Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Emily
Sometimes my job is the best job anyone could ask for. I get to take care of those that need me most. I get to watch little people overcome enormous problems. I get to see them leave with maybe a different life, but a life they get to live.
Days like today, though, it’s the worst job I could ever imagine having.
We lost a patient.
Twelve years old.
Spontaneous respiratory arrest that led to cardiac arrest.
We weren’t quick enough.
My phone rings, making me jump and I blink out of the blank stare I have been honing for the past thirty minutes.
It’s Jack. I haven’t spoken to him all day.
It’s the first day since I decided to call him a week ago, where I haven’t at least messaged him once.
I don’t like texting him when I get up for work because I don’t want to wake him up, so I usually wait until my first break, but not today.
His three messages from the day have sat on my phone, unopened and unanswered.
The call rings out and my phone starts ringing again, almost immediately. I sigh and answer the call, attempting to sound happy that he’s calling. “Hi,” I croak.
“Hey, busy day?” I don’t know why, but the sound of his warm voice snaps the last string of control I have on my emotions, and a sob escapes my lips.
“Em, what’s wrong?” Jack is all business. He sounds both worried and ready to defend me against what has caused me to cry. Only he can’t. Not from this.
“Sorry—I…” I sniffle as I try to catch my breath. Hot tears are racing down my cheeks and now the flow has started, I’m not sure I can turn them off. Another sob leaves my throat quicker than I can catch it and when my shoulders start to shake, I know I have lost the fight.
“Shhhh,” he soothes on the other end of the line. “It’s okay, just breathe.” I heave air into my lungs, knowing my sobs have often gotten out of control and caused panic attacks in the past. I do not want one of those sat on my own in the work car park. Not again.
We sit on the phone for what feels like an hour, but I know is probably minutes at most, me just quietly crying whilst Jack offers me soothing words. I finally pull myself together enough to say, “I’m sorry, today has just been awful.”
“You don’t ever have to apologise to me for having emotions,” he replies. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Yes, I do want to talk about it, but not right now.
That’s not how I process these things. Right now, I need to sit in silence with my thoughts but not be alone with them.
I need someone to be in my space but not need me for anything.
I need them to be there for when I am ready to offer my little titbits of information and to eventually talk through the whole thing with me from start to finish.
But that makes me the most selfish person on the planet and no one has ever been able to do that for me.
So, I wallow alone and lean into my hyper independence.
When I lived with Chris, I would message him that it had been a rough day and he would be out of the house before I was home so I could work through ‘one of my moods’ alone.
I think about Jack seeing me like this and decide I don’t want him to, so I reply, “No.”
I hear him release a quiet sigh, but he doesn’t push, instead he asks, “Where are you?”
“Sat in my car in the car park.”
“Didn’t you finish an hour ago?”
“Yeah,” I release a small laugh, “Can’t seem to muster the energy to drive home.”
“Want me to pick you up?” he asks, and my eyes widen in shock.
“You would do that?” As soon as the question has left my lips, I know the answer. Of course he would do that. He is a good man. Dependable. The first one to offer help in a crisis. The kind of guy that sees you standing at a bus stop in the rain and offers you a ride home.
“If you needed me to,” he says it so matter-of-factly that it makes a small smile tug the corner of my mouth.
“Thank you,” I say. “But I think, I should be okay to get back. It’s not the first time I’ve driven home in tears, I doubt it’ll be the last.” I try to joke, but it falls short.
“What are you having for dinner?” he asks, probably trying to distract me.
He is not going to like my answer. “Cereal or toast, depends if I’m feeling warm or cold food when I get home,” I reply, cringing.
The last few weeks I have got to know Jack he has been very forthcoming about his passion for food.
Fuelling the body is very important to an athlete and he grew up in a family where the dinner table was seen as the gathering place, where they would join every night and talk about their days.
I was the opposite. As a teenage girl it was plastered everywhere that skinny was the best way to be.
Size 0 was in, and with my natural curves, size 0 was never going to happen.
So, food became less about enjoyment and more about seeing how little of it I could eat without passing out.
It trained me well for my busy shifts where sometimes all I have time to eat are the little packets of patient’s biscuits that no staff ever steal from the kitchen, ever.
“That better be a joke,” Jack replies, sounding fed up.
“I don’t cook after a long day, and that’s pretty much all I have in.”
“I can be at yours in 30 minutes, I’ll cook for you.”
“Jack, no, really.”
“I don’t mind, I haven’t eaten yet and I enjoy it.” He cuts me off. He doesn’t get it. He’s going to come to mine and expect me to chat and be fun and fucking smile.
“No, Jack. It’s—it’s not that…” I start.
“Then what?”
“I’m just not going to be good company tonight.” I sigh, hoping he will understand.
“Talk, don’t talk. Cry, don’t cry. Whatever. But you are eating and that’s that.” He hangs up before I have time to protest further.
I guess Jack is coming over for dinner.
***
Jack
As per her former request, I asked Emily before coming to her house. It may have been more of a demand than a request, but she needs someone. I’d like that someone to be me.
I had known something was off when she hadn’t replied to any of my messages.
I don’t expect her to be constantly on her phone, but she does always manage to shoot me a quick line at least once on her break.
When she still hadn’t replied nearly an hour after her shift had finished, I decided to ring her. Boy, I’m glad I did.
As soon as she answered the call my heart sank.
There was none of her usual brightness in her voice, when it cracked and she started sobbing I was ready to murder whoever had made her feel that way.
All I had gained from the slight detail she had given me was that she needed to go home and not be alone.
I want to be the person she calls when she doesn’t want to be alone.
As soon as I had gained her permission—AKA hung up before she could decline—I had packed up the steaks and veggies that were in my fridge and set off in the hope of arriving to her house at the same time she did. I was probably speeding because I beat her here.
I see her car pull on to her drive and step out of mine, food in hand. I can’t help but think this is how it should look, her car next to mine on our driveway. I shake the image out of my head as I open her car door for her.
“Hey.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Hey,” I reply as I pull her into a hug. Her tense body fits against mine perfectly. I rest my cheek on her head and feel her start to relax against me as I rub small patterns on her back.
When she steps back and looks up at me, I notice she has new dark circles under her eyes and her hair has fallen out of its usual tight pony, tendrils of it framing her face.
I can’t help the urge to tuck a loose strand behind her ear, and I don’t fight it.
I feel her lean into my hand as a small sigh escapes her lips.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s get you inside and fed.”
***
With Emily in the shower, I busy myself in her kitchen steaming veggies and searing the steaks. I don’t know how she likes hers so I play it safe with medium rare, I can always cook it longer when she’s done.
“This smells amazing,” Her voice behind me startles me and I jump, the reaction causes her lips to turn up in the corners in a small smile. Almost dropping the piping hot tray that I’m holding is worth it for that little smile.
I grin over my shoulder at her. “It’ll be ready in two minutes, if you’re ready to eat?”
“Consider me starved,” she replies as she moves over to her small dining table, clearing off some letters and junk. She sets the table with practiced efficiency, “Do you want a drink?” she asks as she pulls out a bottle of wine from the small wine rack by the fridge.
“Water is fine, I have to drive home later.” Even if I am here for hours, the alcohol out of my system by the time I drive home, I’d never risk it.
“Okay. Do you mind if I have a drink?” she asks, eyeing me cautiously as if I would scald her for needing a glass of wine at the end of a tough day.
“It’s your house, Em. And I think you need it after today,” I say as I bring the plates to the table.
“Boy, do I.” She sighs as she pours herself a generous glass of red.
She brings our drinks to the table and sits across from me.
Her shoulders seem to relax as she takes a large gulp of her drink, sighing as it goes down.
She eyes me over her glass as if expecting me to chastise her for drinking.
When I send her a smile she appears to relax more and says, “This is much better than the toast that I was going to make myself.”
“I mean, I do a pretty good jam on toast, if you’d rather that?
” I smirk, “But you’ve had a long day and deserve a proper meal.
” She cuts into her steak, and I watch the juices flow onto her plate.
“Fuck. I didn’t ask how you like it.” She lifts a brow at my comment, causing me to smirk.
“I meant your meat… I didn’t ask how you like your meat.
” She snorts a laugh, and I feel heat start to rise on my neck. “Fuck… I…”
“Medium rare is perfect,” she says, saving me from myself. That small smirk is still there, and I think her making me flustered is helping take her mind off things.
Sensing she doesn’t want to talk, we sit and eat our meals together in silence.
I take this time to study her. Her hair is down and damp around her shoulders, she washed her makeup off in the shower and I’m glad she didn’t feel like she needed to put any more on.
She really is beautiful. Her high cheekbones and button nose are covered in freckles.
Those lips that I haven’t stopped thinking about since I got my first taste of them are plump and my new favourite shade of pink.
But it’s her eyes that stand out the most, bright green with tiny specks of brown, like a dense forest in the height of summer.
She must feel me watching her because she glances up over her glass when she takes a sip. A shy smile forms on her lips, “Talk to me,” she says.
“What would you like to talk about?” I ask.
“Anything, tell me more about how you got into football. How did you get scouted? I’m not really in the talkative mood, so tell me more about you,” she suggests and digs back into her meal.
So, I talk. I tell her about the day I was playing for my local team at fourteen and a scout was in the crowd.
I tell her about how he asked both my mum and dad into the meeting, not wanting either of them to be unsure of the details and how he gave me a chance and invited me to trials.
She listens intently, giving me the space to talk.
“Harry was so jealous, we almost stopped being friends. As soon as he saw how much extra work it was having to finish school and be at football practice he stopped with the jealousy.” I laugh at the memory of my childhood best friend.
“He actually helped me pass my GCSEs. That’s one thing my mum was adamant about.
As soon as school started slipping, football was out.
So, between me and H, we didn’t let it slip. I owe him my whole career.”
“To Harry,” Emily says lifting her almost empty glass. I clink mine against hers and she finishes off her wine in one long gulp.
“And to Jaz,” I say. She tilts her head waiting for me to continue.
“She was his fiancée and my other best friend. She was the passenger that also didn’t make it.
” My voice cracks. “I wanted to tell you about her too, because I only told you half the story and she was a huge part of my life. You should know about her too.”
“To Harry and Jaz,” Emily says lifting her glass again.
When we have both finished our meals she asks, “Want to watch some TV for a bit?” and I stand to clear the table. “Leave it,” she says. “I’ll do it in the morning.” I place the plates by the sink anyway.
“You’re off tomorrow?” I ask as she pads into the living room.
“Yup, and I plan on binging one of my comfort shows until I fall asleep, wanna join?”
I really, really do.