“Emmy, come on, pick up the damn phone. I know things moved a little fast last night, but I know it felt as right to you as it did to me.” Click.
“Baby, there’s absolutely no need to feel shy about what happened. It was amazing, and I refuse to let you pretend otherwise.” Click.
“Honey, I’ve got incredible patience where you’re concerned, and I can be more persuasive than you could ever imagine. If I have to, I’ll play dirty to get what I want. And I want you real bad.” Click.
“Emmy, I swear by all that is holy, if you don’t pick up the damn phone, I’m going to call your mother and tell her what a brat you’re being. And then I’m going to camp out in front of your place until you see reason. I’ve been trying to respect your space, but that is about to change—you got it? You’re so damn stubborn.” Click.
Feeling deeply disgusted with herself, she skipped ahead to the most often played message. She listened to it so often, in fact, that she was thinking about uploading it to her iPod. Well-aware that she completely pathetic, she settled back on the bed to listen to Ethan’s deep voice.
“Emmy, I miss you. I think about you every hour of every day, and I keep praying that you’re thinking of me, too. I didn’t know you could be so cruel, baby. Maybe I deserve it—” There was a long pause, and Emilie liked to think that he was biting his lip in frustration before he regained his willful determination to bend her to his will and continued—“Maybe I’ve earned your doubt, but I am not letting you go. You can try to hide from this if you want, but I won’t let you hide forever. I love you, Emmy, and I know you love me. Eventually you’re going to admit it.” Click.
Shows how much he knows, she thought huffily.
She saved the messages again before curling up in her bed and pulling the quilt over her head, reflecting morosely over the turn of events that had led her to be cowering under the covers like a toddler afraid of monsters every time she heard a stupid voice. Clearly, her life was not going according to plan.
Instead of settling into a comfortable, steady, entirely predictable relationship with Leo, who had turned out to be a freak of the first water, she was dodging phone calls and persistent flower deliveries to her work (boy had that raised a few eyebrows from her co-workers) and apartment from a man she had long-since vowed to never trust again. And the obstinate man was refusing to leave her be, thereby obliterating all of her previously held notions that he was a capricious jerk who ran away the second things got difficult.
Valentine’s Day had been…well, it had been amazing. But it had also been a mistake. Yes, she had fun dancing and flirting with Ethan. Yes, making love under the bleachers had been admittedly mind-blowing. But she still didn’t see how one night could possibly be expected to erase the last eleven years, years which she had spent telling herself in no uncertain terms that a future with Ethan was never going to happen. She had told herself these things in the interest of self-preservation, and his abrupt change of heart didn’t change any of her reservations about him.
Nor did it obliterate her self-doubt. If she was being honest, Emilie wasn’t at all certain that she would be able to hold onto him even if she wanted to try. He had left her once without any apparent difficulty, and he would surely find it just as easy to leave again in the not-too-distant future. She had serious doubts about her ability to go through that wrenching, hopeless feeling of loss again.
On that gloomy thought, Emilie dragged herself out of bed and headed to the shower to try and dust the cobwebs from her mind for the long day ahead of her. Kate’s bridal shower was tomorrow afternoon, and Emilie’s mom had agreed to let them have it at her home on the condition that Emilie helped clean beforehand. Emilie was also fairly certain that she would be forced to listen to well-meaning, entirely annoying advice about the importance of accepting the remote possibility that stupid boys could, on occasion, mature into worthwhile men because Lana and Kate had thought it was a great idea to fill her mom in on all her relationship woes.
Passing Lana in the hallway, Emilie ignored the knowing, slightly disapproving look on Lana’s face as she moved past Emilie towards the kitchen. Lana had probably heard Ethan’s messages being ritually played in the room next to hers this morning, and she obviously still thought Emilie had a few screws loose in her head.
Lana had been telling her for weeks that temporary insanity was the only logical explanation for Emilie’s insistence on agonizing over a voice on a machine instead of simply picking up the phone and speaking directly to her tormentor. Emilie turned on the shower and stepped under the hot stream with a heavy heart. She hated that Lana thought she was weak, especially because she suspected the same thing. Every time Ethan delivered yet another nightly message, Emilie listened silently on the couch while Lana peppered her with increasingly exasperated questions, the most common one being why the heck couldn’t Emilie just swallow her pride and give Ethan a shot.
She didn’t blame Lana for being disappointed in her; Emilie was fully aware that she was a coward. What she had up to now refrained from explaining to Lana was that she was ignoring Ethan’s pursuit for a very simple reason: every time he called and left an increasingly persuasive message, the insidious voice in her head whispered that his interest, so complete and focused now, would end the second she gave in. She couldn’t help thinking that it was better to let Ethan’s interest fade away naturally, with as little drama as possible, rather than allow herself to fall into an actual relationship with him, only to watch him grow bored a couple of months later. Not even numerous hours spent eating ice cream sundaes and watching Ellen had managed to calm her fears or lighten her mood.
Kate was just as confused as Lana was, and they had both bluntly informed Emilie on several occasions that she was acting crazy. Though Lana seemed to at least be trying to understand, Kate simply could not fathom why Emilie was willing to sacrifice being happy now on the off chance that she might be sad later. Kate had plainly never had her heart broken.
Emilie, however, knew exactly what it felt like to lose Ethan. She would much rather push him away now, on her own terms, than give him the opportunity to hurt her again. If that made her a coward, then so be it.
Kate looked up from her laptop when the heavy pounding on her door refused to stop. She was sitting on her couch, putting the finishing touches on her History of Psychological Principles midterm paper, “Oedipus Should Have Grown a Pair,” and she had already chased Will out of the house on the pretense that she couldn’t think about Oedipus when he was around. His inexplicable fondness for his mother when viewed in light of her paper did totally creep her out, but she was always on the lookout for reasons to make him leave her alone. In fact, Kate had been using any and every excuse lately to avoid alone time with Will, though she was still ignoring the implications that her new pattern of evasion might have on her impending marriage to him.
The pounding on the door increased in both volume and speed. Forcefully putting Will out of her mind, Kate saved her work and yelled, “Door’s open!” A second later, Ethan strode into the house with a black scowl on his face.
She heaved an exaggerated sigh. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
Ethan didn’t even bother with pleasantries. He simply threw himself into the green armchair next to her couch and glared at her. “Emmy refuses to take my damn calls!”
His expression was an amusing blend of irritation and befuddlement. Kate figured he was at a loss as to how to deal with Emilie, normally sweet and forgiving to a fault, now that she had recommenced with completely freezing him out. If Kate wasn’t mistaken, this was a method that Ethan himself had used with Emilie years earlier. She had to hand it to Emilie — she might be stubborn as a mule, but her mastery of passive-aggressive irony was impressive.
Kate shook her head at his ignorance of Emilie’s complicated brain patterns. For an intelligent man, he really was a doofus sometimes.
“You really are a doofus sometimes, you know that right?”
Ethan gave her a disparaging look and sat back in the chair to stare sullenly at the ceiling. “Hardy har-har,” he muttered. Then he rubbed his eyes wearily and sighed. “I really don’t know what I did this time that was so wrong.”
She raised a skeptical brow. “You don’t understand why Emilie might have a difficult time coming to grips with the fact that she had unplanned, though from what I hear cataclysmic, sex in a middle school gym with you, of all people?”
His face flushed, but his eyes refused to stray from the ceiling above his head, “So?” he said defiantly.
“Jeez, you’re dumb,” Kate sighed. “Not only did she merrily throw her morals and her panties to the wind, she did so with a guy she once swore would have to, and I quote, ‘walk naked through a blizzard’ before she ‘would even think about giving him a mitten.’ That’s bound to confuse a girl, especially one who, unlike the nattering twits you’re used to dating, actually has a working brain.”
He grunted and finally glanced over at Kate. “You think I don’t know that? I don’t want her to be anything other than what she is; I just want her to cut me some slack every now and then.”
Kate nodded sympathetically while he rubbed the back of his neck. Though she understood Emilie’s reasons, she still felt bad for Ethan. Even if he did deserve to jump through the hoops Emilie seemed to be unconsciously throwing in his way, he looked miserable.
Ethan remained silent for several minutes and she let him be alone with his thoughts, even if she would much rather have used the time to dust her furniture. Alas, apparently, the work of a matchmaker was never done.
Eventually he looked at her again, this time with the most sincere look of desperation Kate had ever seen. “I love her, Kate.” Her eyes widened at his vehemence, but Ethan didn’t pause long enough for her to process his obvious sincerity. “I know things moved fast, but she wasn’t pushing me away that night. In fact, she seemed to be all in. I called her right away. I sent about a dozen different flower arrangements to her to let her know I’m dead serious about being with her.” He leaned forward and threw his hands out in supplication. “Flowers, Kate! When have I ever sent flowers to a woman?”
Kate could see he was deeply perturbed that his flower gesture, and the emotional maturity it seemed to represent for him, had gone unappreciated. So she stifled her grin and dutifully replied, “Never.”
Ethan nodded, as if she had somehow proved his point. “Exactly. What else am I supposed to do if she won’t even answer the damned phone?”
She shrugged. “Beats me. But I get the distinct impression that she’s not avoiding you to hurt you. She’s just trying to protect herself.”
“Protect herself from what?” Ethan asked incredulously.
Kate groaned aloud at his obliviousness. “From you, moron.”
His expression remained blank, causing Kate to groan again. Barely able to refrain from rolling her eyes at his willful ignorance, Kate settled for pursing her lips. “She’s trying to push you away now so that you won’t leave her later.”
Ethan appeared genuinely flummoxed by this new perspective on things. “Why would I leave her? I’ve already said that I love her.”
Kate chewed on her bottom lip while she tried to discern if he really was this dense. She finally concluded from his tortured expression that he was, in fact, as dense as he seemed. His very male brain had apparently failed to realize that he had confirmed Emilie’s worst suspicions about the fickleness of men when his seventeen year old self had tossed her on Aunt Olive’s couch and walked away without a backwards glance. He was, therefore, almost entirely responsible for the walls Emilie had built to protect herself, walls which were now contributing significantly to his own present misery. For both his and Emilie’s sake, as well as in the interest of her own sanity, Kate chose to help him out a little.
“Did you tell Emilie that you love her?” Ethan quickly nodded, but she held up her hand to halt him before he started patting himself on the back for having done one thing right. “I mean did you tell her before you decided to nail her against a concrete wall in a room that smelled of bubblegum and feet?”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed, clearly not appreciating Kate’s description of the event. He gritted his teeth and slowly shook his head. She bit down hard the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smacking him.
“Therein lays your problem, genius. She thinks that the events of that night can be boiled down to the purely physical and, as far as Emilie is concerned, that is not enough to build a lasting relationship on.”
His face took on the appearance of a cartoon character — she could practically see the giant light bulb hovering over his head. After a few moments of reflection he refocused on Kate. “I’ve been calling her non-stop for the past month. How the hell can she possibly think I only want her body or whatever harebrained idea she has running through her mind?”
Kate tilted her head and observed him pityingly. “She’s comparing you to her nitwit ex, dummy. A man who decided Emilie was the bee’s knees the second she told him to hit the road. And to a lesser extent her absentee father, but that’s something you’re never going to be able to fully overcome so you might as well accept it and move forward,” she noted thoughtfully.
He looked stunned by the last piece of information, and then distinctly affronted at the comparison to Leo. “I am nothing like that twerp!”
“I never said you were,” she reminded him tartly. “But it’s easier for Emilie to rationalize her very real fears about being with you if she tells herself that you are like every other stupid guy she’s been with before.”
He looked downright crestfallen. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to be with her, Kate?” His voice cracked a little, and she felt another twinge of pity for him. “How many nights I spent in some godforsaken desert a million miles away just thinking of all the ways I was going to make her happy again as soon as I came home?”
She opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out. Ethan rarely spoke of his time in the military. Kate had assumed that he enjoyed the rush of constant danger, that he had loved slaying dragons and roaming the world completely unfettered. Just as she had failed for years to note how deeply Emilie’s feelings for Ethan ran, it seemed that she had also failed to see how much Ethan needed Emilie. Overcome with a renewed surge of guilt for having totally missed the severity of their attachment to one another, Kate wondered again how she could have been so obtuse.
When Kate remained silent, Ethan slumped back down in his seat. “Every damn time I got one of those care packages from her mom, I’d hold my breath just hoping Emmy might have sent a letter, a card, something to let me know she missed me too.”
Kate’s eyes narrowed into slits and she sat up straighter on the couch. “Em’s mom sent you care packages?”
Ethan glanced at her and shrugged, “Once every few months for the last four years or so, ever since I got sent overseas.” He smiled softly. “Hell, Emmy’s mom was more reliable than my own mother. It didn’t matter where I happened to be stationed; whenever I’d start to feel homesick or low, a package full of my favorite candy and magazines, batteries and socks, and homemade cookies by the dozens always arrived on schedule, just like clockwork.”
“Cookies, huh?” Kate’s eyes practically glittered with merriment.
“Yeah, cookies.” Ethan looked askance at her smirk before he sighed and rubbed his stomach. “Chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal, molasses, every kind you can think of. And they tasted amazing no matter how long they’d been in that box. It was incredible, actually. Most of the guys in my unit were half in love with Ms. Thatcher.”
“I’ll bet.”
“There was always an encouraging little note in them, too—a poem, a Bible verse, some kind of sweet sentiment telling me I was missed.” His eyes became shadowed. “And for four years, I waited for Emilie to say something. Anything, damn it. I would have settled for ‘screw you’ if it meant she was talking to me again.” He glared at Kate, as if this l
ack of communication was somehow her fault.
“But she never wrote you,” Kate guessed. She shook her head at his sullen expression. He was so stupid. He and Emilie both were.
Ethan put his head in his hands, but not before she glimpsed the tears covering the normally happy deep green of his eyes. “She’s never going to forgive me, is she?”
He looked so dejected that Kate took mercy on him. Besides, she thought it was high time for the star cross’d idiots to advance the plot and progress beyond this overly prolonged phase of tortured love and try actually being in love for a change.
“I have a secret to tell you, Ethan.” He glumly looked up at Kate to let her know he was listening. “Emilie’s mother doesn’t bake.”
His brow furrowed for a moment and then his expression went comically blank again. “Huh?”
She shook her head firmly. “She cooks like nobody’s business, for sure, but baking isn’t her thing. She never met a cake or a cookie she couldn’t burn.”
He looked downright befuddled as he leaned forward and clasped his hands in front of him, as if deep in thought. “Then who made me all those cookies?”
Kate remained silent, trying to let the ignorant dork figure it out. She rolled her eyes as a slow grin spread across his face a few moments later. “You really are an idiot. You know that, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Ethan nodded quickly, looking dazed. “Kate—it was Emmy.”
She rolled her eyes again, curiously debating whether or not she was developing a tick. “Duh squared, cousin of mine.”
“But why would she do that? It must have taken hundreds of hours for her to make those care packages and bake all those cookies.”
“Why did you think her mother was doing it, weirdo?”
Ethan looked deeply chagrined when he mumbled, “I just thought she liked me.”
Kate finally laughed outright, ignoring his disgruntled scowl. “Let me get this straight. You were arrogant enough to think the mother of the girl whose heart you broke into a thousand tiny pieces was taking the time to send you yummy treats around the globe, but it never occurred to you that the girl you love might be trying to take care of you in her own quiet way, even if it was from a distance?”
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