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“No, don’t,” says Ben quickly. “Look, I know you’re angry with me, Emerald, and I don’t blame you. It’s no more than I deserve. But I didn’t just come here to tell you I was going to pay back the money I owe you. I came to tell you that…” He pauses to take a deep breath, and my spine tingles with sudden anxiety.
Whatever he’s about to say, I have a feeling I’m not going to like it.
“… well, that I still love you,” he goes in a rush, his cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you yesterday, but you ran off before I got a chance. That’s why I had to come and find you.”
He stops speaking and opens his eyes wide, in a way I expect he imagines makes him look appealing, but which actually makes him look like a psychopath.
I knew I wasn’t going to like it.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asks, looking wounded.
A list of all the things I’d like to say to this man flicks rapidly through my head. I can’t help but notice that not one of the items on it includes the words, “I forgive you,” or “I love you, too,” which is what he’s obviously expecting.
“Can ye speak up a bit, Emerald, lass?” shouts McTavish’s dad, opening the window. “We cannae hear ye in here.”
Dylan’s arm appears and slams the window closed again. I turn back to Ben.
“You havegotto be kidding me,” I say, my temper starting to rise. “Please tell me this is your idea of a joke, Ben? Please tell me I’m on one of those hidden camera shows, and someone’s going to pop out with a microphone and tell me I’ve been pranked?”
“It’s not a joke,” says Ben solemnly. “I don’t joke about things like this.”
“You don’t joke about anything,” I point out. “You think jokes are stupid. When I told you I wanted to go to that comedy show, you told me the comedian would just pick on me and make me look ridiculous.”
“Well, he would have,” Ben insists. “That’s what they do at those things. And you have one of those faces that makes people single you out. What’s this got to do with anything, though? Why are you bringing it up now?”
“Because it shows how little we have in common,” I tell him, my voice rising with anger. “We havenothingin common, Ben. We never did.”
A loud whirring sound suddenly fills the air. It’s so loud that it drowns out my last few words, and Ben has to shout to reply to me.
“Okay, so we’ll go to a comedy show,” he yells, as if he’s negotiating with a very small, very unreasonable child. “If that’s what you want. I’ll do whatever you want. I’m just trying to make things right, Emerald. Because I love you.”
He bellows the last words so loudly that they seem to fill the air, even with the whirring sound still echoing in our ears.
“Look,” shouts Scarlett, bursting through the door of the farmhouse with Dylan and McTavish right behind her. “Look how low it is.”
I look up, confused. There’s a helicopter flying above us, the wind created by its blades making it feel like we’re standing in the middle of a hurricane all of a sudden.
“Did you hear me, Emerald?” yells Ben again. “I said I love you!”
“Well, I don’t love you,” I scream over the sound of the blades. “I don’t think I ever loved you. I love Jack. He’s the one I want to be with. I just want you to leave me alone, Ben. I didn’t ask you to come here, and I certainly didn’t ask you to start making speeches about how much you love me, so please, just leave me alone and let me get on with my life. You’re too late for ‘I love yous’ and ‘I’m sorrys’. You’re too late to ever be a part of my life again.”
I’m not sure I’d have had the guts to say all of this — especially not in front of the small crowd that’s now assembled in the yard, their attention equally divided between me, Ben, and the circling helicopter — if I hadn’t been sure the noise would drown most of it out, anyway. To my surprise, though, Ben seems to have caught my drift.
“If Jack loves you as much as you say you love him, then why isn’t he here?” he shouts back at me. “Why didn’t he try to stop you from going off with me last night? Have you asked yourself that?”
The helicopter is even lower now. It looks almost like it’s coming in to land; which it can’t possibly be, of course, because it’s not like the McTavish farm has its very own helipad.
I open my mouth to answer Ben’s question, then snap it closed again as the wind generated by the helicopter blades blow dust from the yard right into my face. It’s probably for the best, because I have no idea what I was going to say.
Whyisn’tJack here?
How did things get so bad between us that I don’t even know where he is right now?
The helicopter gets lower still, whipping up even more dust, which swirls in the air, making it feel like we’re in some kind of surrealist Western movie. One with dirt, and helicopters, and annoying ex-boyfriends who keep on trying to center themselves in everything, even though the action has long since moved away from them.
McTavish Senior has joined the small group in the yard now, and we all stand there watching, hands shielding our eyes from the dust, as the helicopter hovers over the field next to the yard.
“He better no’ be going to land there,” yells McTavish Senior. “That’s the grazing for the sheep.”
