In a moment when emotion ruled, Ember chose me. She settled into my arms. Not her boyfriend’s, not her best friend’s.Mine.Doesn’t that say more than anything else could? Accepted proposals be damned.
Wait.
“Is she engaged?”
Dayton lets out a loud, obnoxious stream of air and throws up his hands. “Details.”
I glare at him. “Kind of an important one.”
“But is it really?” Dayton scrunches his face, answering his own question with a shake of his head.
“I’d say so.” Matt’s voice filters in behind me, and Dayton stares over my shoulder to the entrance.
I twist, watching as Matt stalks into the room and stands between our seats. He leans over, clapping Dayton twice on the shoulder. It’s hard enough that Dayton winces.
“Thanks a lot, buddy.”
He straightens and pivots on one heel so he’s facing me. He bends and puts his face way too close to mine. A snarl pulls his lips from his mouth. I don’t think he’d be this aggressive if my leg wasn’t hamstrung. The fumbling guy who took a picture with me in the airport is long gone.
“You’re not going to win,” he says slowly, as if that’s what I’m here for. Competition.
Dayton’s phone dings loudly. He looks down at it and back up to us. “It’s Ember.”
Matt’s body swings around as Dayton scans the screen. He glances between Matt and me. “She wants you both to go.” Matt walks out, muttering, and I look at Dayton. He shrugs. “She said this is stressful enough, and she wants to wait alone with me and Sky.”
I nod. I don’t want to add to Ember’s stress level. I tell Dayton where I’m staying as he walks with me to the elevator. Matt is long gone. “Tell Ember,” I pause, not sure what to say. “Tell Ember I’m here for her.”
“I will.”
We say goodbye and I step onto the elevator.
It takes fifteen minutes for Miranda to arrive once I text her and ask her to come get me. While I’m waiting, I watch Matt march his haughty ass right over to his car and drive away.
When Miranda pulls up I get in, tossing my crutches in the back. I avoid her concerned gaze, but there’s really no point. I’m stuck in this rented SUV with her for the next fifteen minutes. The stifling air is thick with her questions, glutted with my thoughts, and saturated by my confusion. It’s a bitch trying to breathe in here.
“How did everything go?” Miranda asks tentatively.
How should I answer that? I almost want to laugh at the insanity of it all, the complete unfairness.
“Do you ever think that maybe there’s no reason for all this?” My hand flies out to gesture at the world around us. Restaurants, a bus stop, people in cars going different directions as they navigate different lives. What is it all for? What is the point of any of it?
“What do you mean?” She’s still using her tentative voice. I can’t blame her. She’s never heard me talk like this. I don’t know if I’ve ever even thought like this.
“We work hard, we make plans for our lives. We love, we hate. We win, and we lose. We do things in the present to make up for the past. We do things in the present to control the future. But why? What is the point of any of it? What are we living for?” My hands drop to my thighs, where I can feel their clammy heat. I stare out the window and wait for my breath to slow.
“I don’t know,” Miranda answers quietly. Her thumbs tap on the steering wheel as she slows to a stop at a red light. Her gaze swings to me. “If you ever find out, will you tell me?”
I nod.
“Was she happy to see you?”
“She was relieved, I think.”
“And the boyfriend?”
My blood boils the second I think about Matt. How could he have left? He should have stayed in the big waiting room next to the entrance, even after Ember asked us to leave. If I were her boyfriend, there’s no fucking way I would’ve listened. Even just the chance to be there for her again would’ve been enough reason to stay.
“Miranda,” I say abruptly. “I need to see my dad.”
