12
Emerson
It was such a cathartic experience.
I’d kept those feelings bottled up inside for so long, and I didn’t realize how hurt I truly was until I unloaded on him. I had been heartbroken from the beginning, but I’d just shut down shortly afterward, turning numb, feeling nothing.
And then it all came out—hard and fast.
I didn’t feel bad for what I said because I meant every word. I didn’t care if Derek truly felt guilty or not, because I had to suffer alone for the last three months, while he…did whatever he did. I was perfectly entitled to say everything I had, and if he didn’t want to hear it, he could have just left it alone.
I warned him, but he didn’t listen.
After that, I was certain he wouldn’t bring it up again. We would work around each other awkwardly until I found a new job. Then we would never have to see each other again. We could forget this stupid mistake and leave it in the past.
I picked up dinner on the way home because I was in no mood to cook. Lizzie would be thrilled. I grabbed sandwiches and chips, so she could take the other half of her sandwich to school for lunch.
When I walked in the door, I chatted with my mom for a bit before I placed the food on the counter.
Lizzie stayed on the couch, her eyes down.
I turned to look at her. “What is it?”
“What is what?” she asked, still on her phone.
“I bring home food, and you have no reaction?” My hands moved to my hips, and I stared her down.
She finally raised her head and looked at me.
“Lizzie, what did you do?”
She sighed before she got off the couch and headed to her backpack. She unzipped a compartment before she revealed a piece of paper. “I need you to sign this…”
I unfolded it and read it. “You have detention every day because you’re failing math.” I lifted my gaze and looked at her, extremely disappointed. “Lizzie, why are you failing math?”
“Because I don’t get it, okay? It’s hard.”
“I don’t care if it’s hard. You need to figure it out.”
“I’ve gone to other tutors, and it doesn’t work. He was the only—”
“Do not depend on a man for anything, Lizzie. Do not allow yourself to fail because he’s not here to teach you. If you’ve learned anything from me, it’s not to rely on anyone but yourself. So that’s not an excuse. You will figure this out—on your own. Do you understand me?”
All she gave was a nod.
I signed the slip then left it on the counter. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with this right when I walked in the door, so I pulled out my sandwich, grabbed a glass of wine, and then sat at the dining table so I could enjoy my meal and not think about anything else.
Lizzie would normally eat on the couch for takeout, but she moved to the seat across from me. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re failing, Lizzie.”
“No, that’s not it. You’re mad about something else.” She unwrapped her sandwich and picked up a half.
I opened the bag of chips and dropped my gaze, both touched and annoyed by the fact that she knew me so well. “Just had a bad day at work.”
“Did he do something?”
There was an unspoken agreement between us not to say his name. I grabbed a few chips and placed them in my mouth.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
I loved it when Lizzie was kind and affectionate with me, but I hated the trigger for it—my sorrow. I hated that she knew I was sad. I hated that she knew I’d allowed some asshole to rip me apart. “He tried to apologize to me today…and I screamed at him.”
“You did?” she asked in surprise. “Good. He deserves it.”
“Yeah…” He absolutely deserved it.
“Then why are you so sad? I thought you would be happy that he apologized and admitted he was wrong. It must have felt good to tell him off.”
I unwrapped my sandwich and picked up half. “Yeah, I thought I would be happy too. But…it didn’t make me feel anything. I guess it’s nice to finally get some closure, but…I was so harsh with him. That’s not me. He’s turned me into someone I don’t like, and that just makes me feel worse.”
Lizzie didn’t eat. She held her sandwich and looked at me.
“He’s made me into this bitter, hateful, empty person. And I hate him for that. But I also hate myself for allowing him to do that. I should have been smarter. I should have done things differently. All of this could have been avoided if I’d just made better decisions.”
“But Mom, how can anyone live that way? How can anyone not make a mistake? That’s just unrealistic. You loved him, and you took a chance. He was the one who messed up, not you, so you shouldn’t feel bad. Don’t blame yourself, Mom. I don’t think less of you. No one thinks less of you.”
I took a pause to stare at my sandwich, to let the emotion disappear before it made me choke up and cry. “Thanks, sweetheart.” When I was ready, I lifted my chin and looked at her, seeing the most perfect person in the world across from me. I’d been her mom for thirteen years, but the older she became, the more she became my friend…my best friend.
“I’m glad you told him off. I know how much he hurt you, and he deserves to know how much he made you suffer. The apology doesn’t mean anything, but having the opportunity to tell him how you feel…that probably meant a lot more.”
“I guess.”
“You’ll get another job, and you won’t have to see him again. Then it’ll be over—for good. And you’ll find a really great guy, be happy, and then he’ll just be a guy whose name you can barely remember. I know it.”
“Thanks, baby.”
Days passed, and Derek and I didn’t see each other.
Maybe he was avoiding me, but I was also avoiding him, so it worked out pretty well. We talked over email about the applicants, which was preferable to looking at his face.
When I went into the warehouse to deliver lunch, I noticed Derek wasn’t in the main room. It was just Jerome and Pierre. The other day, Derek hadn’t been there either. He seemed to be spending time in the other warehouses, probably overseeing other projects. “I got Chinese.”
“Sweet.” Jerome walked over and took his container. “Ever since you started bringing lunch, I’ve gained ten pounds. Am I sad about it? Nope.” He chuckled then grabbed a fork so he could devour his lunch.
Pierre came over too and grabbed his tray of food.
I glanced around and saw that Derek was actually nowhere around. “Should I put this in the fridge for him, or will he be back soon?”
“Who?” Jerome asked. “Derek?”
“Yeah.” I put his box of food back in the bag.
“He’s not here today,” Jerome said.
“He’s only here two days a week now.” Jerome spun his fork in the noodles before placing them in his mouth.
“Oh.” I’d assumed he was working in other locations. I had no idea he physically wasn’t on the premises. “Why?”
Jerome shrugged. “No idea. We never ask him anything, and he never shares information with us. Just how it goes. There will be a list of instructions and schematics sent via email in the morning, so he’s working from home, it seems like.”
So he wouldn’t have to see me? That seemed cowardly. “Is he okay?”
Jerome shrugged. “Who knows with that guy? He seems the same.”
“Same asshole he’s always been.” Pierre pushed his food around with his fork before he got a good piece.
My instinct was to defend Derek, but this time, I didn’t. He was an asshole. Case closed. “He’s only here Tuesdays and Thursdays, then?”
“Yeah,” Jerome said.
“How long has this been going on?” I went out of my way to avoid him, so I hadn’t noticed his absence.
“About two weeks,” Pierre said. “Maybe three.”
That was before he even tried to apologize to me. “It’s not like Derek to take a leave of abse
nce like that.”
Jerome shrugged. “No. But it’s none of our business, right?”
“Yeah,” Pierre said. “That’s only for friends to know, and we know he doesn’t have any of those.”
The internship program was taking a lot longer than either one of us intended.
Selecting the candidates was difficult, because Derek ran so hot and cold. Sometimes, he was heavily involved, and other times, he wouldn’t respond to my emails. He was back to being unpredictable and unresponsive.
I sent him one final email.
To: [email protected]
Subject: Selection of Candidates
Derek, I’m going to select the forty candidates myself because we’re already behind schedule. This should have been completed two weeks ago, and I have candidates blowing up my inbox asking for their status as the deadline has long since come and gone.
I sent it off and then looked through the pile, pulling people that I personally liked based on their letters. When everyone was equally smart, the only thing that made them stand out was their personalities, and I believed a good attitude was far more valuable than perfect grades.
Fifteen minutes later, Derek let himself into my office. Or…his office. It felt like my office because he never used this place unless it was for an overflow of paperwork he didn’t know where else to put.
I looked up and saw him in a black t-shirt and dark jeans, his frame more muscular than it used to be because he seemed to be working out more than he used to. Now that he was fucking supermodels again, he probably had to be in the greatest shape of his life. Shallow jackass. When I first saw the photos of him and Fleur, along with all the other girls he was photographed with, I cried…and cried…and cried. Even now, it still left a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t possessiveness. It was just…disappointing. None of them cared about him, not the way I did. But he replaced me with a woman ten years younger, just like every other rich asshole did with their women. “Derek, an email would suffice.” We could get this finalized over email. No reason to sit in the same office where we’d had our last fight.
He sat in the chair across from me, his eyes slightly down and on the surface of my desk. His hands came together, and he absentmindedly rubbed them against each other, massaging his knuckles like he used to when he was deep in thought. “It’s an important decision.”
“Important decision, huh?” Not like deciding to dump the woman you said you would marry in a stairwell—much more important than that. “Derek, this is your program, so you make the final call.” I opened the drawer of my desk and set the folder in front of me. “Give me the list of names, and I’ll do everything else.”
He grabbed the folder and pulled it toward him. He opened it and started to leaf through it.
I wished he would just leave. I hated being in the same room with him. I was so vicious to him last time and I regretted how cold I’d been, but the second I had to look at him, all that anger came back. I wasn’t sure if there would ever be a time, even decades from now, when I wouldn’t feel so hostile toward him. It was out of my control, an instinctive response, an evolutionary reaction because this man caused me more physical and emotional trauma than any other event in my life.
Derek started to pull out applications and place them on my desk.
Couldn’t he do this somewhere else?
He placed more, getting through a dozen before he continued to flip through the remaining submissions.
I inhaled a deep breath and forced myself to find peace, not to let his presence destroy who I was as a person. He turned me into a raging guard dog that wanted to tear him to pieces, and that wasn’t me. Kevin and Tabitha had turned him into a monster, and I couldn’t let him turn me into one. “Jerome and Pierre tell me you’re only working two days a week. Everything okay?”
He stilled at the question, his eyes lifting slightly to indicate he wasn’t reading anymore. He was so still that he seemed to stop breathing altogether. Silence passed, a long pause, drawn out to epic proportions. Then he slowly lifted his head and looked at me, his brown eyes steady but empty.
I didn’t think the question would provoke him so deeply.
He continued to stare, his breathing a little deeper than it’d been before, but there was no answer.
There was never an answer, so that was no surprise.
He let out a long, quiet breath before he turned back to the papers in his hand. “Yeah…everything is okay.” He selected a few more and placed them on my desk.
I knew that was a lie, but I didn’t ask him again. He wasn’t my problem anymore, his business wasn’t my business, and even when we were together, his business had never been my business. He didn’t even tell me about Tabitha; his parents did. If I’d known that information, I would have handled that rehearsal dinner quite differently.
He finished picking the forty applicants before he shut the folder and set it on the table beside him.
I gathered the papers and organized them in alphabetical order. “I’ll start making the calls. I’ve received so many inquiries about the status that I just stopped opening the emails. I updated the website, but they don’t seem to be reading it.”
With his hands together, he watched me, listening to me, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere. “Emerson.”
I stopped organizing the papers and stared at him.
He cleared his throat, like he had something significant to share with me.
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about our last conversation, and there are a few things I’d like to add. I…I wasn’t really in the state of mind to do that at the time.”
My eyes narrowed. “Derek, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Please.”
“Derek, we’re over. There’s nothing you could possibly say to make this better. What do you want from me?”
He kept his gaze on me, staying calm. “If you let me answer, I’ll tell you.”
I gave an angry sigh. “I wanted to talk about this a long time ago and made repeated attempts, but you never gave me that opportunity. I’m not sure why you think I’m obligated to do that when I was never given the same courtesy.” I tried harder to keep my voice low, to be pragmatic rather than an emotional mess. I was much better, but if he kept pushing, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to keep it together.
He closed his eyes for a moment, stung by the insult. “Because you’re better than me, Emerson. Always have been…always will be.” He tilted his chin and looked at me again, silently asking for permission to talk.
“If you think you can say something to make us be friends again, you’re wasting your time. If you think there’s something you can say to make me continue in this job, you’re wasting your time. But if you just need to get it off your chest, just to know that you tried, then fine. Go ahead.” Once this was over, it would really be over. We would just be memories to each other, a shitshow that crashed and burned. If we’d never gotten together, I could have worked here forever and had a great job. But that was gone now. It was such a fucking mistake.
He turned quiet, staying that way for a long time, like he was absorbing what I said, digesting every single word. “I don’t want you to be like me, Emerson.” He shook his head. “When you said I hurt you the way they hurt me and now you’re ruined…that hurt me more than anything else. I don’t want that for you. You’re…you’re too good for that. I want you to be happy, not bitter and angry…like me.” He cleared his throat and stared at his hands for a bit, like he was trying not to get emotional. “There’s a great guy out there who would be so damn lucky to have you, and he won’t hurt you the way I hurt you. And to shut that out because of me…would be a disservice to you.”
I couldn’t believe he was giving me advice about my love life. I wanted to tell him that all the dates I’d been on were catastrophic disappointments, that the sex was mediocre, and that he ruined my chance at finding love because he was so good to me, not because of
how bad he was to me. The last guy I went out with was still hitting my DMs, asking for the money he said I owed him. When I deleted all my dating accounts, he went after my social media accounts, and he wasn’t letting up. I would just pay him, but I had too much pride for that.
“I didn’t know about Christmas. My parents never told me.”
Of course, they didn’t.
“I…I…I feel so terrible that I can’t convey it in words.” He lifted his eyes and looked at me. “I hurt the person I love most in this world, and I just fucking hate myself for it. Everything these past three months has been a blur, and now that I’m present…I’m sick. I’m sick for hurting Lizzie. I’m sick for hurting you. I’m sick for going back to the women who have never meant anything to me. I’m sick that all that growth, all that happiness, was shattered…because I allowed it to be.” He bowed his head in shame. “I hate myself more than you could possibly understand, Emerson.”
The amount of self-loathing was nothing compared to the pain I’d carried every single day for three months, but I let him absolve himself of guilt so he could carry on and forget about me. That meant we wouldn’t talk anymore, and that was what I wanted more than anything. I wanted to remove Derek Hamilton from my life—permanently.
“But…I have one rebuttal to what you said.” He straightened in his chair as he looked at me with brown eyes that were vulnerable and deep, no longer guarded and angry. “You said that I’m here again, but the next time something happens…I’ll go back. My remorse is conditional. My love is revocable. That’s not true. Not anymore.”
I didn’t believe a word he said, but I didn’t have a reaction to it.
“Emerson, I would never do something like that again. I’m a different person now.”
“Why?” I challenged him, not because I cared about the answer, but just to remind him that his words were empty with no actual evidence to back them up. “I used to have faith in you. But I don’t anymore. You can say whatever you want to make yourself feel better, but we both know you’ll never change.”
The Boy Who Has No Redemption Page 9