Chapter Fourteen
Fourteen
EMMA SAT ON THE TOILET WILLING HER BODY TO PEE. SHE knew she needed to to avoid one of her biggest fears—a UTI—but her brain and heart were still in overdrive, leaving very little energy for her pelvic floor. She just had sex with Will! And it had been good sex. The kind she was normally only able to achieve after a commitment of monogamy and at least one hit of weed (anxiety wasn’t the sort of thing that simply went away when she took her clothes off). But now the approximately fifteen-minute reprieve from her normal self was over and she was back to panicking.
The moment they had finished Emma had sprung from the bed, thrown on her knee brace and declared she “had to take care of lady business.” Will had laughed, apparently already knowing her well enough to not be offended by her abrupt departure. Her body had wanted to stay and cuddle with him, but her personality wouldn’t allow it. She had to figure out how to explain Operation: Save My Date to him before it was too late and he felt overly manipulated. Her mind turned as she tried to relax her bladder.
A few embarrassingly long minutes later, Emma emerged from the bathroom completely naked except for her right knee, which was safely secured in neoprene. She did her best to sexily saunter into Will’s bedroom despite her limp. He immediately looked up and smiled.
“Success?”
“Eventually. The female body plays by its own rules.”
Will chuckled and pulled back the covers so Emma could crawl in and snuggle up next to him. He put his arm around her and sneaked a kiss on the side of her head.
“That was really nice,” he murmured, causing her insides to stir. In another version of her life, Emma would be climbing on top of him to initiate a second round, but in this version, she took a deep breath and braced herself for everything to be ruined.
“I have to tell you something.”
“How bad? On a scale of one to ten?”
“That’s going to completely depend on your reaction.” Emma shifted herself into a seated position and Will, sensing this was actually important, did the same. They both leaned against his blue suede headboard. “I’m about to unload a lot of information on you. Is that okay? Or would you rather get dressed first and sit at the kitchen table?” Emma knew she was stalling but now that the moment of truth was finally here, she would rather be anywhere else.
“I actually prefer to have tough conversations in the nude,” Will joked, although it was clear he was getting worried.
“Let me preface this by saying that none of this is inherently bad. You might actually find it unique and exciting.”
“Are you about to sell me a time-share?”
“No. Although my parents do have quite a few.” Emma breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. “The reason I didn’t want to tell you my last name is because about eight weeks ago my fiancé walked out on me.”
“Oh, Emma. I’m so sorry—”
“Thank you but if you start to be nice, I will cry and then I won’t be able to tell you all the things I need to tell you.”
Will nodded and pretended to seal his lips but his eyes conveyed too much empathy for her to keep looking at him. She turned her head in the direction of his closed closet door. Even in her emotional state Emma found herself wondering if he hung up his clothes or kept them in piles. She guessed a mix of both.
“When Ryan—my ex-fiancé—left, I thought my entire life was over. And not just in the typical I can’t live without him kind of way. It made me question my entire career and identity. I’m a couples therapist and I had no idea my own partner didn’t love me anymore? How pathetic is that?”
“I don’t think it’s pathetic.”
“I won’t fight you on the logic of it, but it’s how I felt. Like a huge freaking failure who was going to die alone after getting her book deal canceled.”
“You have a book deal?” Will asked, equally shocked and impressed.
“I told you, it’s going to be a lot of information all at once.”
Emma took a risk and looked at him. Will’s blue eyes were locked on her face and his (naked) body language exuded a calm she certainly didn’t feel. Why was he not freaking out? Or faking an emergency before throwing her out of the apartment, never to be heard from again?
Instead of doing either of those highly understandable things, Will reached out and wiped away a tear that had escaped down her cheek. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me all of it if you’re not ready.”
“No. I have to tell you all of it now before I—” Emma realized she was about to say before I fall in love with you . She quickly cleared her throat and changed her approach. “Before things keep progressing between us.”
“Can I say one thing first?”
“Okay, but it will probably make me cry more. I’m a big crier. You should know that.”
“I’ll add it to the list. No food sharing and order tissues in bulk.” Will smiled. Despite her nerves, Emma felt one start to form on her own lips, which really proved the complexity of being alive.
“What I wanted to say,” Will added with the most apprehension she’d seen from him thus far, “is that I think I know a little about how you’re feeling. I’ve never been engaged, but I did live with my ex for four years until she left me for a fellowship in England. She didn’t even ask if I wanted to come. She just packed up and left.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Yeah, it was.” For a moment Will looked like he was getting pulled back into the memory before he returned his gaze to Emma. “But it got easier. Sorry to hijack your big speech. I just didn’t want you to think you were the only one in this bed who’s been unceremoniously dumped.”
Emma reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’ve been unceremoniously dumped many times. This one just stung the most.” Will laughed and it gave Emma the courage to keep going. “Part of what made it so excruciating is that I have this YouTube channel…”
“Okay, now I understand why you didn’t want me to know your last name. I’m going to have to watch everything.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that, which is why we needed to have this conversation first.” Emma realized she should have prepared for what was about to happen. Or at least done a role play with Imani to make sure she wouldn’t sound completely bananas. “You see, my entire channel is meant to be a professional resource about therapy and relationships. But about a year ago, I started including Ryan in some of the videos to help demonstrate communication skills or review how we moved past a certain conflict. He became sort of a fan favorite, so I put him in more and more stuff.”
“I get that. Audiences love authenticity, right?”
“Exactly! But when he left…” Emma trailed off, hoping that Will’s emotional intelligence would help fill in some of the blanks.
“You thought you would lose them too.”
Emma nodded, increasingly grateful for this man in front of her. “Then I had this idea. And at first, it’s going to seem really bonkers and intense, but I think if you give me enough time to explain you’ll see where I’m coming from and maybe even want to be a part of it.”
“Oh my god. You want to murder Ryan and you need my help.” Will shifted himself into a more upright position and flexed his biceps. “Where does that punk live?”
“Honestly, I have no idea,” Emma replied with a laugh. “But that’s not what I wanted to pitch you.”
Emma took another one of her calming breaths and started to explain the strangest plan she had ever made.
***
“You haven’t said anything in twelve and a half minutes,” Emma announced. She and Will were now fully clothed and standing in his kitchen. As soon as she’d finished describing Operation: Save My Date, Will had jumped up from the bed and declared he needed coffee to properly process this new information.
“Pour-over coffee takes a lot of concentration. I don’t want to mess up the ratios.”
“Okay,” Emma conceded. If she wanted any shot at keeping him, she knew she couldn’t push too much. She went to sit at the dark wood kitchen table while he finished pouring his culinary masterpiece into two mugs. One was from This American Life and the other said, “Careful or you’ll end up in my next podcast” in italicized font.
“Here you go.” Will handed her the kitschy mug as he sat at the table.
“Thank you,” Emma replied. “So, on a scale of one to ten how freaked out are you right now?”
“I’d say maybe an eleven or twelve. I guess I can’t figure out why you think you need to do this.”
“I don’t need to do this. I want to. It’s an opportunity for me to build the life I want and make a real difference.”
“And the real difference would be proving that you can replace one guy with another guy whenever you want?”
“No. Of course not. The real difference would be showing that love isn’t some magical thing you have to passively wait for. It’s something you can choose to create with another person.”
“Uh-huh,” Will said, not at all sounding convinced.
“Look, I know how it sounds, but plenty of people get married after only knowing each other for a few months. Think about arranged marriages or soldiers about to go off to war.”
“But those people weren’t planning a wedding with someone else a month before.”
“We can’t know that for sure,” Emma offered as a weak attempt at levity.
Will ignored this and used his right hand to massage his forehead. “It just sucks because I really liked you.”
“I really like you, too,” Emma replied—even though his use of the past tense tore through her heart like shrapnel.
“Then why are you doing this?” Will asked as he lifted his head up. “Why can’t we just date and get to know each other at our own pace?”
It was a good question and one that Emma had certainly asked herself during his quiet period of contemplation. But she was already too far in. If she gave up now, she’d have no credibility and, more importantly, she might end up right back where she started: single and heartbroken. But older. Which, in an ageist society, was never ideal.
“What part is bumping for you the most? Do you not want to get married?”
“No, I do, eventually. Once I really know the person.”
“Right, except that’s the flawed part. We think a certain amount of time will protect us from making a mistake or getting hurt. But you were with your ex for how long?”
Will rolled his eyes, seeing where this was going. “Four years.”
“Which is more than an acceptable amount of time to commit to someone. And yet…” Emma had the decency to trail off instead of stating the obvious: she still left.
“Look, I know relationships always come with risk. But let’s be real, Emma. This isn’t just about revolutionizing our approach to marriage or whatever you’re telling yourself. This is about subbing in one human being for another one so you can still have a big party and look like a success.”
Emma felt Will’s words hit her like tiny glass shards. The sting was immediate, and the damage would be hard to extract.
She stood up from the table. “I should probably go.”
“Yeah. You probably should.” Will stood too, reaching for her mug as if to clear all evidence of their brief love affair. She hated herself for wishing he would change his mind and ask her to stay.
As he led her to the door, Emma turned to him one last time. “Are you sure you don’t want to take a few days to think about it? I can send you one my videos where I probably do a better job of explaining everything.”
“I’m not going to change my mind. So unless you are planning to change yours we should probably call this thing.”
Emma nodded as she looked down at her watch. “Time of death: 8:52 p.m.”