Page 17 of Anything for You
“God, Ems. I’m so fucking sorry.” I cringe a little at my words, because could I possibly say anything more trite? But unused to being in this position, it’s the best I can come up with. And I am sorry. I am so damn sorry because she doesn’t deserve that. No one does, but least of all her. The person who takes care of everyone and always knows what everyone needs. I wonder for the first time who takes care of her. I’m also ashamed of myself because while she was telling her story, for a second I found myself thinking,at least you had parents, and how fucked up is that?
Emma studies me. “It’s okay, you know.”
“What is?”
“To think I’m lucky to have had parents who would build blanket forts and watch movies with me on a Friday night. I was lucky.”
I can actually feel my face heating with embarrassment, an emotion I don’t often feel. “No. I wasn’t…I mean I’m not…Fuck,” I mutter. “How did you know?” That’s some seriously spooky shit.
She shrugs a shoulder. “I feel things. I always have.”
I don’t know what that means, but I feel like too much of an idiot to ask. What kind of asshole thinks a girl whose parents died in a car accident when she was eight years old is lucky because she had parents at all? I’ll be busy mentally flogging myself for that one for the rest of the night.
“Tell me something true, Jeremy.”
I look up at her. “What?”
“Tell me something true. Anything.”
So many true things rush through my brain at the same time. How much I like being here with her. How I wish it could be easy like this between us all the time. How I understand why it’s not. How much I want to change that. How much I regret what happened eight years ago when I was mad at the world and didn’t know how to handle what I think I felt for her. How I felt like I didn’t deserve her. How I still feel that way. How I feel like I’m not good enough for anyone to keep. To make anyone want to stay.
But I don’t say any of that. Instead, I reach for something simple, but no less true.
“I’m glad you called me tonight.”
“I’m glad too.”
We stare at each other and the air around us suddenly feels electric. It scares the shit out of me, so I change the subject fast.
“So, what happened with your date? I mean, you called me, so obviously he wasn’t in the running to be your storm buddy.”
It’s exactly the right thing to say because she bursts out laughing. “Oh my god, it was so bad. What a pretentious asshole. He was wearing seersucker. Seersucker Jeremy, I swear to god.”
She tells me everything. It’s probably more words than Emma has said to me in the entire decade I’ve known her. I’ve never really known what home means, but I think maybe it could be the sound of Emma’s voice while she tells me about her day.
The rain is drumming on the roof, and the lights in the living room are low, and Emma called me. And maybe the way we are right now is a one-time thing brought on by weather and circumstance, and maybe it will all disappear tomorrow. But if that’s the case, I’m holding onto tonight.
So, I do.
We talk about nothing and everything until the thunder and lightning stop and the rain slows to a drizzle and Emma falls asleep with her head on a throw pillow and her legs curled up,feet pressing against my thigh. That she is comfortable enough with me to fall asleep in a storm, that I can give that to her, makes my heart do a long, slow roll in my chest.
Chapter Seven
Emma
The storm is long over when I wake up to the sun streaming through the windows. I go to roll over and immediately realize I’m not in my bed when I almost roll off the couch. I catch myself just in time, sitting straight up, my tired brain trying to work out how I ended up here.
It comes back to me in a rush. The storm. Calling Jeremy from the restaurant bathroom. Him coming to pick me up. The drive home, oh my god.
I lay back against the pillows, letting out an embarrassed groan when I remember him giving me his phone and telling me to pick the music. My impulsive, fuck around and find out streak that no one knows about, and I rarely let free—the same one that had me rolling around in my bed with Jeremy eight years ago—decided last night was a good time to surface, and I chose that song of all songs to play. It’s my little secret that I think of him every time I hear it. That even though I’m still a little angry and more than a little embarrassed about our one night all those years ago, there’s a reason I’m twenty-nine and still single. There’s a reason I’ve never been able to feel forever about anyone I’ve ever dated.
And the reason is Jeremy.
It’s weird and completely fucked up, but it’s like during that one single night, my heart and mind took one look at him in my bed and yelledmine, and that was that. So, like, even though I can’t talk to him half the time, and sometimes I want to go back in time and punch him for running out of my house with a face full of fear and regret, I think he does belong with me. It’s not like I’ve been pining away for him or anything. It’s mostly just a quiet acceptance of the fact that there’s something there I’ve never been able to find with anyone else. Maybe we’ll figure it all out or maybe we won’t, but there it is anyway. My most closely guarded secret.
Only now I guess it’s his secret, too, since the storm scrambled my brain and fuck around and find out Emma played the damn song. For him. In his car.
And as the song played, Jeremy’s feelings filled the car. Confusion. Guilt. The attraction that always buzzes between us. He may as well have been speaking his thoughts directly to me for how loud they were.
