He opened it and his smile grew quickly before a full on belly laugh emerged. I stood in awe at that sound. "Wow." He shook his head, reading it again. "That's kind of awesome. Thank you."
I smiled and bit my lip. "You're welcome. Beware of turtles."
He laughed again and stuck the note in his front shirt pocket, buttoning it, locking the note inside. I had expected him to throw it away.
"You look really good today," I stated factually. And he did. He wasn't wearing sweats. He was in dark jeans that were baggier than normal and a black button-up. His hair was shaggier, too. Not so coifed as usual. "You going somewhere today?"
"Just here," he commented and swept his thumb over my knuckles. "You're almost out of here," he said casually, but it was anything but casual.
I smiled. "Can I get an Amen?"
He laughed hard and pulled me to a stop in the middle of the room. "Amen," he whispered as he stared into my eyes, his longing and whatever else you wanted to label it shined out at me. "You know...every room in this place is just dark and tainted, and yours is the only light and life here. This job is going to suck without waiting to see you every day."
"Then you'll just have to come see me," I said coyly. "Though I'm sure I'll be busy with…school." I grimaced. "Maybe something happened while I was in the coma. I feel like a thirty-year old trapped in a teenager's body."
He smiled knowingly. "You couldn't pay me to go back to high school, or God forbid, go to prom." He visibly shivered.
"I want to go, but just to get it over with." I shook my head, very much conscious that he was still holding my hand. "All those people waiting for me to come back to them…my friends, my family, Andy. I feel like trying so hard these last few weeks of school will help my parents to deal with me, and it’ll help me decide who I want to be."
He twisted his lips. "And decide who you want to be with, right?"
I ticked my head to the side. "I wasn't the one who couldn't decide," I said softly.
"Are you saying that Andy won't have a part of your life once you go back to school?"
He'd been so careful not to breach the line he'd drawn, and now he was practically scratching that line out with his foot.
"I don’t know. I honestly don't know what's going to happen, but will I be in love with Andy? Will I pretend to be his girlfriend and live happily ever after with him? No."
He gulped a little, staring at my neck. "I know I've confused the heck out of you." I gave him a 'duh' look. He smiled a little. "Emma, you'll never know how much I've hated doing that to you."
"I know why you did it."
He jolted in surprise. "You do?"
I nodded. "My mom. She told you that she didn't want you to see me, right? And you thought you were making it hard for me to make a real choice about who I wanted to be. You thought that I had to embrace my life and explore everything that was the old me so that when I actually make my decision, I'll know that it was my own mind and not anyone's influence about who and what my life will be."
His mouth was open in shock. "Yes."
"It's OK," I soothed and even found myself moving forward and cupping his scruffy chin with my hand. His course hair scratched my palm and I could only imagine what that would feel like against my neck. I took a deep breath. "You did me a favor. A painful favor," I clarified, "but a favor nonetheless. When I woke up, you were there. I had this strange connection to you that I didn't understand, and still don't." He gulped again and looked like he wanted to say something, but I continued on. "And I latched onto you so quickly because of it. But I needed to focus on getting better. Not anyone else, not worrying about anything but my goal. And I've done it. I can walk, I can go to school, all caught up and ready to graduate, and I can leave this place because of you. Sometimes, knowing when to let go is just as important as knowing when to hold tight."
He licked his lip. "I thought you were excited about leaving because you couldn’t wait to get away from me." I felt my eyes go wide. How could he think that? He answered me. "You were upset before when I said we couldn't be…together. And after that, your mom talked to me," he confirmed my suspicion and nodded, "and told me that she didn't want me to be a distraction for you. That I was stealing your focus and stealing your choices by not letting you live your old life a little first. That I was too old for you and would never be good for you. I felt like...you didn't know or remember anyone else and I was stealing you. It felt like stealing to just snatch you up when you hadn't experienced anything yet, but...you seemed so OK with it. I thought my ship had sailed. I thought you'd moved on and was working so hard to get out of here so you could go back to your old life and forget all about me." He smiled wryly.
"No," I told him and shook my head. "No, I just agreed that for me to start my life, I had to get out of here. So thank you," I whispered. I let my thumb rub his chin. "You worked just as hard as I did and I would not be getting my life back had you not been there for me." I couldn't hold it in anymore, but it was the first time happy tears had come, ever that I could remember. "Thank you."
He wiped a tear from my chin and shook his head. "All I want is for you to be happy. I knew this place wasn't going to do that for you. You needed to go home. You did it all by yourself, Em. It was your strength, not mine."
I shook my head. "It was yours, too."
I wrapped my arms around his neck. When his arms went around my back and settled, warm and steady on my ribs as he held me to him, I sighed with pleasure. The man had no idea what he'd done for me. I found myself searching for his skin. When my nose touched his neck, I let my lips rest against him and breathed him in. He shuddered and moved his own lips to my cheek, nuzzling my hair out of the way to find my skin. But he didn't stop there. He kissed the side of my neck and sucked a little, making me flush all over. The little noise that escaped my lips had him pressing harder before pulling back. My arms already ached from holding on for so long, but I pushed that away as he leaned back and our noses brushed when he settled me back to the floor. "Your mom wants me to leave you alone," he confessed. I balked. Leave me alone? What, like he was a predator or something?
"I know," he soothed and tunneled his hand through my hair. "But I feel inclined to respect her wishes."
"Mason," I protested.
"For now. They love you. You have your mom, Em, and…" He seemed really sad and understanding smacked into me. His mom… I had my mom and he missed his own fiercely. He thought that by being with me, he was putting a rift between my mom and me. "It's not fair to you. It's not fair to make you choose between them and me so soon when you haven't even really gotten to know them yet. You'll choose me," he whispered and let his thumb rub across my earlobe, "and I'll feel guilty because it wasn't a fair fight. You need to get to know them, Emma. You need to get back to the place where you love them again, and though you may never remember the way you used to be with them, I have no doubt that you'll figure out a way that works with them one day. And when you do, when you figure everything out and decide with no regrets who you want to be, if you still want me, I'll be right here waiting for you."
"So…" I wanted to cry again, even though every word he uttered made scary sense, it still hurt to imagine a life without Mason in it in some form. "I can't see you at all?"
"You'll still need to come in once a week for therapy." He licked his lips. "I can give your chart to someone else if you’d be more comfortable."
"No," I said quickly. "No. I don't want anyone else."
He knew my words held more than one meaning.
"It won't be forever. I'd just…I'd give anything for five minutes with my mom, the way she used to be. The way she seemed to have Yoda-like answers for everything."
I smiled and laughed a little, though another tear slid down my cheek. "I understand."
"I just can't take your mom from you. Hopefully, she'll get over whatever aversion she has for me."
"She didn't tell you?"
He shook his head. "Just that she didn't want us to
be involved and that you had big plans for yourself that didn't include someone like me. Someone that wasn't...good enough."
"My mother said that?" I breathed an angry breath.
"She's your mom, Emma. She's just trying to protect you. My mom was like that, too, but worse. She was like a pit-bull." He laughed at some memory and it made more tears surface. He seemed surprised. "Why are you crying?"
"Because I hate that your mom was taken from you when you obviously loved her so much. I hate that for you."
He rubbed one of the tears with his finger. "These are for me? Emma, you're making this so much harder."
"What?"
He smiled sadly. "Being the good guy."
I smiled back. "You are a good guy," I insisted. "As much as I hate it, you're right. Just like therapy, I need to focus on my life and try to get all the pieces in place. But I won't want anyone else," I said slowly and fiercely.
"Then I'll be right here waiting."
Useless Fact Number Eight
It's possible to lead a cow upstairs, but not downstairs.
"Mrs. Betty, thank you so much for all your help." Rhett kissed her cheek and took my suitcase from her. "Emma talks about you every single visit."
"Well, I'm gonna miss her." She looked at me and I swore I even saw her fighting a little tear. "You be a good girl, now. Come see me when you come for therapy. I'll make you a chicken-grape salad sandwich."
"Deal," I said and choked on my own tears. I was so happy to be going home, wherever that was, but this woman who had taken care of me for so long and never judged, just listened? I was going to miss her. I hugged her and her vice-grip said it all. "Bye."
"Bye, Emma girl."
I got into the back seat of a white Land Rover. The leather seats looked brand new and never used. They were cold, and it was cold outside.
Then I realized I had no idea what state I even lived in. It had never come up. As my parents pulled away from the hospice, I didn't even look back, but I asked, "Um…where are we?"
Isabella turned halfway. "We're going home, honey."
"No, I mean…where are we? What state do we live in?"
Rhett's eyes jumped to mine in the rearview mirror before focusing back on the road. He sighed loudly. "We're in Colorado, sweetheart. Why, are you cold?"
"A little. I just didn't realize is all."
"We should have said," Isabella apologized. "I can't believe we didn't think to."
"It's OK. I think, compared to everything else, the state I live in is a mole hill, not a mountain."
She giggled. "That's something you would have said. I mean…you. You know what I mean."
"I know," I said, understanding her giddiness, but not sharing it. It was obvious those two were still pretty set on me being Emmie. I looked out my window as the heat blasted my face from Rhett turning it up for me. There wasn't snow, but it was cold and everything was dead looking with just a hint of spring beginning to peek out of things. New life was starting all around me, getting a fresh, new start.
Just like me.
I opened my purse and fumbled around for a lipgloss. My cell slipped between my fingers and I remembered that I she had given it to me that day in my room and never turned it on. I pressed the button until it sang its start-up song and then slipped it into my purse again.
It wasn't long before they pulled into a gated community. The gateman waved them in and smiled extra bright as he bent down and waved to me. I waved in kind, but took a deep breath as I tried to prepare myself for the onslaught of people knowing me, but I would be surrounded by strangers. Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach and my chest seemed too tight. It didn't want to hold my breaths for very long. I tried not to gasp loudly.
"This is our neighborhood," Isabella explained. "Mostly older people, not too many of them had children. But there are a couple of kids that you go to school with that live here, too. Kali will be so happy that you're home."
"Who's Kali?"
"Oh, she's your best friend," she replied a little shrilly. "She used to be at our house almost every day, before…"
"I have a best friend that lives in the same neighborhood as me, who used to be at our house every day…and she didn't come see me in the hospital?"
She exchanged a look with my father. "She and your other friends said you wouldn't want them to come. That you'd be angry if they saw you that way."
"Even after you told them that I couldn't remember?" I asked skeptically.
She shrugged. "You have a certain way with your friends. You were kind of the…queen bee, I guess."
What the hell? What did that mean? I let it go. I had a sinking feeling that every ounce of joy I had about coming home was about to be demolished quickly with all the expectation and disappointment.
Rhett pulled into a driveway and I was scared to lean down and look through the windshield to see it. This was it. This was the first step to my old life. I leaned down and managed to hold in my gasp at the huge three-story white house sitting at the end of the driveway. There was a huge paved, circle driveway out front with two other cars there already. Expensive cars.
"Who's here?" I asked, not ready to see anyone else yet. I needed to get my bearings a bit.
Isabella looked at me sharply. "What do you mean?"
"Whose cars are those?"
She looked relieved. "Oh. That's mine and yours."
I knew right away which one was mine. "You bought me a convertible?"
"It's what you wanted," Rhett reasoned and laughed. "You were so adamant about that car for your sixteenth birthday."
I stared at the little black Mini Cooper convertible with red leather. The way these two talked, I was spoiled. But they found it amusing…endearing. I swallowed that down. OK, one thing at a time. I took a deep breath and opened my door. That prompted them to do the same, as they were waiting for me.
I looked up at the big house and was saddened by the fact that all I could think about what how much I couldn't wait for my therapy session with Mason tomorrow. He came by early, so my parents wouldn't see him, and said his goodbyes, but it wasn't really goodbye, it was see you later. Namely, see you tomorrow. And then he had hugged me and told me he hoped it was everything I wanted, but if it wasn't, to just have faith that it was all going to work out. Then he had kissed my cheek and left in the nick of time before my parents arrived.
"Come on, sweetie." I looked at Isabella. "Let's go in. I'll show you your room."
Rhett was already inside with the bags, so I accepted Isabella's help that she obviously wanted to give, and let her wrap her arm around me like I couldn't make it up the stairs leading to the door without it. When she opened the door, there was a man there. He startled me, and apologized. "Sorry, Miss."
"This is Hanson. He's our butler," she said dismissively. I looked back at him as she towed me away and he shut the door, not showing an ounce of emotion. "And this is the housekeeper, Maya." She waved her hand at her, but kept going. I looked back at Maya the same way I had Hanson, but she, too, was a picturesque statue of poise.
"And this," she preluded before opening a huge double door, "is the library. But honestly, this is more my favorite room than yours."
I felt my jaw open wide with wonder. The shelves lined the walls completely, floor to ceiling. The shelves were so tall, there was a ladder on a track to reach the top shelves. There were several large lounge chairs and pillows in the center. I ached to go in and sit for hours. "It's…epic."
She giggled. "Oh, you don’t have to pretend you like it. I know reading's not your thing."
I let her pull me away. She showed me the kitchen and dining room that looked more like a restaurant than a home. She showed me the living room, the den, the sitting room, the drawing room, the cocktail room… At that point I was exhausted from all the rooms that held no function but…just sitting there. I asked where my room was, and she smiled and took me upstairs.
I tried to hide how winded I was from step after step after step. My legs
even wobbled a little.
She waited, looking at me with a little smile with her hand on the knob. I could tell she was apparently proud of this room and was trying to build the suspense. I tried to act excited. When she opened the door slowly, I felt my eyes bug…in a bad way.
It looked like Barney ate too much eggplant and then threw up in my room.
The walls, floors, pillows, bed, chandelier, and lamps were all purple. She seemed to be waiting for a reaction so I turned and smiled. Or at least I tried. "Wow. Purple, huh?" She smiled and nodded. "She liked purple an awful lot, didn't she?"
When she didn't answer, I turned back to her. She was pale in a scared way. "You OK?"
"You liked purple. Not her, you."
"Oh…" Crap. "I'm sorry. I meant me. I liked purple an awful lot. I thought my favorite color was pastel pink?"
She smiled a little bit. "It is, but purple was your second favorite. You even threw a fit about the convertible because your dad got red leather when you wanted purple."
I scoffed. "Wouldn't I have just been grateful to have the car at all?"
She laughed uneasily. "Well, honey, you're very particular. You like things the way you like them. There's nothing wrong with being certain of what you want."
"Well, no, but…you make me sound so ungrateful. It's a freaking car that I didn’t pay a dime for. I should have just been happy to be getting a car, not focused on the color of the leather."
That sounded like a new level of ridiculous.
"Your daddy wanted you to be happy," she said, a bit more loudly. She was offended that was I was insulting…myself. The old me. My head was spinning.
"OK. Sorry."
"You don’t have to be sorry. But we love you. Don't talk about yourself like you're an ungrateful, spoiled brat when you don't even really know yourself yet. It's like you're gossiping or something."
I stared. Gossiping about myself?
She moved on. "Your bathroom is in here." She pointed, but didn't go in. "And your closet is here." She giggled at some memory. "You could spend hours in here." She eyed me over objectively. "But…" she said carefully, and toyed with the pearls around her neck, "I'm afraid not much is going to fit you in this closet. We'll have to go shopping as soon as possible."