It’s a notification from Instagram. The photo of Tristan and me has been getting more attention than anything I’ve ever posted before, which is unsurprising because the image is of a gorgeous man and not my latest manicure or a cup of coffee.
I open the app and my eyes settle on the notification. Directly underneath the picture of Tristan and me there’s a comment.
Gwillis Cute couple.
I throw the phone. It hits the dash and falls to the passenger-side floor. When I bend down to retrieve it, the screen is smashed, cobwebbed glass marring the surface. My fingers shake violently while I try to dial Tristan’s number, but I’m successful only in slicing the tip of my finger.
The sting jolts me back to reality and I stop. I freeze and inhale deeply.
It’s just a comment.
Don’t overreact.
My vision darts around the parking lot, looking for any sign of Gabe’s black Range Rover. I see nothing, but it doesn’t seem to matter. My stomach has dropped, my heart is in my throat, and my hands shake as I fumble with my keys.
The logical part of my brain is screaming at me, begging me to calm down. It’s just a comment.
I throw the gearshift in reverse and almost back into a shopping cart that’s been ditched in the lot. I can’t stop looking out of the rearview mirror in case someone is following me.
No one is there.
By the time I pull into our driveway, I’m considerably calmer, but I don’t remember the drive home. I pick my damaged phone up and delete Instagram.
A warning pops up on the screen. Are you sure you want to delete Instagram and all of its contents?
Yes. Yes, I’m sure. Delete the contents.
Delete the memories.
Delete Gabe Willis.
Tristan
Mateo leans back in the booth. “You look like a chick.”
“Huh?”
“The way you’re looking at your phone, you look like a girl who just got a sext.”
“It’s a text, not a sext, from Emma saying that she loves me. Surely you of all people can understand that I like hearing from her.”
He nods. “I get it.”
Shelly returns with plates of food and a cautious expression on her face. She looks worried about something. Her usual flirtatious smile for Mateo has disappeared from its near-permanent resting place.
“Here you go.” When she speaks, she isn’t the bubbly waitress we both know.
She sets the plate down and Mateo catches her wrist. “You all right?”
Her eyes dart to the other side of the pub. “I’m fine.”
“What’s going on, Shelly?”
“It’s nothing,” she mumbles.
Mateo examines her hand closely. “What are you all shaky for?”
“It’s nothing,” she repeats. “Just a few jerk customers.”
Mateo’s eyebrows inch up his face.
Here we go.
He stands, grabs the jugs of beer, and tells me to get the food. I comply. Mateo scans the near-empty bar for its other occupants. His douchebag radar must go off or something because he sits down wordlessly across from a booth with two guys in it. One of them is a pale blond and the other is a dark-haired guy who looks like a total dick. Mateo takes a chicken wing from his plate and begins to devour it.
Shelly gives us all one more nervous look before heading back to the bar.
“I got a lot of pent-up energy going on, my friend; could be a dangerous time for Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle-dumber over there,” Mateo says to me in a low voice.
I don’t doubt it.
We eat the wings in relative silence and listen to the conversation between the two guys across from us.
“That’s harsh, man,” the blond is saying. “I can’t believe she would do that to you.”
“Tell me about it.”
Mateo mouths the words, I can, Douche.
I drink my beer. My stomach is nervous, anticipating what’ll go down should Mateo decide to take it there.
“She just left?”
“Yeah,” the dark-haired guy says. “Like, vanished. Didn’t tell anyone. Bitch can run, but she can’t hide.”
Screw Mateo. I’m about to give this guy a lesson in manners.
Shelly returns with a pizza, her eyes darting nervously to Mat, who winks at her, before she heads to their table. “A large half pepperoni and sausage, half vegetarian.”
The dark-haired guy scoffs, his brows pinching together. “Are you as fucking stupid as you look?”
Mateo’s spine stiffens.
Shelly had been expecting something, but I’m not so sure she expected that. “Excuse me?”
“I clearly remember saying I wanted prosciutto and sausage, not pepperoni. Are you hard of hearing?”
Mateo waits, like a cat about to pounce. He wraps his hand around his fist and cracks the knuckles of his right hand and then his left. Oh fuck. Guy could be in serious trouble. Times like these make me so glad we’re best friends.
“I can take it back to the kitchen,” Shelly says, her eyes downcast.
“Yeah,” he says. “You can. It can go straight to the damned garbage with your tip, you useless bi—”
“I wouldn’t finish that if I were you.” Mateo’s booming voice is overpowering.
Shelly steps to the side, the offending pizza in her hand.
“Oh yeah, buddy?” the dark-haired guy says, standing. “You gonna stop me?” His eyes narrow, and the look he gives me makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. Something isn’t right.
One. The guy must be blind if he can’t see the sheer size of Mateo or the picture of Mat standing victoriously in a boxing ring with a belt around his waist a foot away from his head. Two. The guy must be as dumb as he looks because when I size him up, he’s not all that tall. He’s a little wide in the shoulders, but nothing to really worry about. Three. He must not be from around here or he’d be well aware of Mateo and the reputation that precedes him.
Mateo stands. The knuckles crack a second time. “Yeah, actually, I am.”
The blond guy must possess more common sense than Captain Dickhead over there because as he scans Mateo from head to foot, he looks worried. His eyes dart to the picture on the wall and it registers, the realization slow and horrifying.
It’s a beautiful thing.
He bolts to his feet and says something to the mouthpiece, who goes from confident to crestfallen at once.
“Shelly,” Mateo says. “I think this guy was about to apologize to you.”
“I what?”
Mateo stands taller. “You’re going to apologize to my friend Shelly. You do that, pay your bill, with a lofty tip on account of the fact that you’re a piece of shit, and I let you walk. Fair enough?”
“He’s in a bad mood today,” I add.
I can hear the guy’s ego deflating, I swear it. The blond one remains silent, but it looks like he’s praying hard to walk out of here unscathed. He’s obviously the smarter of the two.
“He doesn’t need to apologize,” Shelly murmurs from behind, but Mateo holds up his finger as if to shush her.
“He’s going to apologize. Now.”
Left without any other option, he mumbles a barely there, “Sorry.”
“Great,” Mat says. “Shelly, I believe these patrons were just about to leave.”
The guy tosses bills on the table and pushes past Mateo, and for a moment, I think Mat is going to go ballistic, but he holds himself in check, keeping a watchful eye on the two of them as they leave. “Pricks,” he mumbles.
The guy turns around right before he walks out the door with a smirk across his face. “This isn’t over.”
“Get out,” Mateo says, “before I change my mind.” They leave.
“Thank you,” Shelly says. �
�Your drinks are on me.”
Mateo laughs. “Uh, no, they’re sure as hell not, but thank you.”
“I’d like to at least buy one of your pitchers of beer.”
Mateo holds up his pointer finger. “One.”
“Just one,” she says.
“Fine. Thanks, Shelly.”
“Thank you,” she says. “Truly.”
Emma
The rest of my afternoon is spent trying to make sense of the comment. I’d been razzed in the city after everything went down by Gabe’s groupies. They’d branded me a liar. Told me that I was making everything up in an effort to get attention that I desperately needed. Blamed my mother, my father, my upbringing.
The Instagram comment could be the work of anyone. Anyone who knew and wanted to rattle me. It worked. It worked, but after the shock subsided, I reasoned that I was in control. That Gabe was not here, he did not follow me home, and all I needed to be worried about was making dinner for my overworked mother.
I make lime cilantro chicken with black beans and rice. I’d love to pair it with a glass of wine, especially after the Instagram fiasco, but for obvious reasons, I’ve splurged on bottles of Perrier. My mom unfolds her napkin on her lap and gushes, “This looks fabulous.”
“Well, it beats tomato soup and grilled cheese.” I regret saying it almost instantly. I don’t mean to put her down. “I mean, in terms of a nice dinner.”
“It’s okay,” my mom says. “Did your father teach you how to cook?”
“No. The Internet did.”
“Oh.” That same distant look that was on her face this morning is there again.
Wanting to distract her, I hold up my bottle of Perrier. “I propose a toast,” I say. “To the future.”
Mom picks up her bottle and does the same. “To letting go and learning from our mistakes.”
“To life.”
“To young love.”
“To new beginnings.”
She smiles warmly, crow’s-feet appearing beside her eyes. “To you, Emma.”
We toast with our green bottles of carbonated water and dig in.
It’s so good.
God bless the Internet.
As we eat, Mom tells me that she’s been stashing money away from all the double shifts she’s been working with the hopes of fixing up her place and maybe moving to something a little more modern. “That’s a great idea. Are you going to stay in Stonefall?”
She shakes her head and finishes chewing her food before she sips her water and says, “I was thinking about moving to the city. Of course, at the time, it was to be closer to you, so I’m not sure anymore.”
“I’m not staying in Stonefall,” I say. But when the words leave my mouth and I’m forced to give it some real thought, I’m not sure I want to leave the spot where Tristan is. I have a hard time imagining a future without him in it.
Mom looks at me as if she’s reading my mind. “I’ve never seen you this happy, Emma.”
I’ve never been this happy. Probably why she’s never seen it. “He makes me very happy.”
“If I could rewind time, do things differently,” Mom says, pausing, “I would have taken the time to appreciate your father for the man that he was, instead of wasting my life away.”
“We’re looking forward to the future,” I remind her.
After dinner, I clean up while Mom makes popcorn and we put on a movie. It’s an older comedy I’ve never seen before and rather than pay attention to the film, I notice my mother’s laughter. I wish she’d laugh more. We pause halfway in between so she can take her sleeping pill and by the time the movie finishes, my mom stands, yawns, and heads to the kitchen to deposit the bowl that held our popcorn in the sink.
“Oh, Emma, I almost forgot.” She returns to the living room with an envelope in her hand. “This was in the mailbox, with all the junk flyers. Has your name on it. ’Night, sweetheart.”
“Good night, Mom. Thanks.” I inspect the envelope. It’s pink, like the kind you get with greeting cards.
She yawns a second time, heading up the stairs before stopping. “I had a lovely time with you tonight, dear.”
“Yeah, me too.”
When she disappears at the top of the stairs, I hear the door to her bedroom creak shut. I tidy up our dishes and the living room. I’m about to turn off the light when the pink envelope catches my eye, so I scoop it from the table, curious about what is inside. It’s unmarked. The penmanship is shaky enough that honestly, I’d be surprised if it was written by a female, so naturally I figure Tristan has dropped off a card for me. I slip my finger in between the glue and the paper, removing it almost meticulously.
The front says I miss you, in fun bubbly letters, and I smile.
I miss him too, even though we were together this morning.
When I open it, though, I drop the card and, for the second time today, imprison a scream with my hand across my mouth.
It seems you’ve forgotten about me. Perhaps you need a reminder.
TWENTY-THREE
Tristan
The tension around Mateo is still strained even though Dick One and Dick Two vacated the premises an hour ago. I’m done with the beers and the wings and am now waiting for it to be socially acceptable to leave. Mat must be some kind of worked up over Marley. He’s extra wired tonight.
He’s on the phone with Marley and I check my own phone for any new texts from Emma, but my battery is near fizzled and she hasn’t sent one. I’m disappointed to say the least, but she’s with her mom and I can’t bring myself to use the last of my battery to interrupt her night.
Mateo hangs up. The vein in his forehead that pulses when he’s angry has decreased significantly and his scowl is now a smile.
“Everything good?” I ask.
“Much better,” he says, downing the remainder of his beer in a single gulp. “I gotta go,” he says. “My fairy tale is waiting.”
Oh my God. He’s turning into a chick. I remind myself that I’m not really one to talk. Emma has me twisted inside out and I’d do anything for that girl.
I reach into my wallet and toss some money onto the table before standing up and digging my keys from my pocket. “Tell your fairy tale I said hi. I’m going to go into the city and find something for Emma.”
“Find what?”
“I dunno. Something. You know, a gift, a token of my affection for her. Don’t text or call. My battery is toast.”
“Good luck,” Mat says. “Chat at you later.” He heads to the door, stopping at the bar to say to Shelly, “Call me if those assholes come back.”
She smiles. “Thank you.”
He winks, probably giving her the wrong impression, and is through the door with stealth that shouldn’t come from a guy that big.
“See ya, Shelly.”
She waves. “’Bye, Tristan. Drive safe.”
“Always do.”
I hate trying to park downtown. It’s like the most fucked-up game of Tetris trying to squeeze your truck into a space meant for a Mini Cooper. Somehow, miraculously, I succeed.
I head to an overpriced jewelry store I know about because my mother loves their pieces and I’m here every single December, picking out a gift for her. Katie wasn’t much into jewelry. She was into shoes, and scarves and clothing. To be fair, I’m not sure Emma is into any of these things, but I am into Emma, so here I am.
The saleswoman is severe looking, her hair slicked back into an impeccable knot and a stoic expression stamped on her face. I recognize her from a previous trip, but if the recognition is mutual, she gives me no clue that it exists.
“Can I help you?”
“I need to get something for my girlfriend.”
The straight line of her mouth curls slightly. “Would you like to see our selection of engagement rings?”
For
a second, I can’t breathe enough to speak. I shake my head. No, I’m not here for an engagement ring, but the idea of Emma as my bride . . . well . . . that would leave me equally breathless as the thought of asking for her hand. I finally manage to find words. “Not an engagement ring, but something to show her how much she means to me.”
The woman gives me a full-on smile. She’s human after all.
“A set of earrings, perhaps?”
I try to picture if Emma even has pierced ears. I try to remember if I felt an earring in my mouth when I kissed her earlobe. Emma trying to jog with a gaudy set of earrings would be ridiculous, though.
“Do you have bracelets?”
“Absolutely,” she says, sweeping her arm toward the front of the store. “This way.”
Emma
I bite down on my hand so hard, I begin to bleed. I think the card falls to the floor, which feels as though it’s cracked down the middle and is preparing to swallow me whole. I sink down onto the hardwood as dry heaves surge through me and tremors seize my body. I hunch over, hands wrapped securely around my waist, and try and force it, try and make the sickness come. My mouth opens to scream but I feel like a fish out of water and can’t get the sound out.
“Stay still, you stupid bitch.”
He’s here.
“I said don’t move—you’ll only make it worse.”
He’s here.
“I think you need something to remember me by.”
The door, the door, the door.
Somehow I get to my feet and run to the front door, locking first the handle, then the dead bolt, then the chain.
Cooler air from outside breezes in when I realize the windows are wide open.
I stumble through the living room, knocking over a lamp and tripping over its cord to reach the first window. Tears pour down my cheeks. I force the window down, shoving it hard and slipping the lock into place before moving to the next one. My chest heaves up and down and up and down in labored efforts to just fucking breathe.
The room begins to close in, the walls contracting, the space shrinking, growing smaller and smaller. I’m going to suffocate. I’m going to die. What if he’s in the house?
The Enchantment of Emma Fletcher Page 21