Page 85 of Molly: Part One
I watch Susan’s eyebrows rise, she knows what has happened between us in the last few months and she looks as worried as I feel.
“Oh, well I hope it goes okay. I know you miss her.” Just as she says that I see Emma walking around the front of the shop and entering. “I’ll get your coffee’s and bring them over.” Susan says as she spots her daughter.
“Thank you.” I head off towards our usual booth.
“Hi angel, good day?” I hear Susan ask Emma.
“Yeah, not bad.” Emma leans over and gives her mum a kiss on the cheek before heading towards me.
She sits down opposite me and we just stare at each other for a few seconds as if we are both trying to form what we want to say.
“Emma I…” I say trying to break the silence but I still have no idea where to start. I am more than grateful when she interrupts me.
“Molly, no. Please let me speak, I need to get this out.” She let’s out a big breath before looking down at her hands resting on the table, composing herself before she looks back up at me. “Molly, I’m really sorry. I’ve been completely out of order. I know it’s not an excuse but this year has been so hard for me, I feel like I’ve lost the other half of me and my head has been a total mess. I mean it still is but I’ve been working through things and trying to get everything sorted in my head. I know that I jumped off the deep end with my reaction to thinking there was something going on between you and Ryan but I just felt like you’d forgotten about Hannah. At one point I thought maybe you guys felt like she was in the way when she was here and you’ve always wanted each other.”
I go to say something but she stops me by continuing.
“I know that’s not true, I know some of my feelings have been completely irrational. I know that you both loved her and have spent this year dealing with losing her in your own ways, the same as me. You both seemed to have dealt with it so well. I’ve been so jealous that while you two got on with your lives I’ve completely fallen apart.
“Now, I don’t know what has been going on between you and Ryan recently but I do know that I was jumping to conclusions before that. Ryan came to see me the day his granddad died and explained everything to me. I didn’t want to hear it but he made me and although it’s still taken me a while to get my head together I do stick by what I said to him that day. I told him that I love you both and want you to be happy, and if you decide something is going to happen between you then I will always support you but it may take me sometime to get used to the idea.”
Wow, I so did not see that coming.
“Molly I miss you so much and I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to get everything together, but if you’ll have me, I want to try to go back to how we used to be. Friends?”
I scoot out from my side of the booth to join Emma on her side. When I get there I throw my arms around her shoulders pulling her in for a hug.
“I’m sorry too Emma, I said some awful things that I didn’t mean. I know I should have come to talk to you about the situation with Ryan but you’ve been so damn hard to get hold of.”
I feel her nod against my shoulder. I pull back and look at her seeing tears are shining in her eyes, just like they are in mine.
“So, leaving out any details I’m not going to be able to cope with, what’s happened between you two since I spoke to him?”
“I’m in love with him Emma,” I blurt out. I wasn’t intending on telling her that but I couldn’t keep it in. “Shit, I wasn’t going to say that it just fell out. I only figured this out the other night and it’s confusing the fuck out of me.”
“Have you told him?”
“No, not yet.”
“I think you should,” she says with a knowing smile.
“Why are you looking at me like that? What else did he tell you?”
“It’s not for me to say, Molly.”
“He told you he loved me too, didn’t he?”
“He’s told you?”
“Uh, well sort of. He came down to check on me after my last date with Adam, he thought I was asleep when he told me. Obviously I wasn’t!”
“Oh well, seeing as you already know I won’t feel so bad telling you that when he came to see me in the summer he blurted it out to me a little like you just did. So are you saying still nothing has happened between you?”
I go on to explain everything that she has missed out on. I tell her about Adam, Holly, Jax and Abbi. About Ryan avoiding me for what felt like forever and then about this last week, leaving out any details she won’t want to hear. She listens as I explain everything to her about my reasons for holding off with him for so long, I just put it all out there.
“Molly, I never in a million years thought I would ever say this but I think you should go for it. From what you have said I don’t think you need to worry about losing your best friend, I think you need to be excited about gaining an awesome boyfriend because from what you have said he sounds pretty perfect for you and head over heals in love with you. Put the poor boy out of his misery Molls.”
We end up sitting there chatting for so long that Susan brings us some food over. It’s almost nine before we say our goodbyes and both head home.
