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Josh boxes like an eight-year-old boy who’s mad at the world. That is to be expected. But as we approach the end of the hour, I can see the beginnings of something resembling skill in the force of those tired punches.Control.
He looks drained when we get back into the SUV dripping with sweat, but there’s a newfound confidence in his step. He doesn’t fidget and he doesn’t avoid my gaze.
“I’d say we’ve earned some ice cream, wouldn’t you?”
Josh hesitates. “Can we take some back for Aunt Emma and the girls?”
“Of course.”
Only then does he nod his approval.
On our drive to the creamery, I try to figure out this strange feeling spreading over my chest. I keep going back to the picture Emma sent me of her and the kids eating ice cream. The smile on her face, the happiness in her eyes—they both felt foreign to me at the time. I was an outsider, looking in.
But now?
Now, I think about Emma’s joyful smile and it hits me—Ifeelthe way she looks in that picture. I’ve stolen a little slice of her world for myself and it’s forced me to remember what mine once revolved around.
Before I waspahkan.
Before I was grieving.
Before I thought building barriers to keep people out was the only way to live.
44
EMMA
“There’s freaking tissue paper, Em! Gilt-edged tissue paper!”
I lean away from the mirror above my sink so that I can see Phoebe through my open bathroom door. She’s holding the lid of the package in her hands and she’s staring reverently at the tissue-paper-wrapped contents on my bed.
It arrived half an hour ago, precisely three hours before tonight’s Olson-Ferber charity gala. The courier didn’t have a sender’s name, but he didn’t have to—this has Ruslan’s fingerprints all over it.
“Just open it,” I chuckle before I go back to applying my eyeliner.
“Respect must be paid, Em! This is like foreplay; you can’t just charge right in. Did you see the label on the top of this baby?”
I’m trying not to laugh but that’s just making my hand shake even harder. Abandoning my eyeliner, I join Phoebe in front of the sleek black box. It’s embossed with a cursiveVivienne Westwoodstamp.
Phoebe puts her hands over her heart. “It’s gorgeous. I’m swooning.”
I frown. “You haven’t even seen the dress yet. Save the swoon for when it counts.”
When I pull apart the leaves of tissue paper, Phoebe gasps. “Red! That issoyour color.”
“You would have said that no matter what color it was.”
Phoebe fingers the fabric and sighs longingly. “He’s a keeper. The man is a gift from the angels above.”
I cock an eyebrow at her. “What ever happened to ‘protect your heart’ and ‘don’t get sucked in with over-the-top, expensive gifts’?”
Phoebe gestures to the dress. “It’sVivienne Westwood!” she repeats for emphasis. “Also, are you aware that you’ve only lined one eye? If it’s some kind of statement, then you do you, girl, but if not, in the interest of honesty, it’s kinda terrifying.”
Rolling my eyes, I head into the bathroom again to finish my second eye. Phoebe follows me and leans against the threshold, letting her euphoria drop for a moment. “Re: protecting your heart—at this point you know the stakes. I’m not gonna beat you over the head with lectures and cautionary tales.”
I try to keep my hand steady while I ring my second eye with dusky charcoal. Phoebe’s right—Idoknow the stakes.
The problem is that it doesn’t seem to matter.
