Emmy turned her phone around, stared at the screen. She remembered wandering into May’s room, seeing the doll on her shelf. Its left eye was filled in solid black.
“You actually made a wish?” Emmy had asked incredulously. “What did you wish for? To marry Josh Duhamel?”
She had expected May to blush and giggle like she always did. They’d had fun in the past concocting various scenarios in which they could “accidentally” meet the Midwest-bornactor. Depending on their mood when they were inventing the story, they would either play it cool and get a quick autograph, or May would propose marriage on the spot.
But instead of the usual joking around, May shrugged. “You’re kind of close. I wished for true love.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. I mean… I wished to find it in the future. I’m not looking to get married quite yet. Not even to Josh.”
Emmy didn’t laugh. She just looked skeptically at the little doll head. Her sister had taken it seriously. She’d held that thing in her hand and made a wish. Did she really expect it to come true? She was practically an adult. What was she doing making wishes?
*
Emmy recounted what happened, absently pushing a piece of chicken back and forth across her plate with her fork. She wasn’t quite sure if she’d properly conveyed the turmoil she’d experienced back then. The struggle to reconcile the older sister she’d admired with the fanciful young girl who dreamed of love and believed in wishes.
“It sat on her shelf for years,” Emmy continued. She realized she was fidgeting and made an effort to eat her food, rather than playing with it. “Boyfriends came, and boyfriends went. She redecorated her room a couple times, too. But she never threw it out, even though she tossed plenty of other stuff. And one day… I got frustrated with her.”
Will reached out and took her free hand. Didn’t say anything, just listened. That simple connection gave her thestrength to continue. She squeezed his hand once in thanks, then held on as she continued.
“She had a boyfriend in college. They were together over a year, which I think was her longest relationship at the time. Then he dumped her out of nowhere. I think he was probably juggling a couple girlfriends, but that’s just speculation. I’d only met him a couple times. Didn’t strike me as particularly interesting, but May was googly eyed over him.”
The breakup had hit hard. May had been devastated, Emmy remembered. She’d come home from college that weekend to sit in her room and cry. Emmy was in college, too, at the time, but she had stayed local. Since she was still living at home, she had been there to sit on May’s bed with her, holding her. She’d comforted her sister through breakups before, but this one was more intense. She could feel it. Emmy expected May to spend the whole weekend curled up in bed. She wouldn’t have blamed her sister for blowing off a day or two of classes just to wallow.
But May was up early the next morning. Emmy found her eating cereal and reading something on her phone.
“Hey. How are you feeling?”
May smiled. Her eyes were still a little red from crying, and she hadn’t yet worked her magic to cover up the evidence. “I’m okay. Thank you for being with me last night. I know it wasn’t pretty.”
“Breakups are hard.” Emmy had been through only one herself at that point, and it hadn’t been devastating so much as annoying, but she didn’t mention that. “You’ll get through it in time.”
“I’m through the worst of it already,” May told her. “He wasn’t the one. I’m glad I know that now.” She shrugged, went back to her phone.
Emmy felt something boiling up inside her. This was how it always went. May went through a bad breakup, cried for a day, then shook it off like it wasn’t a big deal. Whenever Emmy asked her about it, she always responded with some variation of that line.
He wasn’t my “It.”
I tried to love him, but I clearly didn’t.
He wasn’t the one.
“You’re deluding yourself.” The words were out before she could call them back.
“What?” May looked up from her phone again.
“It’s beenone day, May. Why aren’t you letting yourself feel?”
Keeping her eyes on Emmy’s, May set her phone face-down on the table, her spoon in her half-empty bowl. Her expression was a little befuddled, but revealed nothing else about what she was thinking. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t just pretend that you’re not hurt by what Kayden did. You can’t bottle it up like that. It’s okay to be sad for two fucking days when a year-long relationship ends. Hell, you could go nuts and be sad for three days!”
“I’m not bottling anything up. Kayden did me a favor. Why would I want to stay with someone who doesn’t want me? Yes, it hurt. But it also set me free.”
Emmy ran her hands through her hair. “I’m not saying you should have stayed with him. I’m saying you’re either repressing a whole lot of negative feelings, or you’re moving on really quickly because you’re on this endless quest fortrue love and believe Prince Charming is going to prance into your life any second. Either way, it’s not healthy. It’s not… reality.”
May folded her hands on the table, met Emmy’s gaze levelly. She didn’t yell back, and that somehow made it worse. “I wouldn’t say I’m waiting for Prince Charming. I’m just waiting for the right person. Someone who loves me wholly and completely. People fall in love every day. Why does it bother you that I want that for myself?”
