He noted Emmy’s wince. She had been the one to open the door to the possibility that his world was fiction. He didn’t see any reason to blame her for this, but it was possible she blamed herself. She reached out and gently touched his arm.
“Do you have alcohol?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Let’s drink and you can tell me about your day.”
He looked down at her, took a moment to focus, then nodded. “I’ve got tequila but no mixers.”
Emmy smiled. “My favorite recipe.”
*
They sat on the couch passing the bottle back and forth. Glasses didn’t seem necessary right at that moment. Will told Emmy about his encounter with Bright, how all of Emmy’s predictions had come true, right down to the “opposite of dim” comment. When he got to the jellyfish conversation, she put her hand over her mouth. At first, Will thought it was a gesture of shock and compassion. But when he finished by telling her about Bright’s final comment and exit, a muffled snort escaped, revealing that she was trying to hold in her laughter. He gave her a look.
“Oh, comeon! I’m sorry. Sincerely sorry. But I have to know where the jellyfish came from. Of all the random things to test her with…”
“It just popped into my head, okay?”
She let out a peal of tequila-soaked laughter. Will felt his lips twitch, then gave in and chuckled with her and at her. She did not hold her liquor well at all. He decided to defend himself.
“Iwantedit to be weird. I needed to be absolutely sure that…” He paused, shook his head. “I just needed to be sure.”
Emmy calmed down enough to reach out and squeeze his knee. “For what it’s worth, I really am sorry. I didn’t do this on purpose.”
“I believe you. But… it’s done. Now I have to figure out how to keep living my life. Unless…”
“Unless?”
“I don’t know what will happen if you find a way out of… the book. Don’t know if I, y’know, existed before you came here. Might not exist again if you leave.”
“Fuck. I didn’t think about that.”
“Pretty much all I can think about,” Will muttered, taking another slug of tequila.
Emmy took the bottle back, sipped, shuddered. “If it helps, I have no idea how to get out of here. You might be stuck with me in… indef… indefibly? What is that word?”
“Indefinitely?”
“Yes!” She gestured at him with the bottle. “You might be stuck with me indefinly, and then you won’t have to worry about unexisting.”
“Sure. I’m willing to bet my existence on that.”
She nearly punched him when she tried to thrust the bottle back into his hands. He took it from her, helped himself to one last gulp, then capped the bottle. “I’m cutting you off.”
He got up to store the considerably lighter bottle of tequila on top of his fridge. Then, thinking ahead to the morning, he grabbed two cups and filled them to the brim with water.
“Nomisugita,” Emmy muttered as he wandered back in, a little more unsteady on his feet than he would have liked.
“No me what huh?” he asked. He set the glasses on the coffee table, then plopped down unceremoniously beside her. He could have sworn the couch made an “oof” sound. Or maybe that was him.
“No.Mi.Su.Gi.Ta,” she enunciated, a look of pure concentration on her face. He wished the look wasn’t absolutely adorable. All he wanted to do now was pull her into his arms and cuddle. He was not usually a cuddler. “It’s Japanese for ‘I drank too much.’”
“You can’t pronounce ‘indefinitely’ but you remember how to say an entire sentence in Japanese?”
“Fewer syllables in Japanese.”
He hated that she had him counting on his fingers. “It’s the same. I think.” He looked at her, holding his fingers out still. “Isn’t it? Say your thing again.” She repeated it, and he counted as she spoke. “It’s the same.”
