Page 17 of Wreckage of Me
“I’ll call you an Uber if you want,” she finally addresses me directly, but still won’t look at me.
“An Uber? What for? Are you not going back to Sunny?” I am confused now. Also, I don’t want to spend the money on an Uber. It’s a little over an hour drive, I’m sure it’ll be a good chunk of change.
“I am,” Emily turns around and watches me wearily. “My dad hired a driver. I just don’t have the energy to sit for another hour next to you while you completely ignore me.”
“I’m so sorry, Em, I…”
“Not only that, Becca,” she interrupts me, her voice shaking in distress. “But you act like I’m, like I’m a…” She can’t finish what she wants to say and just starts crying.
“Oh God,” I grab her and pull her to me in the biggest hug I’ve ever given her. She is sobbing now, making me feel like the worst person on the planet. This is just another reason for me to hate Dylan with everything in me. He destroyed me with the way he treated me, and I’ve been taking it out on Emily.
“I’m so sorry, Em,” I rock her side to side. “You don’t know how sorry I am.”
She takes a few more moments to regroup before she pushes herself away from me, wiping furiously at her face. She looks adorable, like a little upset fairy.
“Let’s find my dad’s driver, then get the hell home,” she throws her shoulders back and sniffles.
That part doesn’t take us long. Mr. Stewart’s car is waiting at the curb, and, before long, we’re on our way to Sunny, Montana.
“Did you get your mom’s paperwork sorted out?” It suddenly dawns on me that we didn’t travel all the way to Texas just for me to hook up with Dylan, then go through all that drama.
“Yeah, uh,” she hesitates for a second, but then it’s almost like she saysfuck itand continues. “Puck took me this morning when you went to the police station with Sully.”
“That’s good,” I nod but don’t say anything else. After my comments on the plane earlier, I’m a little scared to even think of Puck, let alone mention him to Emily, or ask her any other questions about him.
“I’m sorry, too,” she finally says in a quiet tone, taking me by surprise.
“About what?”
“About what you went through with Dylan,” she shrugs. “I thought it was all so romantic. That he waited for you at the hotel like that, I mean.”
“It was,” I give her a sad smile, which she returns. “This weekend was nothing like the girls’ trip we thought we were embarking on when we left Montana, right?”
“Not even a little bit,” she’s laughing now. “What a cluster for sure!”
The next few miles go in complete silence. Our driver, as if he can sense our distress, turns the radio down and remains quiet as he drives us home.
We are about to cross the line into Sunny when Emily focuses her eyes on me again.
“I wonder if he’ll call.”
“Puck?” I ask for confirmation. Not sure what happened between the two of them, but she sure is hung up on him.
“I didn’t think you liked him that much, Em.” I try to keep my voice soft and gentle, aware of the fact that I could mess up and offend her again with my comments on her situation.
She drops her eyes to a spot on her jeans, her fingers plucking nervously at a small hole there. “Why do you think that?”
“Well,” I take a moment to gather my thoughts and figure out how I should handle this impossible situation. “You seemed to be in a bit of a shock the other morning. Not just about Dylan,” I rush to say when she’s about to interrupt me. “But about the fact that Puck is part of the same… organization, for lack of a better word, as Dylan…”
“I know,” she whispers, her eyes going to the driver to make sure he’s not listening. Chances are, he can hear us just fine, but I don’t have the heart to tell her. “He was just so sweet with me, and I thought that maybe…”
“Did he ask for your phone number?” I try to prod her for information as gently as I am capable of.
“I mean…” She sighs and pushes behind her ears the strands of hair that escaped her ponytail. She takes another minute to pull the hair tie out, then makes a big production out of re-making the ponytail in a tight and severe hold at the back of her head.
“He didn’t?” I try again when she drags it for so long, we are getting close to my house.
“Uh, he just said that he had a great time,” she finally confesses in a shaky voice. “And I wrote my number on a piece of paper and gave it to him.” Now her hands are shaking too, like she did this huge thing. “I told him to call me if he’s ever in Montana.”
