
Losing weight. Losing sleep. Losing hair.
She’d get headaches all the time. Stutter.
All of these strange things that had never happened before.
The pain came back, but worse. She was losing focus and struggling in school, but she didn’t have any health insurance because her father took her off of his as punishment for going her own way.
“I worked a shitty job that had decent health benefits, so I told her I wanted to help. She didn’t agree at first. In fact, she told me my idea was ridiculous and foolhardy.
But then…” My jaw clenches. “Then I got scouted and eventually signed as a rookie to the Pittsburgh Penguins and had to start traveling for training camp and preseason games. I wasn’t around as much.
She was still in school, so she stayed behind.
I felt bad and talked to her every day to check in.
But one day, I got a call from a neighbor who sounded frantic, saying she had found Emaly on the ground outside our building.
She was having a seizure. The first one ever.
And I wasn’t there, and I couldn’t be there for hours. ”
I close my eyes and relive that fear, having no idea what I would have done if something worse had happened. If she’d hit her head on the stone pathway or fallen down the three small steps and broken something.
It’d been déjà vu for me, remembering the way my mother’s crumpled body had been lying on the ground outside our house. The difference was that I wasn’t there to save Emaly. To call 911. I wasn’t there, and I hated myself for it. Because, unlike my mother, I’d wanted to save my best friend.
I’m glad our neighbor was there and called for help, but I still beat myself up for not being the one who found her. Who encouraged her to get checked out sooner when she always complained about her head hurting and having dizzy spells.
“When they found a tumor on her brain, she finally agreed to my plan. Regardless of how ridiculous it was. So, we got married. She needed health insurance to cover all the scans, bloodwork, and specialists so that it wouldn’t bankrupt her.
She was already paying for her own schooling; she didn’t need the medical bills to pile up too. ”
Winter stares at me for a long time, her hand pausing over Oreo’s back until the kitten mewls in protest. “You married her for health insurance,” she whispers, more to herself than me.
All I reply with is, “She’s my best friend. I would do anything for her.”
I’m not sure why, but Winter closes her eyes as if looking at me is too painful. Maybe it is. This is a lot. The truth has been something I’ve held on my shoulders for years, not saying it to a soul. I needed to protect Emaly—needed to protect myself in ways too.
Until…I couldn’t.
Because I would do anything for my best friend, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t lonely. I wanted companionship. Love of my own. Things that she couldn’t give me on the levels I desired them.
For a long time, I didn’t think I deserved it.
But I want to believe I do.
And when I met Winter Bronte on that first day with a giant coffee stain on her shirt and an attitude that stirred something in my chest, I felt something click into place.
“That doesn’t explain Ronnie,” Winter says, finally opening her eyes.
Ah. Yes. “Emaly and I never talked about relationships. We’d never entertained one between us, and she never spoke about her sexuality.
We were friends, and that was that. We talked about everything except dating.
I didn’t think much about it because we were both young and busy with building our futures.
I chalked it up to a lack of interest in getting into a relationship and nothing more. ”
Maybe that was naive of me, and there were signs I missed. But I’ve thought about it over the years, and she kept that part of her locked away for a long time. I assume it’s because she refused to accept it, knowing it would be another problem for her father, and that’s just sad.
“She met Ronnie during her residency,” I tell Winter, remembering the way Emaly would light up whenever she video-called me to tell me about her day.
At first, I assumed it was because she was excited about the next phase in her career.
I quickly learned it had more to do with the pretty blond girl she worked with.
“She likes to refer to it as a Grey’s Anatomy worthy meeting.
They were both surgical interns trying to make it in the medical world.
That’s when Emaly admitted that always knew she liked women, but never acted on it.
Not until Ronnie came into her life and things clicked into place for her.
“I won’t lie, Winter. There was a time when I was younger that I thought I had a chance with her.
Mostly because she was all I ever knew. She was kind, caring, loving, and I felt as though she was the best I could do because she was familiar.
I loved her; I still love her. But it was never more than friends, and it took me a while to understand the difference. ”
Winter stares down at the cat, her lips twitching downward only for a microsecond before neutralizing again. “I think there can be more than one type of soulmate in our lives. She’s one of yours.”
And are you another? It’s a question I don’t ask, because I don’t want to scare her. But the pull I have toward her makes me answer the question for myself.