What if she got stuck under the fluorescent lights, unpacking box after box of random children’s toys and hair products? Guilt consumes me because now I’m convinced she still has her high school job and never got to experience life, and the worst part is that I didn’t know.
I didn’t know because I never checked.
“What’s your deal, Noah? You look like your dog was just run over.” Brody crunches the last of his chips.
“Nothing,” I mutter, staring at the crumbs stuck in his beard.
It’s all too much. The chewing, each crunch like Brody is tearing through bones. The chip fragments caught in his tangled facial hair. The manifested reality that I’m about to see Ember wearing a yellow vest better suited for a canary, like the past four years never happened.
I roll down the window a few more inches and let the air whip my face.
That fucking beard is living on borrowed time.
* * *
My freak-out was for nothing.Ember doesn’t work here. I discreetly asked an employee while my brother stood in the pharmacy pick-up line at the back of the store. I’m so relieved I want to shout and run through the aisles. Of course, now that I know at least one thing she’snotdoing, I’m wondering what sheisdoing.
I text my brother and tell him I’ll be waiting outside in the car. Curiosity took me in the store, and now there’s nothing keeping me there. Eyes on the ground, I’m reaching for the door handle of my brother’s car when an explosion of laughter breaks into my thoughts.
Picking my head up, I follow the sound. Across the street and a few doors down, a group of women have their heads thrown back. They’re dressed in tight leggings and tank tops, something that resembles a quiver strapped to each of them. If it weren’t for the red hair cascading down from a thrown back head, I’d continue getting into the car.
I can’t help it. I’m not the one telling my legs to move. Right now, they have a mind of their own. After a break in the cars, I hurry across the street. By now the group has moved on, and the redhead walks with her arm wound around the waist of a man. I didn’t see him in the group, but he must have been there too.
The same curiosity that took me into the pharmacy pulls me to the store they were all standing in front of.Mind + Body.Beneath the words is a lotus flower. I pull open the door and get blasted by heat. It smells earthy and salty, but also like eucalyptus.
“Hi,” chirps a girl behind the counter. “We don’t have another class until four.”
“Class?” I ask, unsure of what this place is. I’m not even certain that was Ember. Redheads are uncommon, but she’s not the only one in the world.
Even if she is the only one who’s made me crazy.
My phones buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it. Brody can wait for a minute.
“Yes.” The girl draws out the word. Her eager smile has turned wary. “This is a yoga studio.”
“Right, right,” I smile and raise my eyes to the ceiling, as though even I can’t believe how unobservant I am. “Sorry. May I see a schedule?”
She points up at the wall behind her head. Following her pointed finger, I see a giant chalkboard. A grid has been drawn onto it with the week’s classes written out. “This”—she stands on tiptoe to point at a box—“is the next class. Giovanni is teaching, and he’s amazing.”
I nod and say, “Uh-huh.” I can’t manage anything more than that. I’m too transfixed by the name in the box above Giovanni’s. It’s the same name written in a box for Tuesday at six-thirty, and Sunday at noon.
“Whitley, thank goodness you haven't left yet.” A breathless voice comes from behind me. “I left my wallet in the studio.”
My breath slams up my throat. My heart bounds around my chest like an unbroken stallion. That voice has haunted me, shown up in my dreams, infiltrated my thoughts. I turn around, unsure what to expect but willing to take whatever Ember dishes out.
Her hands fly to her lips when she sees me. Through her fingers I hear her gasp. The girl at the counter, Whitley, is saying something, but to me it sounds like she’s speaking in slow-motion.
“What are you…?” Ember hands move from her mouth to her hair. She runs her hands through it. “Why are you…?” Her head shakes as if she’s clearing it. “Hi,” she says, then laughs.
“Uh…Uhh.” It’s all I can manage because I’m seriously that dumb. The language center of my brain is mush.
And then she does the most unexpected thing. But it’s Ember, so maybe it’s expected.
Full speed, she runs to me. Like 1,424 days haven't passed. Like our relationship didn't end in almost exactly the way she said it would.
Her legs wrap around my waist, and I thread my arms around her, holding her up. Her fingers caress the back of my neck, and she presses her nose into the space beneath my ear.
Now I’m home.
