by Whitney D.
I didn't speak to my mom for months. Not because I didn't want to, but because she wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't even look at me. Had what I done been so terrible that she was disgusted by my mere existence? I never apologized because I simply wasn't sorry for what I had done.
Eventually, my parents loosened their reigns on me and I could only assume it was because they'd realized that I'd punished myself enough for what had happened.
Six months had gone by, when one dreary Saturday afternoon Sophie finally managed to drag me out of the house to grab a bite to eat at our favorite little sandwich shop. We were sitting at a table near the exit and I was picking at the crust on my partially eaten turkey sandwich when I heard his voice. Sebastian, my Sebastian.
My heart felt like it shot into my throat, blocking my airway and causing me to feel lightheaded when I first heard him speak, but then when the banter of a girl laughing back in response to him made its way to my ears, my heart sank.
“Don't turn around,” Sophie could see him, his voice obviously coming from behind me near the order counter.
I bit back tears and took in a gulp of air, trying to calm my racing heart.
Not wanting to draw attention to ourselves, Sophie quickly said, “Let's just get out of here.”
“No. He will see me if we get up,” I whispered.
“He's going to see you anyway because he's walking this way,” her voice increased an octave as she looked behind me.
My stomach flipped and turned as my brain caught up to what she was saying.
“Hello Emery.”
I didn't look - instead I kept my eyes glued on Sophie because I knew that looking at him would result in me either vomiting or bursting into ugly tears.
“Just go, Sebastian,” Sophie finally chimed in, waving her hand at him in an attempt to get him to move along.
He didn't say anything else, but afterwards Sophie told me he lowered his head in defeat when I wouldn't talk to him. He looked over at her for more, but she rolled her eyes at him before he eventually walked away.
After that, I didn't see Sebastian again.
8
Acceptance.
Nearly fifteen months to the day after our terrible break-up, I had a guy smile at me one night while I was at a football game with Sophie and that was it. I let him fuck me in the back seat of his car after the game. I didn't know his name. I didn't care. When he was done with me, he dropped me off at a gas station down the street from my house and I walked home. I fed on the thrill of what I did that night and it became my regular go-to drug. I slept around, tarnishing the tiny bit of a reputation I had.
This particular period of my life I often referred to as the downward spiral of Emery Jane.
Something in me changed that night and I no longer had a conscience. I grew accustomed to regularly lying to my parents about where I was, who was with me, and what I was doing. They never noticed or if they did, they never mentioned it. For all intents and purposes, they'd simply given up on me.
Sophie and I slowly grew apart. I smoked pot, got drunk every weekend, and basically threw away a solid year of my life after falling in line with the wrong crowd. I had gone from straight-A student to barely graduating.
Hitting rock bottom two months after graduation, I had a pregnancy scare and that was when I decided I had done enough damage. I had made plenty of terrible memories to erase Sebastian Holt. He was filed back there with every bad decision I made that year. That's where I kept him... tucked away for twelve solid years he stayed there. Until one unusually chilly November afternoon when every thing came racing back again...
9
Twelve Years Later
Tap, tap, tap... again and again I tapped my fingers nervously against the grain of the wood table as I waited for the doctor to return.
The door creaked open slowly as Dr. Morrow made her way into my room.
“Mrs. Troyer?”
“Hi Dr. Morrow.”
“Yes, ma'am. We have your results.”
Clamping my hands together as tight as I could, I prayed she'd say what I had been hoping for. I knew this time would be different. It had to be. At this point it was the only thing that would save me and Matt.
“I'm sorry Mrs. Troyer, it's negative.”
Four years prior, I had married Matthew Troyer. He was half a foot taller than me and more than twice my age. One night after a particularly hellish week at work, I was out at a bar alone and there he was. He was cool and collected as he sat across the room in a dark corner. The mood was set perfectly with a flickering glow of the dinky old bar lights. I'd had one too many cocktails that night, and after my fourth drink, I felt free as bird as I started to dance alone in the middle of the bar to Journey's Don't Stop Believing.
I moved my body in tune with the beat of the music coming from the jukebox and eventually my eyes settled on Matt. I knew he was watching me so I provoked him as I danced, making him thirsty for a taste of me. He could've been anyone as long as he gave me the high I craved. I knew he was much older than me, but I didn't care. He was tall, dark, handsome... everything a girl could've hope for. I set my sights on him, knowing my evening would end with me letting him take me home and fuck me. He watched me for a solid hour, his eyes never wavering from my body.
It didn't quite turn out like I had planned. Eventually he noticed that I'd had too much to drink and he stood, pacing across the bar and grasping my elbow gently, he whispered against my ear, “Let me call you a cab.”
I yanked my arm away from him and slurred my words, “Don't touchhhh me. I'm fine. Annnd who the fuck are you to tell meee what to do? Huh?”
He tried to hide the smile that crept along his mouth, but when he couldn't mask it any further, he actually laughed.
“Just don't want you to end up doing something you're going to regret.”
“You mean like fucking you?”
My words were a spear and the look on his face when I shot him down was priceless, but ironically he ended up taking me home anyway.
I wanted him to fuck me. I had been on the prowl that night and he would definitely do. The strangest thing happened though. He drove me home, as I sat quietly in the passenger seat. I tried to be sexy, spreading my legs, accentuating my cleavage. But he never looked my way and he didn't take advantage of me either. Instead, he took me home and tucked me into my bed. Yes, I let a complete stranger into my house, but something about him told me he was safe.
Matt was an English Lit professor at a state college in Tallahassee. He intrigued me. He was brilliant and exceptionally smart which made him sexier than ever. I may have had a bit of a teacher-student crush on him when I discovered he was a teacher. I had all sorts of fantasies about him fucking me in his school office. Although that never actually happened. We lived a semi-normal life together even though people always stared at us in public. Truth be told, on more than one occasion people referred to him as my dad, but neither of us ever batted an eye at our age gap.
Three years ago, Matt told me he wanted to have a baby. I agreed even though motherhood had never been on at the top of my list of priorities. The more we talked about it, the more I thought that I wanted it too. We'd tried non-stop for two years without any results. Since Matt was much older, he went and had his guys tested assuming it was his age that was hindering our ability to conceive. However, luck would have it that his guys were just fine... super strong little buggers is what the clinic told him. A doctor finally told us that I was the reason we were having a problem getting pregnant.
After that, Matt laid out truck loads of money for me to have IVF. We were on our sixth attempt and by now, Matt was losing hope. We argued constantly and to be completely honest, I was beginning to hate him for all the blame he had placed on me. I was damaged, is what he'd said during one particular heated argument. He asked me what I had done before we met that had damaged my eggs. The more we argued, the further we grew apart. Divorce had never been something I'd considered, but the last argument
we'd had resulted in him telling me that maybe we should just divorce. I was completely caught off guard that my inability to have children was serious enough for him to consider the big D.
I kicked his ass out a week prior and he had called relentlessly begging me to forgive him. Ultimately, I told him I needed some time to think and that I would let him know when we could talk. That was four days ago and he hadn't attempted to call me since.
Were we really headed for divorce? The thought had me sick to my stomach.
“Don't lose hope, Mrs. Troyer. We'll set you up with another transplant appointment,” squeezing my folded hands in my lap, Dr. Morrow stood to make her way to the door.
“I think I'm going to wait.”
Questioning me with her cocked eyebrow, she turned back to face me, as her hand lingered against the door knob.
“I mean... I just need a break from this. Every time it comes back negative, it breaks me a little more.”
“Very well, Mrs. Troyer. Let us know when you're ready to proceed and we can set you up with another appointment.”
I half smiled as she left the room, shutting the door behind her.
Blowing out a mass of hot air that had been building in my lungs, I grabbed my purse from the counter and left the fertility clinic to make my way to work.
Luckily, my day would be filled with car accident victims and kids with the flu. Lucky, you ask? From the moment I took a first responder course in twelfth grade, I knew that being a nurse was my calling. After graduating from high school, I spent three years kicking nursing school ass at a tiny college an hour away before I graduated with my BSN. After that, I quickly applied for a position as an ER nurse because blood, guts, and adrenaline were what I regularly fed off of. My job was my favorite place to be. I was lucky enough to have one of those jobs that was so fulfilling that I felt as if I hadn't worked a day in my life. My co-workers were my best friends and I often took extra shifts because Matt worked long hours.
Two years ago I was promoted to charge nurse and I had only recently decided to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner. Although, I hadn't worked out the specifics I was going to enroll in some online courses after the first of the year.
Parking my car in my usual spot on the third floor of the garage, I grabbed my name tag and clipped it to my breast pocket before making my way to the elevator. Usually, my shift began at 7 AM and I was out of there by 7:30 PM, but today would be a little different because my IVF appointment had taken up the first two hours of my shift.
Making my way down to the ER five minutes later, Libby Adams, a baby nurse, stopped me before I even had a chance to clock in. Baby nurses are what we veteran nurses call the newbies. She had just joined our staff three months prior and exactly two weeks after she'd graduated from nursing school.
“There's a lady in bed three that I think you need to check out. She came in on an ambulance. She was in a car accident, but she smells like a bar if you know what I mean. Anyway, I think she has a broken nose. It's pretty banged up...”
“Fine, grab me her chart. Let me go clock in and I will be right back.”
I made my way to the employee lounge, swinging my purse along the way. I was happy to be at work where I could consume my day with helping others. It would definitely take my mind off of what was going on in my personal life. I didn't want to think about Matt or all of the hateful things he'd said to me.
Stuffing my purse into my locker, I tugged a rubberband from around my wrist and tied my hair up into a bun. After clocking in, I made my way back to the front desk at the entrance of the ER where Libby met me with the chart for miss drunk-driving-banged-up-face.
“Here you go. She's been asking to use the phone and she's a bit combative. Should we call the police?”
Eyeing Libby briefly, I took the chart from her and scanned it over quickly.
“Not yet, let's run some labs first. How long has she been here?”
Libby lifted her wrist to check her watch, “About an hour.”
“Alright, come on.”
I made my way back to bed three with Libby hot on my heels. Libby was sweet - she couldn't have been more than twenty-one. She was a petite brunette with the largest tits I'd ever seen on someone so small. She wore thick black rimmed glasses and not a lick of makeup, yet there was something inscrutable about her. She was eager to learn and I was willing to teach, she was my favorite kind of baby nurse. Entering bed three, I handed the chart over to Libby, “Alright go...”
“Cassidy Holt. Twenty-six. Contusion on the forehead, bleeding from the nose. Elevated blood pressure. And a bit combative...”
Cassidy Holt? As in Sebastian? Cassidy? As in Johnson?
The room began to spin and turn fuzzy as bile rose and burned in the back of my throat. Then Libby's voice called to me, “Emery? Emery?.......”
THUNK.
10
When I came to, I was on a gurney in the hallway that ran from the ER to the east wing of the hospital. Springing up from the bed, my head throbbed and I reached to the back of my scalp as I blindly searched for a knot on the back of my head.
“Emery.”
Looking over my shoulder, I saw Libby rushing towards me, “Emery, you fainted. You hit your head pretty hard. Are you okay? I tried to catch you when you fell, but you just went wham and hit the floor.”
She made this terrible fake falling to the ground motion as she described my fall from grace.
I winced, “Yeah. I'm okay. My head is killing me though.”
“Maybe you should go home for the rest of the day?”
I went to lay my head back down on the pillow when I suddenly remembered that Cassidy Holt was the reason why I was laid up flat on my back with a huge knot on the back of my head.
Could it be? Could Cassidy Johnson have married Sebastian Holt? My Sebastian. A pinching feeling overtook my chest and my stomach turned sour at the thought. No. Just no. There was no fucking way it could be. The name had to be pure coincidence. I threw my legs towards the floor. I was going to get to the bottom of this. Right now.
Pressing my feet to the floor, I felt a bit dizzy and when I put my full weight down, Libby tried to stop me, “Emery... I think you should lay back down. Just relax.”
“I'm fine,” I wiggled my wrist from her grasp before pushing past her, my wobbly legs taking me straight back to bed three. Tearing back the curtain, my eyes focused as he turned his head in my direction, and there he was. Sebastian Holt.
With our eyes instantly locking on to one another, I could feel my face drain of all of its color. I opened my mouth to speak, to say something. Anything would've done, but my mind went entirely blank. As I closed the curtain, the thin plastic sheet did little to barricade him from me. I watched as his large fingers wrapped around the curtain's edge as if he was about to tug it back open.
“Emery?”
As soon as my name graced his lips, I ran. My sneakers pounded the laminate floor as I made it through the emergency room, down a corridor, and straight to the employee lounge where I hid. This wasn't happening. I struggled to breathe as I slowly made it from the doorway to the other side of the lounge. Then came the tears. One by one they fell silently. Pressing my back against the cold wall near the lockers, I slid down it slowly until I reached the floor, before burying my face into my tucked-in knees.
“Emery? What was that about?... Em?”
Libby didn't approach me, as she questioned me from the door.
Looking up, I wiped my swollen eyes with the back of my hand.
“Nothing. I'm fine.”
“That certainly didn't look like nothing.”
“Just.... just let me know once he's gone, okay?”
“Okay,” was all she said before she shut the door, leaving me alone again.
An hour later, Libby returned, “He's gone now.”
“Thanks.”
Pushing myself up from the floor, Libby dug some more, “Who was that anyway?”
“No one.
”
“Last time I checked, I've never cried over no one.”
“Please, Libby – just drop it.”
“Fine,” she rolled her eyes at me before leaving the lounge.
Hurrying to the bathroom to check myself over, I glanced in the mirror to see huge black smudges under my eyes. I wiped them away quickly before returning to the floor for the last seven hours of my shift.
Luckily, the remainder of my day flew by because the ER was unusually busy. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think about Sebastian a thousand more times during the rest of my shift, but I never asked to see his wife's chart. I didn't need any reason to obsess over him and looking at her chart would probably result in borderline illegal stalking tendencies – especially if I was to gain access to his address and phone number. Sebastian had moved on. I had moved on. My reaction to him earlier in the day was embarrassing and I prayed I would never run in to him again, but fate had other plans.
After I filled in the overnight charge nurse on the patients that were still in the ER, I grabbed my purse and coat from the lounge and headed to my car.
Exiting the sliding glass doors that led into the garage, I slipped on my coat before ruffling through my bag in search of my car keys.
“Emery?”
Stopping dead in my tracks, I knew it was him. His voice had haunted me all these years and as I closed my eyes briefly, I said a silent prayer that I wouldn't cry.
His footsteps grew closer as he approached from my right. I swallowed a lump in my throat as I tried to gather my emotions in an effort not to embarrass myself again.
“Emery.”
He called to me again. I didn't want to open my eyes - I didn't need those feelings to come rushing back again, but they did anyway because I had no control over the tugging feeling only he was capable of invoking.