“Drained,” he replied.
Emmy nodded, understanding that. She absently turned the mug around and around in her hands.
“How areyou?” he asked.
“I guess you could say the same.”
“I want to thank you for coming to find me. It meant a lot.”
She shook her head, dismissing his misplaced gratitude and a fresh bout of tears. “I know what you said in the car,Will, but everything you’re thinking and feeling right now is my fault. I want you to know… I’m so sorry. Just so sorry that I put you through all this.”
“Emmy, look at me.” She did so, reluctantly. “You are not responsible for this. You had no idea reading a random book would fuck with everything you’ve ever believed to be true. You didn’t ask for this. I’d like to think that if you knew what would happen, you would have chosen not to read that particular book.”
She let out a tired half laugh. “Yeah, I probably would’ve browsed a different section.”
His smile was fleeting, quickly replaced by a somber expression. “I don’t want you to forget that you’re a victim in this, too. You lost your home, your family, your reality. Honestly, I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep it together all this time.”
She sipped her coffee. “I don’t know. I think you helped. Wanting to support you, help you find answers. And I clung to the belief that we’d get out. If I let myself think, even for a second, that I was never going to find my way back…” She didn’t let herself finish the thought, knew she could not go down that route or the emotional pain would drown her.
“That connects with something I want to talk to you about.”
Emmy raised her eyebrows at the sudden determined expression on his face. “What?”
“I asked you once to bring me with you when you found a way out. This morning, it occurred to me how selfish it was to ask you that.”
“Will, no! Don’t—”
He held up a hand. “I need you to let me finish.”
Emmy felt words gathering to push their way out, but she pressed her lips together. She could give him a minute to talk before she let loose on him.
“What I said earlier is exactly what I believe,” he continued. “You were hurt by events outside your control. You lost your life and your world. I can’t ask you to set that aside for me. I need you to promise me that if you find a way out of this book without me, you’ll take it. It was never right of me to ask anything different, and I need you to trust that this is what I really want. I want you to get back to your life without worrying about leaving me behind.”
She was speechless. So many protestations and counterarguments flooded her mind at once that they all kind of crashed into each other and left her with nothing to say. Also, a small part of her—a part she felt immeasurably guilty about—felt relieved by his statement. Shedidmiss her life and her family. More than she allowed herself to think about most days, knowing she’d lose control the moment she allowed herself to linger on her losses.
Taking her silence for a form of assent, Will tapped the pencil on his notebook. “I’ve been writing down everything I know about romance novels, which is not much. I’ve also been making a list of everything I know about Bright. You once suggested that the way for you to get out might be for me to carry the story to its conclusion. I think you might be right.”
“But…” Why couldn’t shesaysomething?Damn it, Emmy, stop this!she urged herself. “Bright is with Jared now.”
Good job, genius, she thought sardonically.
“She is, but she’s not supposed to be,” Will said. “I think the book probably wants her to be with me. Think aboutwhat happened with my parents. They kept calling you Bright, and it took them a really long time to comprehend I wasn’t with her. If you and I put our heads together, I bet we can get this thing back on track. If I get Bright to leave Jared for me, it might ruin our friendship, or… I think it might hit the reset button. Everything will become as it should be, as it was… written.”
Emmy’s heart lurched at all the implications of this new plan of his. She stared at him like she’d never seen him before. “You’d do that for me, really?”
“Yes,” he stated without hesitation. “You deserve your life, Emmy. I’m not going to keep you trapped just because I…” He shook his head. “I’m not going to be that selfish. Ican’tbe that selfish.”
How could he not see what that said about him? None of this had been written. The author hadn’t meant for this display of selflessness to happen. It was allhim. Everything about this thought process, this misplaced guilt, this heavy decision, was him.
She just had to make him see it.
“You told me you didn’t read that much of the book,” Will continued, studying his notes with a slight frown. “Did you read the back cover? Is there anything you can add to this?”
She stood up and walked around the table to him. He raised an eyebrow at her when she stopped to loom over him without even glancing at his notes.
“I’m not leaving you here,” she stated.
“Emmy,” he said on a sigh.
