Chapter Eight
Emberli
T hayne listens to my request and doesn’t speak to me for the entire ride until we’re back to the motel. He tells me he’ll fix the bicycle and bring it around when it’s ready. I thank him and take my bags, telling him to dock my paycheck this week when I don’t find my purse in my bag. Instead, I find it inside, where I lean against the front door for some stability. Some peace.
Thump. Smash.
Never mind. Just some stability.
Smash.
“Oh my God.” I mutter as another smash vibrates the wall separating Noisy Nadia and me before it’s replaced with complete silence.
Thank God.
I’m exhausted after the minimal chores I’ve carried out today, and can only blame the little baby that’s growing inside of me.
I know at some point, I should book myself in for a check-up, but it’s as if I can’t quite bring myself to do it. So I’ve been pushing it off as long as I can. Seconds after I close my eyes, my phone rings. I scramble to the bottom of my bag to find it before answering.
“Hello?”
“Hey you, it’s Willow. Are we still on for tonight?” It’s Wednesday and I completely forgot I’d been invited to join the girls at Spooky Hoots for what Willow explained was their weekly meet-up. I know I should go, especially after everything Willow and her family have done for me, and a hint of fear of missing out pricks at my brain. Willow must hear the hesitation in my voice because concern fills hers. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just tired. What time are we meeting?”
“Em, if you’re tired. Rest. You don’t need to feel like you have to come.” She sympathises and I sigh out in relief that she understands.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am. Is everything okay though?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”
“I heard about your run in with Thayne. Want me to talk to him?”
“No.” I breathe out. “I think in his own fucked up way, he’s trying to help. I don’t know. Either way, it’ll be nice to have a break from him tonight. I’ve been seeing far too much of him recently.”
Willow laughs. “I know that feeling. But you’re right, I think he is trying to help you. He’s just not sure how, and… as you would have figured out by now, he doesn’t trust easily. Elijah really hurt him, you know. I think he just struggles with that.”
“What happened? With him and Elijah?”
“It’s not my story to tell. But I think you two could be friends, if you tried.”
It seems impossible to be friends with someone like Thayne, especially when he’s already made his mind up about me in the same way I’ve made mine up about him.
“Yeah. Maybe. Are you okay though?”
“Me? Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Good.”
“Emberli?”
“Yeah? ”
“Thank you…for asking.”
***
Willow turns up at my door within the next hour with Lynnie and Odessa both behind her.
“We brought Woo Woo Wednesday to you!” Willow exclaims as she shakes the bag she’s holding. She slides past me eagerly and grins as the girls follow her in with boxes.
“Are you prepared to lose your virginity?” She says, in the most serious tone ever.
“I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that ship has long sailed.” I look down to my stomach and hear the laughs of the girls around me.
I smile, rubbing at my bump in comfort. I can’t wait to bring them into this world, to meet the girls who’ve made my time here so enjoyable.
“I should have specified. Your Woo Woo Wednesday Virginity.” Willow wiggles her eyebrows.
“I’m ready.” I breathe out.
“Odessa makes the best . You’ve never had anything like it.” Lynnie tells me. “Personally, I like the ones with alcohol. But Odessa tends to cut me off when I get to eight so I know just how good her mocktails are. And they’re delicious.”
“Hang on, did you say you can drink eight cocktails?”
Fucking hell. The girl can drink.
My limit was three, max. I was the definition of a lightweight and would not stand a chance in a drinking competition here.
They’re more advanced than those back home. I’ve seen a few after my gigs at the bar, and each one Lynnie manages to win, annoying the misogynistic men who claimed they would outdrink her prior, they even bet on it too .
“On a bad day.” Lynnie winks.
“Yeah. When Flint pisses you off, your threshold seems to disappear. She can drink for days, I’m sure of it.” Odessa shakes her head as she and Willow unbox cocktail shakers and glasses.
“Thank you guys for doing this.”
“You kidding?” Odessa turns to me. “If I’ve got to be involved in this, so do you.”
Willow bumps her shoulder. “Don’t act like you don’t love us deep down, you’re a softie at heart.”
“It’s not love, it’s more tolerance.”
More laughter fills the room, almost drowning out the noise that Nadia makes next door. It’s clear that, like myself, she has a huge fear of missing out and is making herself heard.
“What was that?” Willow asks.
“That’s Noisy Nadia. I’ve never met her but I always hear her.”
“Are you joking? Report her.” Odessa says.
“I feel bad, what if she gets upset that I reported her? Plus, it’s like white noise - helps me sleep.”
“It has to absolutely suck being an empath.”
“Yep.” I nod. “It does. It’s also impossible to stay mad at someone. I just feel bad for them. It’s why I’m not angry at Elijah. I just - I don’t really know.” Lynnie’s hand rubs at my back soothingly.
“Has Mack heard anything at all recently?” Odessa asks and Willow shakes her head at this.
“Nope. That man is running.” Her emphasis on running leaves me thinking about if he’ll ever come back. I sure as hell didn’t want him to anymore and I think I was holding him to a higher standard when I thought a part of him would want to be involved in our child's life.
“He was an asshole, Emberli. It’s not your fault.”
I sigh. “Sometimes I think it is. I think I fell out of love with Elijah when I realized nothing was changing, and so even though I stayed, I wasn’t… there. If that makes sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” Odessa nods, her eyes soft with understanding .
From the time I’ve spent here and my numerous talks with her at the bar after both of our shifts, I’ve learnt that Odessa often wants to know things about everyone else but is closed off herself. I feel deep down she relates to what I’m saying, like she’s been through something similar.
She observes but she doesn’t hover either.
And because I’m someone who’s never felt understood, speaking to someone who only likes to listen heals something in me.
I feel at peace here, which is weird considering that this was my ex-boyfriend's hometown and his people. I feel accepted by the group of girls that swooped in to help me from the moment I arrived. Friendship. It’s something I’ve been almost alien to and often kept at arm's length in order to protect myself from hurt, but now? I almost can’t imagine my life without the three girls who sit in my old, definitely in need of a health check, loud motel room.
“But seriously, if you need a place to stay, we’ll find somewhere for you.” Willow tells me. “I mean, Lyn and I share a cabin on the ranch and that’s small enough but I’m sure we could make some room and Flint’s building some more cabins on the ranch, you could even have one when the baby comes. If you were planning on staying that long.” The girls all look to me for an answer after Willow stops talking.
“I don’t want to intrude on you guys, besides I highly doubt Thayne would be happy if your brother gave me a place on the ranch.”
“Thayne’s never happy. Try not to take it personally.”
I laugh. “It’s a bit hard to not when he’s out to get me.”
“My brother is just an asshole. But, he has a good reason.”
“Good reason for being an asshole?”
“You two got off on the wrong foot.”
“Both of my feet are wrong in Thayne’s eyes.” I say.
“You just have to give him time.” Odessa replies.
“He’ll come around and like you just as much as we do.”
Highly doubtful, but I nod anyway because the girls all seem hopeful.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Odessa blinks at Willow, who is opening various bags of candy and tipping them into a bowl .
“It’s called a candy salad. I saw it online a few days ago.”
“A candy salad?” Lynnie asks. “That amount of sugar does not seem very salad-like to me.”
Willow shrugs. “It makes me feel better knowing it’s some form of salad.”
“It’s not a salad, Wills.”
“I’m sorry my bike broke on you earlier, it’s been rusting away in the stables but I honestly thought it would be okay.” Willow tells me.
“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
“I know, but I’m sorry you got stuck with Thayne.” She grimaces.
“You got stuck with Thayne?” Lynnie turns her head to me. “Ouch.”
“It’s fine. I told him not to talk to me and surprisingly, he didn’t. It was silent the entire ride back.”
The girls all look at each other, seeming somewhat shocked by this.
“Really?”
“Yeah. But I did unleash my tears on him and threatened to punch him. So…”
The girls again crack up at this, laughter filling the room as Willow shakes her head.
“I’ve never known someone to put Thayne in his place the way you do.”
“I’d call it more him being terrified of me crying than me putting him in his place.”
“That’s true. He’s never liked it when you cry, Wills.” Lynnie says.
“He doesn’t like it when any woman cries, that’s just Thayne.”
That’s… actually kind of sweet.
And if we weren’t talking about the asshole of a boss I have, I would have let it be known that I thought so.
“But I am sorry, Em. Today is always a hard day for him.”
I’m about to ask why when Odessa cuts in. “I’m sorry. Did you say you threatened to punch him?” she asks as she sips her drink, a highly amused look on her face as she tries not to laugh.
“Yeah. Not my finest moment.” I wince .
“That’s hilarious.”
“I’m waiting for my termination of employment letter.”
“You won’t be getting one anytime soon. Thayne’s laptop is broken and besides, you’ve been giving him more business than he’s had in years.” Willow's revelation is a shock to me. The gigs I’d been doing had always been busy, but I’d just assumed that they were always that way with Spooky Hoots being the only bar in town. I’d found this out through Billy, who I’d grown fond of. We’d talk a lot, like Odessa and I did, in between my sets.
Billy would always threaten any creeps that tried to ask for my number. I learnt that he never had children and his wife died four years ago. He’d told me that he hated feeling as lonely as he was, so he’d come to the bar and spend his time there. He was a genuinely nice person, one that turned to alcohol in the hope that it would drown the reality of his life.
It was a cruel thing, life. It could be everything you ever wanted, but it could be gone in an instant. And thinking like that makes me want to appreciate what I have, and guilty about yearning for things that I can’t.
I’d often find myself thinking about the meaning of life or more so, what it meant to feel alive. I felt like my life as Emberli was over, and my new life as a mom was just starting. And selfishly, I was scared about what that meant for me.
The past years as of late, I’ve been surviving more than living, desperately clinging onto Elijah as if he was my source of life. I didn’t realize at the time but he was the opposite, he was pulling me down with him and every part of my body and soul was rejecting him because it knew something I didn’t. But still, I refused to see it because I was so blindsided by the idea of being loved.
I was never unloved as a child, I was brought up with loving parents and a caring family, which is why I couldn’t understand how I was so flawed in the art of needing more love. It was selfish really.
I had been self-critiquing for so long that I thought I needed someone else to save me from myself in the way that Billy relies on alcohol to save him. I was in love with the idea of Elijah more than I was in love with Elijah himself.
We shared common interests and at times, deep conversations. I felt like he understood me and I grew fascinated with him. But was that even love? Or was it just… fascination.
I was so infatuated with other parts of Elijah that I ignored the red flags that had been in the air waving at me since the beginning, and that terrified me. I’d always thought myself a smart girl but it appeared otherwise.
Even if I was clothed with the incapability to find love with another, I’d make sure that the little person growing inside of me would know so much of it just from me alone.
I dive to my desk and grab my notebook.
Fascination. The idea of love.
“I’m just saying, no one would blame you if you did.” Lynnie’s voice brings me back and Willow scoffs, throwing herself back on the couch. “I do not fancy my brother's closest friend.”
I curse myself for zoning out again at the wrong time. It appears I’ve missed some important information that makes Willow’s aura reek of denial.
“You seem pretty annoyed about him going on a date, Wills.” Lynnie raises an eyebrow.
I pick up my glass, taking a few sips from it and attempting to be as quiet as I can when Willow decides to speak. “It’s not that. I’ve just, I’ve seen the amount of girls over the years that only want him because of the popularity and press he gets. They only want him because of his job.”
“What’s his job?” I whisper to Lynnie.
“He’s a bronc rider.”
I nod.
“I don’t like Aca like that.” Willow says and a huge bang makes us all jump. The plaster within the walls crumbles and Lynnie jumps to her feet. “That’s it. This needs to stop.”
Lynnie’s line of patience is a lot shorter than mine, she’s been here less than an hour and storms out of my room, knocking loudly on the perpetrator’s door.
The girls and I remain in the safety of the room as we peer our heads round.
Lynnie’s fist thuds on the wooden door in front of her.
“Open up!” She yells.
Silence.
Nadia has seemingly shut up, but Lynnie doesn’t take this. Her hand darts to the doorknob and she swings it open despite the whispers from the three of us.
Her face is stripped of its colour and shock dominates what's left.
“What is it, Lyn?” Willow whispers below me.
“It’s a…” Lynnie’s words are cut off with an ear-deafening growl mixed with a roar. She reaches in, slamming the front door shut before rushing back into my room and locking the door breathlessly.
Panic girdles her as she paces back and forth.
“Noisy Nadia is a grizzly.”