CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Emma
The diary is flickedout of my loose grip and falls to the table as the pages fan to equal sides of the binding. My chest is aching, and I feel breathless while sitting quietly at a table in the middle ofStarbucks.
“I figured I’d find you here at some point today,” Mike says, hovering over the table with his arms folded across hischest.
It’s only been two days, yet it feels like a year since I’ve seen him last. During the last two days since I broke up with him, so much as changed. My life has spun into a maze that I’m not sure how to find a way out of. I don’t know which way is up or down, and everything is scattered in my head. “What are you doing here?” I can only hope he isn’t here to cause ascene.
Charlie was gone. Grams had lost everyone. How could life be socruel?
Mike had been talking, but my mind was elsewhere, lost in a goodbye I wasn’t even part of.Her last words to Charlie were “goodbye.” He told her he loved her, and she couldn’t say it back even though she did love him. How terriblysad.
“Earth to Emma,” Mike says, waving his hand in front of my face. “What is that thing anyway?” He points to the diary as if it were today’s newspaper, full of nothing more than celebritygossip.
“Nothing,” I tell him, removing the diary from thetable.
“It sure doesn’t look like nothing tome.”
“What are you doing here?” I askagain.
“Did you get mynote?”
“I did,” I answer cordially, ignoring his presence as I reorganize the belongings in my bag to make space for thediary.
“And?” hecontinues.
“Who wrote it for you?” I can’t believe I just asked him that. Not, that he doesn’t deserve it, but the thought did cross my mind earlier, and seeing how he’s acting now, I’m almost sure someone told him what to say. Either that or he Googled “how to win your exback.”
“Really?” hecounters.
“In six years, you never said something so full of thought, and then out of the blue, after I tell you I’m done, you leave me a note that sounds as if it came from a different person. Now, I’m supposed to fall to my knees and forget everything?” I was wondering when my anger and rage would catch up to me. It’s building inside, overflowing like hot lava on top of the millions of emotions Grams’s diary is stirringup.
“Haven’t you ever heard the saying, ‘You don’t know what you had until it’s gone?’” he has the nerve to ask me. I don’t know if he’s implying I should be thinking this, or he’s thinking this, but in any case, I don’tcare.
“Yeah, Mike, and for some reason, I didn’t realize what I was missing until you were gone.” Witty comebacks aren’t my thing, but for once, the words come out when they should, rather than an hour later when I’m talking to myself, thinking of what Ishouldhavesaid.
He leans forward, pressing his palms onto the top of the table. “Six years, Emma. We can work this shit out.” That’s all I’ve ever been to him.Shit.
“Why do you want to be with me so badly, Mike? What is it about me that is so important to keep around?” I lean back into my chair, hugging my bag into mychest.
“I love you,” hesays.
“You don’t know what love is,” I tellhim.
“Oh, and youdo?”
I squeeze my hands tighter around the bag. “Yeah, but not from my ownexperience.”
“Okay, okay, fine, what do you want from me? Want me to make a scene here? Get down on my hands and knees and beg for your forgiveness, beg for you to take me back?” The thought of him doing that sickens me. He’s such a loose cannon that I could see him doing something so stupid and pathetic. I shouldn’t be wondering why it took me so long to break up with him. I shouldn’t be having this conversation with him. I should have done the right thing yearsago.
I take a sip of my now-lukewarm coffee to break up the conversation, giving me a moment to collect my next thoughts. “What I want from you…is to leave. I want you to forget about me. I want you to figure out what is going to make you happy in your life because it’s so, so clear that I’m not the person for you, and you’re definitely not the person forme.”
Mike presses his lips together and exhales sharply through his nose. “You’re wrong,” he grunts. “I want to be with you,Emma.”
I glance down at my cup, fixating on the recycled cardboard sleeve. Am I making a mistake? Is he my great challenge? Am I supposed to endure this, live through it, and dig until I find the good inside of him that gives us both a lifetime full of happiness? A relationship surely shouldn’t be this hard, but love knows nobounds.
“Emma,” he says again as his hand gently falls to my wrist. “Please, give me a chance to show you I can be a betterman.”
