by Gabi Moore
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
My ears were ringing.
“You left. I trusted you and you left. And then my dad left, too. I had nobody Felix. I trusted you and you left me to rot,” she said, still speaking to the floor.
“Emily, I’ve told you a million times that I’ve regretted that day ever since, you know I have. But what do you want me to do? You can’t blame me for everything that happened afterwards…”
“But I do.”
I took a deep breath and tried to think clearly.
“Then let me do something to help you. Then forgive me. Then let’s move on. Let’s fix this.”
“You can’t.”
“Emily, you have so many options, you don’t have to do business with that guy, for fucks’ sake, he’s just taking advantage, you’re so much better than this.”
“Am I? Or maybe this is who I am now.”
I was getting sick of this conversation and fast.
“I may have made some mistakes in my past, but I’m here, aren’t I? I’m here right now, trying to put it right.”
She said nothing. I couldn’t believe it. This was really happening? Of all the possible scenarios I had played out in my head all those long, lonely Mars nights, I had to admit that this was one I had never dreamed of. The Emily I knew used to be feisty. And principled. She could put a bully in his place with one look and wasn’t ever afraid to speak her mind. And though I hated to see her so compromised, I was mad that she was putting it all on me.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to ignore me?”
I stood up and made for the door. She didn’t budge.
“You know what Emily? I’m going to tell you something honestly here. This whole video thing of yours? The ‘town slut’ stuff? I don’t think that’s your real problem. In fact, I think you’re just using shit that happened five years ago as an excuse. Nobody even remembers any of that. Nobody cares anymore. You’re stuck in the past, Em. And as long as you don’t forgive yourself – and me! – then assholes like Buck are going to keep swarming around trying to take what they can from you. I’m done begging you to trust me again. But please Em, please don’t do something you’ll regret.”
My little speech had fallen on deaf ears. I spun on my heel and turned to leave, but then she straightened up and said, “you mean, sleep with him? Why don’t you just say that, that you’re jealous and you don’t want me to sleep with him?” she said. The look on her face shook me to the core. She was challenging me. Trying to hurt me. I said nothing, but just as I was about to leave I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pink envelope. I threw it down to the ground and it went flitting from side to side before landing in the spilt coffee. She watched it float down but said nothing.
“Goodbye, Emily,” I said, and left.
Chapter 12 - Emily
Being mad at Felix was hard. But every time I tried to call him or open his letter, I found that that was even harder. I don’t know when things got so messy. It seems like my life only ever comes in big, dramatic moments mixed in with long, sad stretches where nothing happens at all. The big joke, of course, was that Felix was right. I wasn’t the ‘town slut’. Truth be told, I wouldn’t even know what that looked like.
But something about Buck’s offer had an appeal to it… he was a coarse, nasty idiot who had shown me how little he thought of me again and again. And yet, doing something as shameful as sleeping with him for money seemed like the more natural choice for me. Hadn’t I been cocooned up in shame for so long? Buck knew what I was capable of. He had seen me. He knew. And Felix didn’t. Maybe Felix got his brain fried up there somehow, after his accident, and now he couldn’t bare but to think of me as anything other than a perfectly pure little princess, just as he left me.
The whole thing was fucked up. And I was beyond tired. I wanted to stop stressing about money. I wanted a holiday. I wanted to go far, far away from here and start fresh and never look back. But since that wasn’t an option for me, why not go for the next best thing and take Buck up on his stupid offer? After all, I’d already done the deed, hadn’t I? It’s not like I had any reputation to save. How much of a crime could it be, when the worst was already over, in a way?
These were the kind of thoughts spinning around my head as I closed my front door behind me and stole into the night. Buck’s place was just a quick drive away. I froze with my hand on the car door, thinking about wat I was about to do. Even in the darkness I could see the pink envelope sitting happily on the passenger seat of the car, unopened. I hadn’t had the heart to. Maybe I was afraid of my mind being changed.
I climbed inside and started the engine, ignoring the letter. This would be over before I knew it. Not like it mattered, but I didn’t actually remember anything from that night. I don’t remember smiling. Saying the things I did. I don’t even really remember Buck. I pulled off and drove slowly, not wanting to rush my fate. The night was colder than usual. We hadn’t had a dust storm in at least a week, and things had gone a little quiet, just the way they usually did before another one hit. But people had long ago stopped trying to predict the weather. I could understand that. Sometimes not knowing is just better anyway.
I drove silently through the night, the pink letter reflecting in the windscreen, tempting me. I would just be in and out, as it were. He said I had to fuck him, not enjoy it. He knew I was being coerced, and he didn’t care. But there was no way in hell I was going to do any more than I needed to.
As I got closer though, I wondered if I was losing my nerve. Then I saw it: was that Felix’s sister’s house? I slowed down to take a good look. I had forgotten her name – Christine? – but I could vaguely remember visiting him there once years ago. Felix had been super secretive about where he was staying, but I was pretty sure I recognized those steps. That front door. Fancy that. It would have been a sign, if I believed in that kind of thing. I crawled past the house, but saw nothing but a few lit rooms, and a car parked out front. I don’t know what I was expecting.
I drove on but then saw an open parking spot, pulled over and hung my head on the steering wheel, trying to calm my breath. It was just a business transaction. No big deal. The sooner I got it over with the better. I peered over at the playful pink paper and snatched it, tearing the envelope open. It was a letter just like all the others he had given me every morning at the bakery. The same loopy, casual handwriting with the tail of the letter Y stabbing straight down. The same smiley faces peppered throughout, the same smell of the same light blue ink.
Hey Em
You’ll be glad to hear that the performance review yesterday went REALLY REALLY well. Turns out, I’ve managed not to blow the place up yet and I think they’ll let me stay ;) Andrew K. says that if I play my cards right I’ll have my own team by the end of the year, isn’t that awesome? But then again, you know better than anyone how much I suck at cards…
I think about you all the time. I see all these weird little things and I keep wishing you were here, just so I could see how you’d react to them. There’s some cool stuff here, but it would be much cooler with you around. And you could show some of these guys a thing or two about growing plants, I promise you that!
Anyway, just a short one from me today. It’s super late here and I have to get up at 5 tomorrow morning (eeeeek!) so wherever you are right now, spare a thought for me. Stay warm and happy.
I love you
Felix
I quickly folded it back up again and slid it into the envelope. Wherever you are right now, spare a thought for me. I took a deep breath and started up the engine again, then swung the wheel right round so I was driving the other way. What the hell, why not? Just because I had broken the guy’s heart and fired him on top of it, didn’t mean we had to end on such a sour note.
It took me only a minute to double back and find the familiar house again. I parked in the street, turned off the engine and sat alone in my silence. It took me a few minutes just to calm my g
alloping heart. I shoved the letter under the seat, tried to wipe away any evidence of tears from my eyes and stepped out of the car. The doorbell was the same as I remembered it. I had visited Felix here one Christmas, when his sister had just bought this house. When I pressed the buzzer, I found that I remembered the rusty jangling sound it made, too.
I felt like I waited there for an eternity. But eventually, a woman opened the door.
“Emily?”
Her eyes were kind and her hair fell in soft, easy waves all over her face. She was wearing slippers and sweatpants, but still had on the kind of blouse you’d wear to an office. Claire, her name was Claire. I remembered now.
“I know this is going to sound strange, but is …is Felix in?” I asked.
She looked confused for a moment, then ushered me quickly inside, where two curious toddlers had appeared behind her legs somehow and were now peering at me with interest. She shut the door and looked as though she was thinking of something appropriate to say. But in the end, she just gave me a warm smile and shooed the kids off.
“He’s downstairs in the basement. I’ll go and get him for you,” she said, her eyes moving madly all over my face like she was trying to figure something out. Yes, it was another part of my burden. Woman had seen the video too. They had hated me extra for it, actually. I could recognize that look, that expression that told you they saw your very existence as a threat to them, their lives, their men. I smiled politely and all at once I saw him come up the stairs.
“Emily.” His eyes went wide and he froze mid-step.
“I’ll leave you two to chat, shall I?” Claire said breezily, grabbed both kids and disappeared off to another room.
We both stood there, me no more sure of what I was doing there than he was. He seemed tired.
“You want a drink?” he asked. I shook my head. He was wearing loose track pants and one of those irresistible cotton shirts of his, the kind that always seemed to pull and cling at just the right places. I don’t know if it was just me, but at that moment I was struck by just how good looking he really was.
“I came here to apologize,” I said.
“Let’s go sit outside,” he said, and swung open the door again. I followed him outside and crunched behind him on the driveway gravel, and through a little wooden gate. It was dark and I could make out little else beside the moon above and the faint grey of his t shirt as he walked ahead of me. He turned around and invited me to sit on a small wooden swing. My eyes adjusted to the light. He seemed so much more vulnerable now, with his track pants and without his usual optimism, here in the dark in some suburban mom’s back garden.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t treated you very well since you came back,” I said, watching my voice turn to white plumes in the cold night air. He nodded but said nothing. My phone bleeped loudly and its screen seemed obnoxiously bright in the dark. It was a message from Buck asking where the hell I was.
“Is that…?”
“Buck. Yes. I was heading over there right now.”
I could almost feel his muscles stiffening and then relaxing against the wooden swing chair.
“So why did you come around here?” he said. His voice sounded defeated.
“Because I …because I had to tell you that,” I didn’t know why it was so hard to say. “Even though I’m doing this, even though I’m about to go and see him and give up everything to save that goddam bakery, I still wanted you to know that I still care about you. I never could say it before. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I was so mean to you. But I’ve always cared about you Felix. Always. I thought about you every day you were gone. And now that you’re back …I just …I feel so ashamed of everything that happened. I never thought I’d see you again. I never realized how much I hated my life until I saw how good it could be when you were in it again.”
I was beginning to feel just how cold it was out here. As though reading my mind, he shifted up closer towards me and just let the side of his body press up against mine.
“I don’t know why I’m here. I’m probably bothering you. It was stupid of me to fire you. But you know the bakery couldn’t handle another employee. I don’t have anything to offer you, you know that. But you were right. I’m just a big scaredy cat. It feels like the whole world just stopped making sense after you went away.”
“I’m here now,” he said. And that was all he said. His voice sounded tired, but not unkind. I was amazed that after everything, he was still even talking to me.
My phone pinged again when I failed to answer the first message. He looked over at me, and in the darkness I could just make out his facial features. He wasn’t angry. In fact, there was something gentle there, something soft but deeply persistent.
“Are you sure you really want to do this?”
I felt glued to the seat.
“I’m sure I really don’t want to do this. But I’ve made my bed and now I have to sleep in it.”
“But what do you really want?”
It was a good few breaths before I could answer him. The answer was: I wanted him. I wanted to wind back time and be with him again, before things took the turn they did. I wanted nothing but his sweet, soft, perfect lips on mine every single day, and I wanted his body, and I wanted that beautiful way I could feel the breath moving in and out of him when I had my arms around his chest, and I wanted to never, ever stop hearing his lame jokes.
“Honestly, Felix? I want to just run away. I want to go someplace nice and start again. I want to plant a garden. I want to bake. I want to sit on the porch and read in the sun.”
“With me?”
The question made my hairs prickle up more than the cold did. It was now or never. I had to say it. I had to be honest with him, at least once, at least now that I was busy heading off to exchange the last shred of my dignity for money to save the bakery…
“Felix, I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
The night itself seemed to lean in and quieten down to eavesdrop on us both.
“You were the best thing to ever happen to me, Felix. I was an idiot to blame you for all the shit that happened afterwards. I just missed you. I just wish we could go somewhere, you and I, and just get away from all of this, once and for all…”
“Do you mean it, Em? You really …love me?”
“Of course I mean it.”
“Then let’s do it.”
I laughed drily.
“What?”
“Let’s do it. Let me take you away somewhere, you can plant a garden and bake and do all of that.”
“Ok. Yeah, sure. Are you going to go and sleep with Buck then? The bakery barely has another month left in it, Felix…”
“Forget about all that. Just don’t go and see him. You don’t have to.”
“But--”
“After the accident the mission gave me a massive injury compensation, and I have a fat state military pension. It’s a lot of money, Em. And they’ll give me business loan whenever I want one. We can use it to bail out the bakery, or let fuckface have it and we’ll do something else with our lives.”
I was stunned. Money?
“But …but then why are you staying with your sister? Why are you working at my horrible little hole of a bakery then? I don’t understand.”
“They take time to process these things. And yeah, I confess, I never told you about it. If you thought I didn’t really need the job, you would never have given it to me, right? Anyway, I had to find a way to spend time with you again. You were my priority.”
My mind skipped and hiccupped over itself. I saw a brief window of light opening up in front of me, but I was almost too afraid to trust it.
“All this time…”
“I didn’t want you to think I was …I knew you were having trouble with the bakery, Em. I knew how proud you were, how headstrong. I didn’t want you to think I was …manipulating you. I didn’t want that to complicate things. I wanted to know if you still cared …just for me, as I am. Mauled leg and all.”
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“Felix, your leg is wonderful! It’s not mauled,” I protested.
Somehow the protests melted into tears and all at once he was in my arms. In the darkness I couldn’t make out his form, but I felt it easily enough, and as I crumpled into his warm chest and let his arms wrap round me, I felt like a noose had been lifted off my neck.
“You really mean it, Felix? You’ll help me out with the bakery?” I said through sobs.
“On one condition” he said and pulled back. I froze. Then, with his signature goofy grin, he looked at me and scrambled down onto one knee, right there in the darkness, right there on the damp ground.
“Knowing that one day I could have a second chance at making you happy again has kept me going all these years, Em. Will you say yes now? Say yes and let’s walk away from all of it. Let’s leave the past where it is and go have an adventure together.”
I squealed with laughter.
“Get up off the wet ground, you big idiot, you’ll catch a cold,” I said, and pulled him to his feet. We landed squarely on one another’s lips, and as I fell into a deep, slow kiss with him, something inside me began singing.
“Yes. Yes, I will marry you. Of course I will.” I wanted to say more but was lost in a flurry of kisses and tears, all my resistance melting and eventually with it the need to explain anything further.
We sat out there for ages. I started to feel my hands growing cold and clammy as we snuggled together and whispered excitedly about the future. I didn’t want to go back inside the house. I didn’t want to ever leave this cold wooden bench, if it meant ending this peaceful moment with him.
It was the cheesiest, gooiest, over-the-top romantic-est moment of my life. It was utterly ridiculous. And yet it happened. A few months ago, I had not felt worthy of even the simplest kindness. And now, I was swimming in something warm, something so happy and sweet and blissful.
As we sat and talked and talked, and held one another and kissed and talked some more, I realized all at once: I no longer felt ashamed.
