Page 53 of Wreckage of Me
“What? Why would you think that?” She sounds surprised I even asked, but just wow.
“Em, you caught him screwing that lady on his desk at work. And now, you’re…” I can’t even find the words to express how I feel about what shejusttold me.
“Lonnie is not a lady,” Emily tells me in an amused tone. “She’s just a young girl who didn’t know what she was doing when she hit on my boyfriend.” She sounds almost robotic by the time she finishes speaking, like what she just said has been rehearsed.
“And what’s Steve’s excuse, Em?” I demand to know. “He fell into her pussy?” I feel outraged by this whole turn of events.
“Sometimes things happen, Becca,” Emily sounds offended by my judgment. Because yes, I am judging. How can I not. “Are we supposed to write people off like they never meant anything to us just because they made one mistake?”
“Em,” I try to give her my most sympathetic look. “This is different. Hecheatedon you, Em! He didn’t just scratch your car or, or…” I have no idea what else I can compare the situation to in order for her to understand that this will come to bite her in the ass.
“He apologized,” she tells me and starts picking on the lettuce sticking out of her sandwich. “He explained how it happened.”
“But you said you weren’t in love with him. I don’t understand how this went down.” And what kind of a friend am I that I allowed for this to happen under my watch, I think to myself.
“I care about him,” she lifts a shoulder in defeat. “And I want to get married and have babies at some point. Soon,” she adds.
“Em, you’re young. You’ll have time to have babies. Meet someone you love first. And what about Puck?” I finally ask what’s been on my mind since we sat down.
“What about him?” She’s trying to make it sound like Puck is nobody to her, but I can tell she’s lying.
“Honestly, especially after last night when Dylan showed up and told me Puck was here,” I start explaining, “I thought for sure that this boyfriend you told me about after our last shift was Puck.”
Her cheeks look like they’re on fire, redness spreading down her neck and top of her chest until it disappears inside the collar of the top she’s wearing with her scrubs. But she doesn’t comment on what I just said.
“You said you’ve been seeing someone for six months,” I suddenly remember. “It’s beenSteveall this time?”
She doesn’t say the words, but nods in confirmation. This is weird and it doesn’t make any sense, but I have to let it go for now or I’ll never get to the bottom of it.
“As long as you’re happy, Em,” I finally force myself to say even though I don’t agree with anything that she just told me. But I’m trying to be a supportive friend. Am I being supportive though if I encourage this madness? Ugh, more drama I didn’t need.
“So what about you and Dylan?” Emily finally gets her pretty smile back on, probably happy to have the pressure off her for now.
“Meh, not much to tell,” I shrug. It is my turn now to stare at my sandwich and not meet her eyes.
“Oh no, you need to give me more than that,” she insists. “He showed up out of nowhere last night, then you didn’t come to class this morning, and now you’re looking all tired. Like you f…”
“Shhh,” I stop her from whatever else she’s got to add. I don’t need the entire hospital to hear anything about what did or did not transpire between me and Dylan last night.
“So you did do that,” she bursts into laughter. I really walked into that one, I have to admit.
“You’re an asshole,” I throw a piece of lettuce at her head, which is only making her laugh harder yet.
“Tell me more,” she demands once she’s calmed down a bit. “I need to live this great love story vicariously through you.”
Her comment strikes me odd. According to her, she’s in her own love story, but she doesn’t seem to care much about it.
“This is no love story,” I point a finger at her. “He just showed up, and I just… I don’t know,” I lift my shoulders in defeat. “I was happy to see him,” I finally admit out loud, not just to Emily, but to myself as well.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Her voice comes so soft now, it brings tears to my eyes.
“He, uh,” I take a moment to clear my scratchy throat. “He doesn’t know what he wants. He said he’s just passing through. He came here because of Puck and Sully,” I further explain. “I guess they want to move here for some odd reason, but Dylan is not on board with that. So… I don’t know, he’s going to do his own thing someplace else, I guess,” I finally finish talking.
“That’s too bad,” Emily whispers in the suddenly uncomfortable silence our table has fallen under. We’re both sad and pathetic. She’s back together with her cheating boyfriend and I’m just hooking up with a man who looks me up when the mood strikes.
“On top of that,” I continue, closer to tears even more than before, “last night we did it without a condom,” I tell my friend, watching her eyes growing wide in her pixie face. “And when I brought it up to him, he freaked out.”
“What do you mean?” Emily is looking confused now. “Like you’d have some disease or something?”
