I never want to see him again.
Mom carries Emmeline’s dishes to the sink and plucks her phone from the charger. “I’m calling Dr. Conrad. We’re getting you out of this funk.”
“I’m an adult,” I remind her. An adult who has given birth … “He’s a pediatrician.”
“Then I’ll call your OB,” she says. “I bet your hormones are all out of order. And maybe you need a mood stabilizer. Oh, and something to help you sleep.”
We’re used to medicating things here. Between Emmeline’s muscular dystrophy and Mom’s bouts with cancer, pills are all we know. Anything to numb the discomfort of the cards we’ve been dealt.
She presses the phone to her ear and wanders into her bedroom at the end of the hall, closing the door until her voice becomes an indiscernible mumble. When she returns, she grabs a pen and jots a note on the calendar on the side of our sunflower yellow fridge.
“You’re going in Friday at nine,” Mom says. “Everything’s going to be fine, Sophie.”
She’s said those exact words a hundred times lately. But at least she’s not saying, “I told you so. I told you he’d break your heart.” Though I’m sure she thinks it every time she looks at the shell of me moping around the house.
Emmeline studies me with the saddest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. My chest caves when I realize I haven’t spent any quality time with her since coming home from the hospital. We don’t watch movies anymore. I haven’t painted her nails or braided her hair since I can’t remember when. We haven’t locked ourselves away in our room, listening to vintage music and pretending the world outside no longer exists.
The realization hits me, unapologetically hard and heavy: I’ve neglected my sister—my favorite person in the world—since the moment Nolan came into my life.
Heartbreak is a bitter, jagged pill.
But it just might be the guilt of everything I’ve sacrificed that does me in.
Rising from the table, I dump my untouched food into the trash, rinse my plate, and wheel Emmeline to the bedroom.
“You want to listen to some Fleetwood?” I ask.
Her concerned expression lightens for the first time in forever. “Yeah.”
I read once that Stevie wrote Dreams as a diss track to Lindsey Buckingham after he broke her heart. If she can get through that, I can get through this.
I cue the music, place Emmeline in her favorite corner of the room, and crawl into my messy bed, staring at the ceiling as the familiar snare drum kicks off one of the most famous breakup anthems in existence.
Closing my eyes, I let Stevie’s words saturate every fiber of my being, head to toe, heart to soul.
When the rain washes you clean you’ll know …
Forty
Sophie
Present
“Oh my god. So get this … I heard Westcott is screwing that girl from Payroll.” A nasally voice steals my attention Monday afternoon.
I stab my salad with a plastic fork, nose buried in a book as I take my lunch solo. On the other side of the break room, the gossipiest women on my floor are in the midst of a conversation about me.
I lay my fork down and close my book, giving them my full attentiveness. They’re oblivious to my presence, which means nothing is off the table. This could get interesting.
“You’re kidding,” the other one says. “The blonde one who always dresses like it’s 1950?”
Rolling my eyes, I let the comment roll off my shoulders. I’d take my chambray, gingham, pencil skirts, and tea-length dresses over their off-the-mannequin outfits any day of the week. Outside the office, I’m a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl. At work, I like to have fun with my wardrobe.
“That’s what people are saying. Heard from an extremely reliable source that she’s been going into his office a lot lately,” the first one says, pointing her spoon at her friend. “And someone said he took her to Seattle for a weekend. Why else would he do that?”
When he had me added to his flight manifest, someone must have leaked the info. I’m sure Trey would be livid if he knew, but I’m not trying to get anyone fired. Nobody got hurt. Plus the engagement announcement will be public soon enough.
The first one leans in, sweeping her inky black flat-ironed strands off her shoulder. “I don’t get it. I don’t see what’s so special about her. I mean, she’s cute, yeah, but he can have anyone he wants. Literally. Supermodels. Movie stars. Me …What does she have that we don’t?”
Her friend chuckles. “It’s probably the sex.”
The dark-haired one dabs her mouth with a napkin. “Isn’t it always?”
Tucking my book under my arm and depositing my lunch in the trash, I stride to their side of the break room. “I’m sure he’ll get sick of her and move on eventually.”
Doe-eyed and silent, it takes them zero point two seconds to realize who I am.