Thirteen Hours To You

by Annie Emerson

  “You’re so weird,” I laughed.

  “I know. So are you,” she smirked.

  I looked over to Becca who was sitting on a plush bean bag in the corner of the room aimlessly staring at the wall.

  “We’re not talking about it,” she said, still focused on the lavender walls.

  How did she know? She wasn’t even looking at me as I rolled my lips back and forth, trying to think of something useful to say, but I knew there was nothing I could say, not when she had to feel her way through everything that had just happened.

  “I wasn’t gonna say a thing,” I squeaked.

  She rolled her head in my direction and gave me an are you kidding me? face.

  “Shouldn’t that boyfriend of yours be home about now?” Becca questioned, refocusing the attention on me.

  “He said he’d message. It’s nine-thirty. He should have been home about half an hour ago,” I said as I flipped through a magazine.

  “I heard there was some after party at Linc and Reign’s House,” Brooks said as she pulled her body up into a sitting position. “He’s probably there.”

  “No, he said he hates those things and was coming straight home.”

  A sinking feeling churned my stomach, the same unease moving through me as I remembered Reign’s words, “We’ll see,” when Meekai had told her they would never happen. Her wink as the bus pulled away.

  “Umm, Radley?” Brooks said as she waved her phone at me. “Carrie, from the cheer squad just posted a video on Instagram.” Her voice was full of caution, like she was second-guessing having mentioned it.

  “You follow Carrie on Insta?” I laughed, ignoring her tone.

  “Long story,” she said. “Short version, she’s my lab partner.”

  “Awesome,” I replied, knowing that the answer for the unease was about to fall into my lap by way of Carrie fucking Mason’s Instagram account.

  “I think you should see this,” she said, holding her phone out towards me to take.

  I took it from her hand and closed my eyes for a second to gather myself, to hide the inward dread and try to tame it. I opened them again to find a photo of Carrie and some guy kissing.

  “What’s this got to do with me? Why would I wanna see her with some random’s tongue shoved down her throat?”

  “Sorry, go to her Insta stories.” She averted her eyes and pulled at a loose strand of thread on my comforter.

  I tapped on her stories and watched random people making out, a game of beer pong and some dude with one fuck away from chlamydia, written across his chest in what looked like black sharpie. It was just more of the same until I got to the last few stories.

  Meekai stood against a tree with a beer in his hand, that same mischievous smile on his face from earlier today. I shook my head, confused, not knowing what to look for. It skipped to the next story, and I watched as Reign Beckett walked over to Meekai, hips swaying, tiny jean shorts and a purple bralette which barely covered her. Her smile said one thing: you’re mine.

  There’s no way, I thought to myself. Becca could obviously see the look on my face because she asked Brooks what the hell she’d given me to look at.

  “Rads?” she asked with hesitation as I looked between what I was watching and her face. Realization hit, and her mouth dropped into a straight line.

  My eyes filled with red hot tears, and my heart felt like it stopped beating. I watched as Reign came to rest her shoulder against the tree, bumping into his shoulder, laughing, moving closer as her red lips leaned into his. The smile left his face, his eyes heated.

  I dropped the phone onto the wooden floorboards, the thunk echoing as it bounced. I ran to my bathroom and lifted the lid as I rushed to empty my stomach into the toilet.

  “Radley!” Becca yelled. She came to kneel beside me and pulled my hair back. My hands grasped onto the cold porcelain, painful howls trying to squeeze past the vomit as Becca demanded Brooks give her the cliffnotes to what I’d just seen.

  “Motherfucker!” she yelled. “I’ll fucking kill him myself.”

  She ran circles on my back as my body lurched forward again and again. My world destroyed in three fifteen-second Instagram stories, the evidence impossible to unsee. To refute. I ached; everything hurt. My heart hurt.

  Brooks walked into the bathroom and began to run a bath, squeezing in lavender bubble bath. She moved to grab a clean shirt and sleep shorts from my draw and set them on the basin.

  “I’m sure there’s an explanation,” Brooks tried to mediate. “You know how things have a way of looking like something when they’re nothing.” She tried to rattle off a level headed hypothesis meant to calm me as I wretched my devastation into a toilet bowl.

  “Not now,” Becca shot back. “Can you go grab a glass of lemonade from downstairs?”

  I heard Brooks say she’d back in a minute. Her footsteps moved quickly as they made their way down to the kitchen.

  I’d finally pulled myself out of the bathtub, no more tears left to cry as anger and disbelief took their place. I’d found my way to bed and was laying in between Brooks and Becca in my warm bed watching Harry Potter. No one spoke. We’d all had enough of today. It was eleven o’clock, and my body still hadn’t given up aching.

  “Who wants a hot chocolate?” Becca asked in her maternal sing-song that she got anytime I needed to be handled with care. I loved her madly.

  “I do,” Brooks answered. “How about I come and help? I’ll get some of Gamma’s sugar cookies. We’ll be back in a five, Rads.” She ran her hand gently through my long strands of hair.

  “I’ll be fine, but feel free to go talk about me amongst yourselves,” I told them dryly. They probably needed to go work out a game plan, a way to distract me and keep me away from sharp objects.

  “You know we shit talk you to your face. We don’t need to go behind your back,” Becca tried to joke. I couldn’t return a fake laugh to make her feel better, so she sighed and left the room.

  To be honest, I needed a minute. The energy that they were giving off, the desperation to fix me, to talk about what I might’ve seen, it wasn’t helping. I knew they wanted to sit and run through a million different conspiracy theories, all positive, all for my sake, but I just couldn’t do it.

  I’d held a finger up to my mouth and shushed Becca before the first word left her mouth. Hence why Harry played in the background, to distract me and to shut her up.

  I felt numb. I felt stupid. Used. Could Meekai have more connections to Adalita than I thought? Was this the ultimate set up? I thought back to the conversations, to the way he touched me, looked at me . . . The things we’d done.

  I covered my face with both hands and shook my head as I growled in anger. How could I be so fucking pathetic? After everything, you’d think I would’ve known how to spot a lie. Trust someone until you can’t.

  “Ugh, shut up, Mama! It’s all bullshit, all of it! You and your trust,” I scoffed. What did I do that was so bad to deserve something like this? It felt so real. I told him I loved him. I was such a silly girl. “So silly,” I whispered.

  My heart almost stopped when my phone rang. It was his ringtone. Wow. He really was a cocky fuck. He had to know I’d seen the videos, or at the least hear about what he did. I let the phone ring out. Then I opened the telephone settings and changed the ringtone back to its default setting. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to delete his number. I suppose the fool in me still hung onto Brooks’ theory. Sometimes things had a habit of looking like something they weren’t.

  As soon as I changed the ringtone, the cell rang again. I looked down at the screen, a picture of Meekai and me flashed across the screen, my head snuggled into his chest as he looked down at me. I saw the love, I did. I supposed I wasn’t so great at deciphering it, considering I’d never had it. Becca had sworn it was real. Brooks had said it even made her sick, and she trusted no one, but she said she trusted that he was the real deal. It looked like we were all wrong.

  I dropped the
phone face down on the bed and let it ring out again. I had no idea what to say, what to do, or how to react. I felt everything and nothing at all, almost like it didn’t surprise me.

  The lengths they’d gone to in Adalita . . . Why did I think thirteen hours would make a bit of difference? I was a chess piece. I was entertainment. I was his. I was a mistake.

  The phone rang and rang, not stopping for a beat. I didn’t silence it. I wanted to hear it. I wanted to feel it. I needed to feel it all so I could give Meekai the unedited version of myself, when I finally answered his call.

  Anger bred sloppy courage. It wasn’t clear-headed, but it was anger, nonetheless. I wasn’t picky, I just needed enough of it to stop the gushing girly part of me from believing the lies that would no doubt come.

  I picked up the phone and typed out a message. A rush of nausea hit.

  Me: I never want to see you again. Please stop calling. This thing, it’s over!

  The bubbles danced. They did the fucking Mexican wave. I watched, entranced. I supposed even he was having trouble coming up with his own lies.

  Meekai: Violet? What the hell is going on? Please, just pick up the phone.

  Becca and Brooks walked in with three mugs of cocoa and a plate of cookies. Their faces looked like they had more news to deliver. Awesome.

  “Why the long faces, compadres?” My tone was flat. They didn’t deserve my sarcasm, yet it didn’t seem to stop me. “I’m sorry,” I began, but Becca stopped me.

  “Meekai’s been calling both of our phones and sent messages, too. What do you want us to do?”

  “Can you give me your phone, Brooks?” I asked, reaching out my hand, palm up.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked as she handed it over.

  “Well, I’m not friends with Carrie Mason, and her Instagram account is private.”

  “Oh shit,” Becca whispered under her breath.

  I opened Brooks’ Instagram account and turned-on screen record. I tapped on Carrie’s Insta stories and quickly tapped through each one until I got to the main objective. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t see it again, once was enough. Once the background noise from the stories stopped, I opened my watery eyes and stopped screen record.

  I took in a stuttered breath and tried to push back the nausea as I opened up the camera roll and edited out the useless parts it had recorded, making sure to keep the section that solely involved Meekai and Reign. The room was silent, but I could feel the wordless exchanges between Becca and Brooks.

  “My mouth is dry,” I managed to get out. “Bec, I need a sip of cocoa. I feel dizzy, like my blood sugar dropped,” I told her.

  “Of course.” She reached for the mug and placed it in my hands. I took a sip and waited for the sugar to hit my blood stream. Immediate relief. “Thank you.”

  I picked up my phone and air-dropped the video from Brooks’ phone to mine. My phone vibrated in my hand letting me know I’d received it.

  “Thanks,” I said to Brooks. “Now, to finish this.”

  “Radley, you can’t even see them kiss,” Brooks reasoned. “It cut off right before anything happened. Someone had to know that was going to happen, to be prepared to film it. They freaking zoomed in like it was their mission.”

  “And yet he looked all too ready to participate,” I countered. “I’m so over the positive thinking, guys. I’m over making excuses for people, trying to make up scenario after scenario that doesn’t end with me being the butt of the joke. He visits Adalita, he knows Hardy. Meekai was payback. Hardy sent me a message, I received it. It is what it is.”

  “Numb won’t last forever, Rads,” Becca added. “Trust me. It’s a protective mechanism that helps for about ten minutes before everything we tried to ignore comes crashing down.”

  “Oh, I know,” I replied. “I’ve been doing it ever since I can remember. Not my first time at the rodeo. This time though, I’m responding. Before, I took it, shoved it deep down. I know reacting will feel good for those ten minutes until reality reminds me it was no help at all. Just humor me. I’ve never retaliated before. It’s a special moment,” I said with mock amusement.

  “Okay, cowgirl.” Becca smiled softly. “It’s your pain, do what you need to. We’ll be here.”

  “I have a handful of throwing stars, two pairs of brass knuckles, and a vile of chloroform,” Brooks said with a worryingly straight face. “I also have a telephone number. Give me the nod, and it’s yours.”

  Becca bent over into a fit of giggles, and I couldn’t help it, I followed right behind, struggling to breathe and get back into the game. I looked over to Brooks who wasn’t laughing.

  “Just nod,” she reiterated. And with that, all three of us were rolling around on the bed. “Seriously though, I totally have throwing stars.” She cackled.

  We all settled down, and once the room fell silent again, the gravity of the situation flooded back. My stomach flipped, and I thought of how cruel it was for things to change from perfect to awful within hours or seconds.

  I pulled up my messages and sent the video.

  Me: Lose my number. It’s over.

  I opened up my contacts and deleted him. It was done. I was done.

  Fuck you Hardy Breeland!

  THE END . . . Well almost.

  Acknowledgments

  To My Dearest Phylly. I lost you as I was finishing out this duet and it was a hard loss, one I’ll feel forever. You were the woman who encouraged me to read and fall in love with the power of words, and for that, I’ll be forever thankful. Rest in love. God knows you gave it to me in spades.

  Mum, thank you for being there when I need you to be, the person I want when no one else will do. We may be much the same but it doesn’t mean I love you any less. You gave me the strength to survive, you gave me the courage to move forward. I will love you forever and for always.

  Dad, the man who stood as the example, the man I mirrored the patient and loving Meekai off. You saved everything I ever wrote. You encouraged me to turn my poetry into a book. You instilled hope, God and love into this girl’s heart. You are the sunshine in the rain, the calm within the storm, my compass to sanity. I love you so much daddy bear.

  Eddie Vedder, you don’t know what you did but thank you for popping up that night in 93. For giving me the inspiration to mimic you and eventually grow into me. That night that I found you, I found myself.

  Elysha Brooks, where do I begin? You’ve been on this journey with me from almost the very beginning. You listened to my plot twists, my rage, my bitter anger, and my convictions. You listened to all the reasons why I wrote Meekai and Radley, you took them in as your own and made them real. You inspired me to push when I was being shoved, you made me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry. You helped get me here, to where I’m sitting in my bedroom typing out the acknowledgments section! I just showed you the cover to the first book about an hour ago, you got tears in your eyes . . . I feel like you’re in every memory I’ve ever had. Thank you for loving me through this. I love you beyond words potato head, my ultimate sloth queen.

  Cylaine Medina, Lainee Boo. God knew what He was doing when He gave me you. The girl who stormed into my life and threw herself into my arms, refusing to be anything less than a friend. And what a friend you’ve been. The voice of reason, the fiery Latina when I needed it. The protective soul who reached out for me when I tripped over my own insecurities. You Alpha read, you cried, you got angry. You laughed, you swore, you overused emojis to express yourself . . . you became my family. I love you endlessly.

  Amy Jackson . . . my literary Eddie Vedder, my mentor, and friend. Who knew I’d get to say that about a woman I’ve admired from afar, for years. You’re everything I hope to be. They say never meet your heroes. . . I met you and it forever changed me. Thank you for being generous, loving, selfless, a complete class act. You sing my soul.

  Diane Portman Ray, you are the friend I can be my most perverted with. You know how I tick, you get who I am, you love me anyway. Thank you fo
r your help, for the video calls, for your unfiltered love. Forever changed by you and blessed to call you my friend.

  Victoria Ashley, thank you for every message that you sent within the last stages of this duet. You gave me courage on countless occasions. You reminded me of my worth and my right to be respected, no matter how small or unknown. I admire you so very much.

  Shanjida Nusrath Ali, my son . . . Thank you for every message you’ve answered. There were a lot, let’s be real! Nothing was ever too much, no question ridiculous. You dotted my i’s and crossed my T’s. Forever grateful to call you, my friend. Love you.

  Debbie Cromack, my confidant, my counsellor. Thank you for your endless support and generosity. Your positivity has made such an impact on my life, I don’t feel there’s a thing I can’t come to you with. You’re a safe place, a lifetime type friend. Thank God, He put you right where you needed to be.

  Sue Sachse, dickweed. Thank you for every check-in, for every laugh and every weird nickname you’ve given me. Your love and enduring kindness has meant the world to me, often when I had little in my world. Love you girl!

  Ashlee Rose, thank you for your check-ins, for the love and support you’ve shown. You deserve the world and I can’t wait to watch you hold it in your hands.

  Andrea Hopkins, thank you for being so fuckin ugly, hilarious and unashamedly you. Fuck I love you, like sooo hard! #BLUEBALLZ

  Kristen Granata, thank you for being the glue to hold this community together, for giving so much of yourself to help others. You soldier the front line for mental health. You say all the things we wished we could say. You’re our voice, thank you for helping us be heard.

  Marissa Gramoll, you came in last minute and gave me the confidence I needed. We’re kindred spirits. In you, I see so much of myself. Thank you for giving me a part of you.

  Dana Gallie, thank you for putting on your teacher pants. Thank you for Googling on my behalf and working out all the answers to my formatting questions for me. I was too psychotic, so you told me to drink some wine. I’ll never forget that.