With a sigh, Mirabelle scrubbed her palms over her face. “Fuck. I feel like I’m losing it. Can’t sleep. Can’t eat. I just want to feel normal.”
Mirabelle knuckled away the tears before they fell and exhaled a shaky breath through pursed lips.
“I said something to Emory yesterday before Gio’s funeral,” she confessed. “I told him I wasn’t sure if you two were right for each other and that he should let you go.”
Amelia stared at Mirabelle, certain there was something else, an admission that she’d gotten it all wrong. It didn’t come. Instead, cumbersome silence grew between them as Amelia nursed the sting of what felt like betrayal. Then again, Mirabelledivided her loyalties in unequal parts. She was Amelia’s friend, yes, but Emory’s sister first.
“Why would you tell him that?” Amelia asked.
Mirabelle responded with a pitiful shrug. The thoughtless interference was worse than deliberate meddling. At least then, Mirabelle could claim good intentions, that she only wanted what was best for Emory. She’d instead done the cruel bidding of others, mindlessly and without question.
“If it’s what you think, then stand by it,” Amelia insisted.
“It’s not what I think.”
“It’s what Jack thinks.” Arms folded and cheeks burning, Amelia sat back in a huff. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Mirabelle wasn’t foolish enough to deny it, so she defended a man who wouldn’t do the same for her.
“This isn’t about Jack. Leave him out if it.”
“You’re right. It’s not about Jack or Emory. It’s about you twisting yourself into knots to appease the men in your life while you tell yourself it’s what any good Moriarty woman would do. It’s bullshit, Miri, and you know it.”
“What I said to Emory?—”
“Emory is a grown man. You aren’t responsible for his actions. If he doesn’t know his own heart well enough to tell you you’re wrong, then maybe you’ve done me a favor.”
Mirabelle released an astounded breath. She had no right to look as wounded as she did.
“Don’t say that. He loves you.”
Amelia shook her head with a joyless laugh. “I don’t think that’s true.”
She wasn’t being coy or fishing for comfort because the cruelest consolation might’ve been that he loved her and it wasn’t enough.
A shadow momentarily obscured the column of sunlight streaming through the window. Amelia turned as Thomas approached the table.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said. “Miri, it’s getting late. We should head back. Jack just texted.”
Mirabelle paled as her eyes snapped to Thomas. “What did he say?”
“He asked if I’d seen you. I haven’t replied yet.”
“Don’t!” Mirabelle hopped to her feet and gathered her things as Natalie circled around the counter. “I’ll call him. I’m sorry, Nat. We gotta go. And fuck! I gotta get gas too.”
They left in a hurry of hasty hugs and shouted goodbyes. If Mirabelle intended to pick up a dress, that was summarily forgotten. She sped down the sleepy street and peeled into a gas station near the highway. Parked at the pump, she dug a card out of her wallet and handed it to Amelia.
“Can you handle this for me? I need to pee.”
“Sure,” Amelia said and circled to the pump as Mirabelle jogged across the lot to the mini mart. Thomas followed her in to buy cigarettes.
Leaned against the car, Amelia surveyed the station a world away from the one she and Brian had pulled into the night they fled Portland. As she stood beneath the overhang, the feeling that washed over her was the same, though, and a shuffle of footsteps approached from behind.
“Amelia?”
THIRTY-FOUR
AMELIA
