“No, it wasn’t. I love you,” I repeated. “And I know you love me.”
That got her to look at me, although it was more of a glare. “You lied to me,” she said.
It was the truth, and it hit me like a knife in the gut.
“Yes. I did lie to you. And it ate me up inside all these years, but I was so scared of losing you that I couldn’t make myself tell you the truth,” I said, sitting down on the couch next to her. She curled up as far away from me as possible, pulling her knees to her chest.
I went on, “I’m so, so sorry for everything that happened in high school. I was young and angry and completely self-centered. It was never about you. It was about me. I was lashing out. That day, with the lockers. I’d gone home and overheard my parents arguing about my dad’s infidelities, and my mom was crying. That’s when I found out about your dad and the…the women at KZM. It shattered me. I thought they were going to get a divorce over the whole thing. And when I got back to school, I saw you in the quad, and I just…lost it.”
She was listening, I could tell, but she didn’t respond. She wouldn’t engage. My words weren’t getting through. I got down on my knees in front of her, taking her hand.
“I’ve regretted it ever since. Honestly, I had no idea it would blow up like it did. That’s why I had to defend you, finally. I knew I was wrong, and I knew it was all my fault you were catching shit. If I could take it all back, I would. God, I wish I could. Please believe me. I’m sorry, Emzee,” I said. “I know I fucked up, but what we have is too good to walk away from.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry. But I can’t. We can’t.”
I didn’t understand.Can’t?
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Is it my parents? Fuck them. Fuck what they think.”
A sad smile crossed her face. “It’s not your parents, Ford. We were just never meant to be together. This thing with us, it’s…over.”
How could she say that? How had it even gotten this bad? She was my best friend. I was hers. Or at least, I thought I’d been. In fact, now that I thought about it, I realized that I had never imagined my life without her in it. It was…unfathomable. Impossible.
“I’m being open and honest with you,” I told her. “You have to tell me how to fix this! I love you and I need you and I can’t even imagine a life without you in it. Please. How do I fix this?”
There had to be a solution. There just had to be.
Emzee looked away, tightening her arms around her knees.
“You can’t fix it,” she said. “I just need you to leave.”
Emzee
Chapter 11
Morning sickness was the absolute worst.
I had spent the last hour on my knees in front of my toilet, head in my hands, a cold washcloth wrapped around my neck. The waves of nausea and vomiting didn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. I wasn’t even sure what I had left to throw up, but every time I thought I was done, another wave had me clinging to the porcelain all over again.
Munchkin let out a whimper of sympathy from the doorway and I told him everything was fine as I squeezed my eyes shut, wondering how I was going to get myself off the floor long enough to get dressed and ready for work, let alone make it into the office at all.
I had been puking almost nonstop from these stupid hormones, but it still couldn’t purge all the awful feelings I had about last night and how I’d given Ford false hope that we could make it work. I’d had a weak moment. I’d let him in when I should have stayed firm, should have turned him away. The sex had been explosive, the bond between us undeniable…but it never should have happened in the first place.
Not only had I ripped Ford’s heart out and thrown it on the floor, but I had given myself a raging case of the Feels as well.
I thought I had been getting over him—okay fine, I hadn’t really thought that, but I thought that I’d been gettingcloseto getting ready to get over him—and I’d just completely undermined all that hard work and the distance I’d put between us. Which was frustrating as all hell. The situation we were in was his fault. Mine too, but I’d gone into it with open eyes…or so I had thought. Ford had been the one keeping information from me all along.
I felt a twinge of guilt knowing I was being a hypocrite now, not telling him about the baby. But he had given me no choice. Or, his family had given me no choice.
Why couldn’t I just rip the damn Band-Aid off? And why couldn’t I stop puking?
I needed to get it together. I was going to be late for work, and the deadline for everything related tolookingglass’s very first printed issue was tonight. It would be amazing to hold the magazine in my hands, printed on real paper, the photographs in full color. Not that electronic copies weren’t legit, but there was something extra special about having a physical copy to hold on to, to mail to our subscribers, to appear in newsstands and on bookstore shelves.
But I was nowherenearready.
And a sick day was out of the question. Andrew and the whole team were counting on me. As evidenced by the fact that the entire time I’d been throwing up and clinging to the toilet like a lifesaver, my phone had been going nuts, buzzing frantically on the edge of the sink. I was certain when I looked at it, I’d see a stream of texts and emails and calls from my coworkers detailing all the urgent tasks I still had to complete, and wondering where the hell I was.
My phone buzzed again. And again, until it literally fell off the sink and landed on the bathmat beside me. I had a million things to do, and none of them were leaning my forehead against the porcelain and wondering if there were any more saltines in the kitchen as Munchkin came over to lick my elbow.
