Page 97 of The Sound of Harmony

ChapterTwenty-Five

Emma avoided her friends. She told Lauren she was swamped with work. She told Melanie she wasn’t feeling well enough to come to her Halloween party. She ignored Brooke’s texts and didn’t answer Gwendolyn’s calls. She canceled her therapy appointment. She stayed home and took lots of baths while eating everything sweet, baked, or creamy.

She deleted Kendrick’s number from her phone and blocked him. It was the most decisive, final thing she could think to do. She didn’t want to hear his distinctive ringtone, and the last thing she wanted to hear was his voice.

She tried to distract herself, but nothing held her interest. Books and magazines piled up next to her bed, pencils and art supplies cluttered her dining table. At one point, she took out every book and DVD she owned, intending to sort them, but she couldn’t muster the energy to put them back, so they sat in piles on the floor. Candles dripped wax from their holders and rings formed on the coffee table where she set down drinks without coasters. She let dishes pile up next to the sink and left her mail on the counter.

She hadn’t put away a single stitch of clothing since Saturday night, letting them stay wherever they landed when she changed her clothes. Her purple dress and sparkly shoes were somewhere in that heap, along with her clutch purse.

On Wednesday night, someone knocked on her door. When she didn’t answer, they kept knocking. It was the kind of knock that wouldn’t be ignored, so she plodded to the door and looked through the security hole. Gwendolyn and Brooke were on the other side of it.

Emma yanked open the door. “Again?” she asked. “Let me guess, you compared notes on the state of Emma and decided to present a united front.”

“We came to apologize,” Gwendolyn said.

“We brought you presents,” Brooke said. She held out a small basket of homemade soaps, bubble bars, and bath bombs. Gwendolyn carried a bakery box, and if Emma knew her sister, it held an entire peanut butter cheesecake. “And we came to check on you,” Brooke added.

Gwendolyn shot Brooke a look. “But mostly we’re here to apologize. Because what we did was wrong. We shouldn’t have talked behind your back, to Kendrick or anyone else.”

Emma opened the door wider and let them in. What did it matter now anyway? She and Kendrick were through. And at least now, she knew what her sister and her best friend truly thought of her.

And they were right. Any guy who wanted to date her should be warned off, because she did not have the ability to have a healthy relationship. She’d made a huge mistake with Jonah, and had clearly started dating again too soon. Her friends had saved her just in time. She owed them for that.

Brooke opened her arms and Emma buried her face in the texture of Brooke’s sweater. Today she smelled like chai tea—ginger and clove and other warm spices. Gwendolyn smushed her from the other side and Emma stood a little straighter, held up by the sisterhood of good women.

“I did everything wrong,” Brooke said. “I tried to talk you into getting back out there in the dating pool, and then I tried to tell Kendrick—”

“You were right about everything,” Emma said. “You only wanted what was best for me.”

“I was not right,” Brooke insisted. “I’m going to stand here, in the stench of my own wrongness, and—”

“The only stench is this apartment,” Gwendolyn cut in, closing the fridge where she’d stashed the cheesecake. She moved a pile of magazines so she could sit down. “Come on, weirdo. This is not like you.”

“Maybe we could open a window?” Brooke suggested diplomatically. “It’s a bit stuffy in here.”

“Go ahead.” Emma gestured to the apartment’s main window and then joined Gwendolyn on the couch.

Gwendolyn picked up a pile of DVDs, while Brooke moved to the dining nook and stacked papers, then started separating the colored pencils from the markers.

“Don’t do that,” Emma said. “Leave it.”

They both turned to stare at her as if she’d grown a second head.

Emma cleared her throat. “It’s fine for now. I’ll get to it later.”

“Oh, honey,” Brooke said.

“It’s worse than I thought,” Gwendolyn said. “I know you’ve been working a lot, but I’ve never seen your apartment like this.”

“Actually, I’m taking time off,” Emma said.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Gwendolyn said. “I thought Mitch—”

“Mitch is dead to me,” Emma snapped. “I never want to hear the name Bell ever again.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Brooke leaned on the table. “I’m not even sure what Kendrick did that was so bad. If he—”