“Because you’re not letting yourself feel grief! Because you’re going to throw yourself into the next relationship just as wholeheartedly as you did the last three. You’re going to keep giving and giving and giving, May, until there’s nothing left of you. All because… what? You believe a wish you made on your sixteenth birthday is going to come true? What kind of fairy tale do you think you live in?”
May got up from the table and went to rinse her cereal bowl. Emmy could still see the look on her face as she’d turned away. It wasn’t sadness or anger she’d seen there. It had been pity. Maybe that was the part that had rankled the most, but Emmy had convinced herself that she was only feeling frustrated because she hadn’t gotten through to her sister at all.
“She left Sunday night to get back to Duluth,” Emmy told Will. Appetite gone, she set her fork down and sipped at her diet pop. “As soon as she was gone, I went into her room and took the Daruma. I don’t know when I convinced myself that this little toy was the source of all May’s misery, but it felt like it at the time. Maybe because it was always in plain view whenever May was crying over the end of one of her relationships. I don’t know.” Emmy shrugged,drew lines in the condensation on her glass. “When she next came home, she noticed it was missing immediately. I honestly thought she wouldn’t notice at all, or it would take her a while. But it was instant. She asked me where it was.” Emmy took a deep breath, let it out again. Her voice was thick with tears when she admitted, “I told her I threw it out.”
“Did you?” Will asked.
Emmy shook her head. “I couldn’t. Even though I told myself it was for the best, that I was doing the right thing for my sister, I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. I hid it in my room. But I told her it was long gone. In the garbage. The way she looked at me… I want to call it ironic. It feels ironic.” She looked up at Will, her eyes full of remembered pain. “In that moment, I realized she had been telling the truth all along. She hadn’t been bottling anything up. She hadn’t needed more than a day or two to get over her exes. Not one of them had ever broken her heart. The only time I saw her look really, truly heartbroken… was when I told her I’d thrown out her wish.” When her voice broke, Emmy fisted her hands, willed back tears. None of that now.
“Why didn’t you give it back?” Will asked. There was no reprimand in his tone, only curiosity.
“I wanted to give it back to her a million times, but I didn’t know if she would get angry at me all over again. And I hated the idea of admitting that I’d lied.” Her lips turned up in a humorless smile. “I probably hated the idea of being wrong even more than that. I can be a little prideful at times.” Her expression fell again. “The more time passed, the harder it became to think about giving it back. I did apologize, though. I drove out to her dorm to apologize toher in person. She forgave me, of course.” Emmy shook her head, smiled again. With affection this time. “That’s May for you.”
“You’re going to give it back to her now,” Will said. “Wedding present?”
Emmy’s eyebrows ticked up in surprise. “Maybe you’re psychic, too. You got it. I was thinking of giving it to her sometime before the wedding. Maybe after the rehearsal dinner, when I could get her alone for a private chat. That was my plan, anyway.” His hand was still on hers, warm and comforting. “Her wish came true. The least I can do is give her the chance to fill in the other eye. Hopefully she doesn’t throw it at me instead.”
“She won’t.”
“No, she won’t. You’ve got a good sense of her already, huh?”
“You paint a pretty clear picture,” Will said.
“Having her in my life… her and Sarah… it was all I ever needed. They were my two-person support system. I knew I could count on them without fail, and I recognized from a young age how valuable that was.” Emmy felt Will squeeze her hand. She placed her free hand on top of his. “You’ll like them. I can’t wait for you to meet them.”
She didn’t miss his quick wince. He still didn’t think he was getting out of the book. That was fine. Emmy was going to pull a May and be optimistic and positive until he had no choice but to get on board.
With dinner over, Emmy figured she’d take care of cleaning up as a way of thanking him. Not only had he cooked a fabulous meal, but he hadn’t batted an eye when she’d failed to finish it due to emotional upheaval. It hadhurt her heart to remember how she’d gone at May all those years ago, but she hoped the pain would remind her not to jump to so many conclusions in the future. At nineteen, she had felt like a proper adult who had already accumulated all the wisdom the world had to offer. Nearly a decade later, she could admit that she’d been a kid, and she had lashed out from worry. If the road to Hell was indeed paved with good intentions, plenty of hers were plastered on there with everyone else’s. Though she hoped hers at least looked pretty. Paving stones were her specialty, after all.
Will was sitting on the couch unabashedly looking over her notes when she left the kitchen.
“Hey! Those are top secret.” Emmy sat down next to him and snatched the notebook out of his hand.
“Top secret or not, it looks good,” he told her. “I like the logo.”
“It’s a work in progress, but I know what I’m going for.” Emmy let out a breath, savoring the words. “Finally,” she added quietly. “I finally know what I’m going for.”
“I’m glad.”
Emmy sat back with the notebook resting on her lap. “You helped me get to this point. I won’t forget it.”
Will looked at her with an unreadable expression, then shifted a little, angling his body toward her. “Answer a question for me. Hypothetically.”
She matched his position and placed her hands flat on top of the notebook. “Okay.”
“Say I was the hero in a romantic book…”
“Youarethe hero in a romantic book.”
Will groaned. “Yeah, I guess. But I don’t want to be.” He waved a hand in the air before she could speak again.“Okay. Reset. Say I wanted toactlike the hero in a romantic book. Hypothetically, what would I do to woo the heroine into having sex with me?” He reached out to toy with her fingers, and his eyes met hers. “Hypothetically.”
“Wait… just checking… did you want this to be a hypothetical question?”
He chuckled. “Yes. It’s hypothetical.”
Emmy’s heart raced. He was only touching her fingers, but her whole body reacted. Determined to play it cool, she raised an eyebrow. “Just asking out of curiosity?”
“Yeah.” He maintained a straight face, keeping his expression politely interested. She gave him points for that. “I’m trying to share your interests. Get to know you better. That’s all.”
