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“You know, I don’t expect you to cut him out of your life because of me.”
“No. I know that.” Sarah rubbed her fingertips over her temples and squeezed her eyes closed again, as if that might work to shut out this conversation. “I didn’t think you would, but you’ve got enough going on without me encroaching.”
She opened her eyes. Emilia still cupped her hands around her coffee. “You must think I don’t deserve him. Maybe you’d be right. You stepped aside so Blaine and I could be together because you thought that was the best thing for everyone, but I’m the one who brought trouble into his life. I’m sorry.”
Sarah flicked her attention over her left shoulder, to Blaine’s door, hoping the nurse might be done. No such luck.
She pressed her hands hard against her dark blue jeans, losing herself a little in the tiny threads and woven pattern. “Don’t apologize. You weren’t the one holding the gun. I’ll be fine, and I don’t hate you. Soon enough you and Blaine will go back to living happily ever after, okay?”
As foolish as those words felt to say, she honestly hoped Emilia would believe her. After three years of sharing her life with Blaine, he’d become her best friend. Three years of planning a future together, and now, would they continue to even be friends?
In an uncharacteristic move she couldn’t quite explain, she reached out and grabbed Emilia’s hand from her coffee cup, the woman’s skin clammy and her fingers stiff. Despite the voices in Sarah’s head screaming for her to let go, she held on, needing to feel at least a little better about herself.
She didn’t do emotion. She didn’t offer comfort either. Doubly so with a relative stranger such as Emilia. But Sarah hadn’t been there to help Blaine. His life had imploded, and she’d been busy hooking up with Dean.
And yes, her logic here was all screwed up. Blaine was the one to move on first. But guilt had a strange way of making little sense, and being kind to Emilia felt like atonement. Sarah’s gift to Blaine. Even if he never knew.
Emilia eyed Sarah through an eerie stillness, her expression wilting like a crushed flower still trying to bloom. Before long, she lowered her head under an avalanche of fat and wrenching tears.
Sarah snapped a hand out and caught the coffee cup before Emilia could drop it, the woman listing to one side to bury her face against Sarah’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry.” Emilia sniffled and then hiccupped. As ill-timed and unintentionally vain as it seemed, Sarah was heartened that Emilia was capable of an “ugly” cry. “I didn’t expect you’d… I’ve held myself together all day, and then you… You’re here, and you’re being nice to me. Any other woman—”
“I already said you don’t need to apologize.” Sarah patted Emilia’s back awkwardly while eyeing Blaine’s door again. Genuinely, she was the least capable person to help with anyone’s grief. What was taking that nurse so long?
Emilia slumped back and swiped at her tears, her breaths slowing. “Blaine says the same thing, you know? I apologize too much. Even now, I’m biting back a need to say sorry for that too. I just don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for being here now, and for—”
“Honestly, don’t mention it.”
Sarah launched from her seat and feigned a desire to pace in front of Blaine’s closed door. She didn’t want to hear Emilia finish that sentence. To hear her say, “for stepping aside and letting me have your man.”
This was all too much honesty. She couldn’t wait for everyone to forget. To just move on already. No broken engagements. No pitying looks. No screwball gunmen. No hospitals. No secret lovers…
Blaine’s door clicked and a nurse stepped out, stopping Sarah’s thoughts on just how complicated life had gotten.
“You can go in now.” The nurse gave an easy smile, but Sarah’s stomach churned all the same.
The kidney-shaped dish in the nurse’s hand had a pile of bloodstained bandages. Blaine’s blood.
“You go in.”
Sarah jolted at Emilia’s voice and pulled her attention away from the dish and onto the woman beside her, with her upturned stare and washed-out complexion. “I don’t want him to see me like this. He’ll know I’ve been crying.”
Lacking in words, Sarah nodded and stepped forward. No matter how many “moments” she took to gather her thoughts, no moment could erase what had happened—much less forever delay her encounter with the man on the other side of that door.
