Olivia lifted her head and exhaled toward the ceiling. Bringing her attention back to Emily, she placed a hand on her hip. “You want to know the only reason why I’m not going to push this issue further with you, friend?”
Emily pressed her eyes closed and shook her head. “Why, Olivia?”
“Well, that would be because you gave Duckleberry-Finn a pretty decent beat-down before his ass was hauled outta here.”
Emily lay back, rolled to her side, and hugged her knees to her chest. Normally, she would’ve found Olivia’s comment somewhat funny. But not now. She couldn’t. It was all she could do to muster a reply.
“Right,” Emily said, sadness clouding her voice. She brought the ice pack up to her cheek. Eyes steeped in pain from her discomfort, she stared at Olivia. “I guess I did.” Emily inhaled a deep breath, grabbed her blanket, and pulled it over her body. “When the paramedics get here, send them in. But right now, I just need to rest.”
Though concern still showed on their faces, Olivia and Lisa nodded. Without another word, they walked out of the room.
Over the next half hour, Emily filled out the necessary paperwork from the officer and refused treatment when the paramedics eventually showed up. Once the room became quiet and her thoughts finally started to settle, her eyes came to rest on her phone. Picking it up, she stared at it, her face paling when she saw it was void of any messages from Gavin. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks.
Knowing she had to explain the hurt she’d inflicted upon him, she dialed his number. She chewed at the inside of her lip as she listened to it ring. When his voice mail picked up, she went to close her phone but stopped. Worry plagued her, and an ache for him, so deep, tightened in her chest.
“Gavin… I… It’s Emily,” she whispered, trying not to trip over the emotions climbing up her throat. “I don’t expect you to talk to me ever again, but I need to say a few things.” Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, she continued. “Dillon diminished my sense of feeling alive, Gavin. But you… you brought that back to me. When Gina opened the door that morning, I…” Emily paused, wiping away tears. “I was scared you took her back, but I should’ve let you explain and I didn’t. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that out of any girl in this world you could’ve fallen in love with, you chose me. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when I should’ve, and it was me who broke your heart. I love you, Gavin. I know you’re the one who said you thought you loved me from the moment you saw me, but I know I loved you from the moment I saw you. Something inside me told me I was supposed to be with you, but I fought against it. So many things about you scared me at first, and then you showed me who you really are.”
Unable to keep fighting the raw emotion weighing heavy on her heart, Emily broke out into hysterics. “Please forgive me for fighting against us, Gavin. Please forgive me for not fighting for us when I knew we were supposed to be together. Forgive me for being the weak mess I am. But more than anything… thank you for loving me. Thank you for your dimpled smile and your bottle caps. I’ll never be able to look at one without thinking of you. Thank you for your stupid Yankees and your wiseass remarks. Thank you for wanting late night drives and sunset-watching with me. Thank you for wanting the good, the bad, and the in-between.” Emily paused and shook her head, but before she could say another word, the voice mail cut her off, the long beep alerting her that her time was up.
“I’m just sorry the only thing you got from me was the bad,” she whispered, staring at the ceiling as she clenched her phone to her chest.
CHAPTER TWO
In her twenty-four years of living, there were times when Emily would experience a numbness that would set in when she wanted to shut something out. She allowed her mind to let go of poison plaguing her life at certain points. These were times she welcomed it. Breathed it in like the sweet smell of roses. It was the type of numbness one could say ‘cleansed her.’ However, as she sat at the coffee bar in Bella Lucina, tracing and retracing numbers on her order pad, the numbness planting itself in her heart like a thick, summer weed, was something she’d never felt before. Something she didn’t want to feel.
216 hours… of feeling dead.
12,960 minutes… of feeling lost.
777,600 seconds… of feeling completely numb.
Days upon days, her concentration, which seemed to be carefully knitted together by strands of hope, was fading. Lost. Even while she slept, her mind lingered on Gavin, her dreams dangerous because they reminded her he was gone. He became a beautiful vapor that disappeared into thin air, taking Emily’s very existence with it. Left with broken thoughts she was sure couldn’t be repaired, Emily was suffering knowing he had loved her when she least deserved it. No. This wasn’t something she was prepared for, yet she knew she had to own every hour, minute, and every second of it.
“I brought table twelve another round of drinks for you,” Fallon announced, sitting down next to Emily.
With her head downcast, still immersed in the amount of time that’d passed since Gavin left, Emily didn’t answer.
“They also ordered a pasta primavera for the monkey that joined them.” At that, Emily reluctantly brought her gaze up to Fallon’s, her face filled with confusion. “Yeah. They found him on the side of the road. Apparently a circus ditched him,” Fallon added, throwing her hair into a messy bun.
“Did you just say something about a monkey?” Emily questioned, her voice puzzled. “And when did you dye your hair blue?”