Trust me, my love

by Emma Quinn

  “Hey, you guys know where Roger and Emily are?” Bad scenarios about wrecks and hospitalizations were running through my mind at that point. I was getting more worried by the minute.

  They exchanged a look and moved aside so others could pass by. The first guy looked at me. “You didn’t hear? You’re the big boss’ son, right?”

  “Yes, I am, and no, I didn’t hear. Hear what?” My heart thudded heavily with worry and dread.

  He shook his head and looked troubled. “They got fired Thursday night. No warning, no write-ups, no nothing. Just fired. Mr. Rochester came in here and did the firing himself.”

  The second guy gave me a bewildering look that was a mixture of anger and resentment. My chest was aching. There was only one reason why Father would have fired them that I could think of, but I had to ask.

  “Why did he fire them?” I swallowed over a dry lump in my throat.

  The second wasted no time. “Because of you. Because you got them to cover for you is what I heard.” He nodded at Guy Number One. “Right, Charlie?”

  Charlie nodded. “That’s what we all heard. Damn shame, too. Roger was the best boss we’d ever had.” He nudged his friend’s elbow and they walked away.

  Without a second thought, I left. I didn’t bother clocking out or calling my father for permission, either. This had to be settled immediately.

  I drove to Emily’s school, quite lost on the large campus, and parked in a visitor lot. I found a safety patrolman and asked him how I would find a student. He directed me to the office—on the other side of the campus.

  Dialing Emily’s phone, I was met with a declined call. I called again, and the same thing happened. She didn’t want to talk to me. Now I knew why she had stopped texting me Thursday evening. She probably hated me.

  The office wouldn’t give me Emily’s location. When I asked where the building was located that she was having class in, the woman shook her head at me.

  “I’m sorry, sir. You can’t just come in and demand a student’s whereabouts. You need to leave unless you have business here.” Her scowl said that she would have no problem calling security on me.

  I agreed, apologized, and left the building. I walked the campus until I found Emily’s building and I waited outside. It was her last class of the day unless her schedule had changed recently.

  My heart skipped when I spotted her coming down the steps. There was no denying I was in love with her. My whole world brightened the moment we made eye contact. Everything seemed worthwhile again.

  She dragged her gaze away and turned in the opposite direction, staying in the little crowd as she walked.

  “Emily! Emily, wait!” I ran, elbowing my way through until I reached her.

  She jerked her elbow from my hand and shot me a look filled with such pain and disappointment that it stopped me in my tracks.

  “I have nothing to say to you, Dylan. Leave me alone or I will yell for security.” Tears shimmered in her eyes as she stormed away.

  Again, I raced to catch up with her. “Emily, please, hear me out. Please.” I would have jumped in front of her and went to my knees to beg at that moment. Right in front of everyone. I didn’t care. All that mattered was that I get to explain things to her and make sure we were all right again.

  Stopping, she looked up at me with those shimmery doe eyes, and I melted. She swiped her unshed tears away and her bottom lip quivered.

  No, I thought, don’t do that. I don’t think I can handle you crying because of me.

  It was easy to imagine the lengths a man would go to for the love of a woman like Emily. Right then I was sure many a war had been fought for the favor of women like her. See, men get a little goofy when they fall in love. We don’t mean to do it, it’s just in our genes. We’re all fierce and tough and macho until a woman snatches our hearts. Then we turn into big lumps of needy, clingy goo. It’s embarrassing sometimes, but only after the fact. In the heat of the moment, we don’t care how others see us or how ridiculous we seem. All that matters is the woman in our sights.

  “Will you go away if I listen to you?” She squared her shoulders and leveled a grade A poker face at me.

  I nodded. “Yes, if you still want me to.”

  She turned and looked around, pointed to a picnic table under a big oak tree, and started walking. Like a puppy who had been scolded, I followed with hope building in my heart. If she was willing to hear me out, she didn’t hate me.

  Thumping her books to the table, she sat and averted her gaze. “So, spill. What is it that’s so important you had to come interrupt my studies to say?”

  I leaped into the story of going to my mother’s house and meeting her. I told her how Mother was engaged, and that I had also met her husband-to-be, and many of my family members. I told her about the engagement party and how happy everybody seemed to be. It was the polar opposite of being with my father, that’s for sure. Where there was coldness and anger with Father, there was warmth, love, and acceptance with Mother.

  “Two totally different worlds. I wish you could have been with me, Em. I would have loved for you to meet Mother.” I reached over the table and laid my hand tentatively over hers.

  She stiffened and pulled her hand back immediately. “Yeah? That all sounds lovely. Is it another one of your elaborate lies?”

  Taken aback, I gawked at her. “No, Emily. I’ve not lied to you. I wouldn’t lie to you. Ever.”

  She snorted laughter and looked disgusted. “Really? Then what’s with all the pictures of you with those sexy, slinky, bombshells? Drinking champagne, dancing, laughing, really mugging it up for the camera and then posting it all over your social media. Did you really think I wouldn’t find them? That I wouldn’t find out about you?” Her face looked as if she had just smelled something rotten.

  “What? No!” I pulled out my phone and opened the pictures app. “Here, you can look through all of them. I was going to show you all of them anyway. I even have some video clips of all of us. Those pictures were taken at Mom’s engagement party, Em. I swear to you that those girls were all related to me. Every last one of them. Cousins. I can prove it to you.” I pushed the phone between her hands, motioning for her to peruse the photos. I had nothing to hide from her.

  “Cousins?” She looked doubtfully between me and the phone.

  “Cousins. Most of them are from my mother’s family, but a few are from Dad’s side. You’d never guess they were related to him, though.” I chuckled.

  Emily swiped through some of the pictures, and her expression changed to something softer, and the look in her eyes morphed from anger and pain into hope. She slid the phone back to me.

  “You have a lot of female cousins.” She cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “You can’t hold that against me. We don’t get to choose our families, you know.” I opened a video and turned it to her. “The four guys in the background are cousins, too, if that helps. This was after the party.” I let the video play in which the girls were wishing my mother good luck with the marriage and sharing a bit about the family, funny anecdotes and stories and such.

  After the video, she looked wide-eyed at me. “You’re telling the truth.”

  “Well, don’t sound like that’s something new and unexpected. I told you I never lied to you, Emily.” I wanted to tell her that I loved her, but the timing wasn’t right. She might think I was only saying it to get back on her good side.

  Within minutes, we were sitting side by side, my arm draped over her shoulders. I showed her more videos and talked her through what was going on and who the people were. After, she looked up at me worriedly.

  “Hey,” I said, “don’t worry about your job, or your father’s. I won’t allow either of you to be fired. You both come to the offices tomorrow at one. I’ll talk to my father on your behalf and straighten this out.” I kissed her temple and felt the tension release from her shoulders. It was nice to feel that. She had found it in her heart to trust me again. I liked being the reason she relaxed
and some of her worry faded.

  “Will he listen? I mean, after…” She pointed to the phone. “Those pictures are what brought it all out. Someone in the office saw them and told Mr. Rochester about them. When he saw them, he was fit to be tied.”

  Nodding, I pulled her close. “Let me worry about the old man. It’s time he let some of the anger and resentment from the past go. It’s also time for him to realize that I am my own man, and that I can make my own decisions.” I buried my face in her hair. “That’s because of you, Emily. Thank you for encouraging me to go see Mom. You have no idea how much it has helped me.”

  14

  Emily

  D

  addy was skeptical when I told him that Dylan was going to get our jobs back. I was thrilled, but I didn’t let Daddy see that. I was worried that it would be a let down if Dylan couldn’t get our jobs back. Or worse, what if he didn’t try? That induced and anxiety that gnawed at my gut. I argued with myself over it. Would he have really gone through the trouble of running me down and pleading with me to hear him out if he was just stringing me along? It seemed like a lot of work just to keep telling me lies.

  Still, I couldn’t quite let it go. In the end, Daddy agreed to accompany me to the Rochester Industries’ office building the next day. I think perhaps he simply wanted to be there for me to offer moral support in case Dylan didn’t do as he had promised.

  Even though I had declared that I was finished with Dylan Rochester for good, apparently my heart wasn’t finished with him.

  Despite my feelings, I didn’t reunite romantically with Dylan right away. There was simply too much going on. If nowhere else, in my mind and heart. I had been devastated, my heart ripped out, when I had seen those pictures and heard the stories from Mr. Rochester. A thing like that isn’t easily overcome. An apology and some explanations didn’t cure it immediately, and I was still wary of trusting him completely again.

  I made sure Dylan understood that before we parted ways at school, too. I told him I was working it all out in my head, and I needed some time. I thought he would protest immediately, but he gave me a sad smile and nodded his agreement.

  We didn’t text that night, and I barely slept. I hadn’t slept much at all since Thursday night. Even though I was exhausted, I couldn’t rest. I tossed and turned, flipped the cover off me only to drag it back over me minutes later. I repeated this over and over until I must have completely worn myself out. I fell asleep about an hour before my alarm sounded.

  Starting my day groggy and muzzy headed, I plodded through my classes and didn’t get fully awake until it was time to go to the office building. It was a much longer drive than the warehouse, so Daddy and I left early, anticipating heavy traffic during the lunch hour. We had not been wrong. Traffic was nine kinds of crazy, and the stop-and-go stressed me out even more.

  At the building, we looked at each other worriedly.

  “Hey, look on the bright side, if he doesn’t get our jobs back, we’re not losing anything—Mr. Rochester already fired us.” Daddy laughed, trying to sound lighthearted about the whole thing, but I could see and sense his apprehension as we headed for the entrance.

  Dylan greeted us with a huge smile and bright eyes. I was glad he had apparently slept better than I had.

  He spent a moment apologizing to Daddy and assuring him that it would be put right within a few minutes, and then he led us to the elevator.

  “There are some chairs in the corridor where you two can sit and wait while I talk to him. He hasn’t been in all that long today again. He’s been taking care of some business at another warehouse and with another client, so he’s been super busy. I promise this won’t take long thought.” He showed us to the seats and then disappeared into the office a few feet away.

  The door closed, and I turned to Daddy. “I hope he’s right. I hope his father listens to him and understands.”

  Daddy clasped his hands in his lap and looked to the blank wall in front of us. “Me, too, honey. Me, too.” His voice was quiet.

  Suddenly, there was a loud thump and raised, male voices from the office. The volume of the argument rose until we could hear every word. A few workers stood and peeked over their cubicle walls with quizzical and worried looks.

  I heard Dylan exclaim, “It was Mother’s party I went to. That’s where the pictures are from! Are you listening to nothing I’m saying? She is my mother and I will see her even though you seem set to keep me from her.” There was a pause, a muttered reply in an angry, clipped tone, and then Dylan said, “No! You absolutely will not rule me like that anymore. She will always be my mother and there’s nothing you can do to stop me seeing her!”

  There were more angry words from Mr. Rochester, but they had become unintelligible as he had lowered his voice just enough to keep us from hearing them.

  There was another loud thump and then an alarming crash that caused me and Daddy to jump simultaneously from our seats. I spun to look at the doorway, my hand over my mouth to stifle the yelp of surprise.

  Shuffling came from the room and then Dylan yelled, “Help! Somebody help! It’s Dad!”

  I never hesitated. I don’t remember making a decision, I was simply inside the office. Mr. Rochester was on the floor by his chair.

  “What happened,” I asked Dylan as I knelt by his father. The right side of his face drooped badly.

  “He, he, he just exploded in a rage and threw that letter holder at me. I dodged and when I turned back to confront him, he crumpled to the floor. Oh, god! What’s wrong with him?”

  I shook my head and asked Mr. Rochester to state his name. A mumbled garb of syllables came out and he grasped at my shirt with his left hand. I asked him if he could tell me his name again, and again, he spewed the garbled syllables that sounded nothing like his name. He could not grip my fingers with his right hand at all. His right side was useless.

  “He’s had a stroke. Call an ambulance immediately!” I didn’t look at Dylan, I kept my attention on Mr. Rochester.

  “He said he had a headache and didn’t feel like dealing with me right now. God, did I cause this?” Dylan was terrified.

  “No, no. Was he complaining with any other symptoms?” I looked over my shoulder at Dylan. “Think. How was he acting?”

  Shaking his head, Dylan sputtered, “He kept rubbing the right side of his face and he was pale. I saw him make a fist a couple times with his right hand just before he stood up. That’s all I can think of right now. Is he going to be all right, Emily?”

  I didn’t answer, just turned back to the fallen man. I really didn’t know, and I was afraid to say anything. I checked his pulse and breathing. His respiratory rate was slowing and so was his pulse. He mumbled something to me as if pleading, and he grasped weakly at my hand.

  Understanding that he was scared, I held his hand. “Mr. Rochester, an ambulance is on its way. You’ve suffered a stroke, but you’re okay. The ambulance will take you to the hospital. Okay?”

  He must have understood my words because he moaned a reply and squeezed my hand a bit harder. I took off my light jacket and placed it under his head. “I’ll stay right here until help comes. If you can, I need you to remain awake for me until then. Can you do that, Mr. Rochester?”

  The same moaned reply. His gaze never left my face. It was the face of a terrified and hurt child asking, pleading for help. My heart broke a little, but I knew I had to stay strong.

  “Dylan, if you could?” I motioned for him to come closer so his father could see him. “See, Mr. Rochester, Dylan’s here, too. We’re right here for you, sir.” I patted his hand and rubbed my hand gently over his hair as I smiled reassuringly at him.

  Dylan fought tears. “Dad, I’m right here. Don’t you worry about any of this, okay? You just relax and do as Emily asks. I love you, Dad.” The tears fell then.

  Mr. Rochester muttered unintelligibly, and Dylan moved back out of his line of sight to gather himself. Daddy stood behind him and put a calming hand on his shoulder. “It�
�ll be all right, son. Your father will be fine.”

  I turned back to Mr. Rochester. “Is anything hurting?”

  A tear slipped from his eye. I wiped it away for him. He pulled his hand free and pointed to his head as more tears fell.

  “Your head hurts. Okay, sweetie. The medics will be right here. I’ll let them know and they can give you something to help. Okay?”

  The medics rushed down the hall toward the office. I could hear them ordering people out of their way.

  “Dylan, move the chairs over there and push his desk aside so they have room to work.” I held to Mr. Rochester’s hand. “They’re here, Mr. Rochester. You’re going to be okay.” My heart sank as I realized he had gone unconscious.

  As the medics entered, I moved aside. I gave them all the information quickly and in the order I knew they would ask. I had seen the forms they had to fill out, and it came easily to my memory. Within minutes, they had Mr. Rochester loaded onto the trolley and ready for transport.

  Still unconscious, Mr. Rochester was loaded into the ambulance. The warbling siren sent waves of anxiety through me. I hoped against hope that he would be all right. I hoped I hadn’t lied to him or given Dylan false hope. False hope is worse than no hope at all.

  Daddy drove us to the hospital. Dylan was inconsolable as he asked the same questions repeatedly. He twisted his hands together until I was certain they would be raw. Thankfully, some of the lunch traffic had thinned and following the ambulance’s route was not as difficult as I had feared it would be.

  Trying to ease Dylan’s mind while still reminding him of the direness of the situation was emotionally draining. I finally got him to talk about how his dad had been acting over the last weeks.

  He had apparently been drinking more than usual, extremely stressed over some business deals, and not to mention terribly upset by Dylan’s defiance.