“It’s okay. I just wanted you to know Andrew’s here,” she says. My eyes grow wide, and my body freezes, my fingers about to clutch my door. I pull my hand away and hold it against me.
Andrew’s here. Just on the other side of this door. I can’t see him—not now. I’m not ready. I want him. I don’t want him with Lindsey. I’m greedy and selfish and these letters…his letters, they’ve completely swept away all reason. And it’s going to hurt my best friend. I don’t know what to do.
“Oh,” I say, my mouth holding the O as I wait to think of what comes next. Nothing does.
“Are you leaving soon?”
She wants to be alone with him. I get that. And I have to leave to meet Graham and Miranda for dinner. I need to be there in twenty minutes, with my mentor and her son—whom I feel nothing for, who if it weren’t for timing and circumstance, I probably wouldn’t even like. This isn’t how any of this should be. How can I look Graham in the face after reading what’s in Andrew’s heart? How can I live this lie knowing he once felt so much for me. He still does. I know it…I believe it.
“Yeah, just…just a sec,” I choke out. I turn to the side where my backpack rests next to my purse, and I pull my purse into my hands, my eyes staying on the letters I want to carry with me too. I never want to leave them alone. I need to memorize them, feel them—no matter how badly they hurt to read.
Instead, I pull my mirror from my purse and check my face, powdering my cheeks and wiping away the blurred eyeliner from my cry seconds before. I can paint myself as much as I want—it will never erase how I feel right now. My heart is a steady rhythm, a warning that I should stay in this room, feign an illness. I can’t go out there, I can’t see him, and I cannot be anything with Graham.
“Emma?”
Lindsey sounds desperate. I should pull her in here, tell her everything, take the lashing she will give me—that I will deserve. I should.
“I’m ready,” I say with the last breath that leaves my body in this room.
I push my door open and immediately meet Lindsey’s eyes. They’re wide. Why are they wide?
“I think he’s drunk,” she winces, pursing her lips and nodding her head down the hallway. I see part of his body, his legs leaning out as he leans against a wall in our kitchen. His dark jeans gather around his feet, his black shoes, his hands hanging from his thumbs looped in his pockets. I see enough to know that seeing the rest will break me open again.
“Oh,” I say, just as I said before. I’m weak.
“It’s okay,” she says, shaking her head. “You have to go; you’re going to be late. I’ll sober him up. Who knows, maybe this will break the ice that he’s had surrounding him lately.”
Ice. Andrew’s had…ice. Because of me.
Lindsey walks back down the hall, and I notice Andrew push off from the wall and sway on his feet, his expression meaningless—blank. His eyes haze as he paints her body with his gaze, but on his way back up, his focus is solely on me, and suddenly his expression changes. We’re the same. We are hurting the same. And the way he looks right now—it’s as desperate as I feel. Those words he wrote years ago, they’re still so very relevant now; I see it in his eyes. I see it in his soul.
He remains several feet away from me, his fingers reaching for Lindsey’s hand while he watches me pull my coat from the hook near the door.
“Call me if you need anything. We’ll be up late,” Lindsey says. The smile on her face makes everything hurt worse. I notice it, but only briefly. For the rest of the time, my eyes stay on Andrew.
“That’s some guy,” he says, his voice monotone and his eyes flat. “He can’t even come to your door to pick you up.”
“Andrew!” Lindsey chides him, grimacing. I can tell she’s right—he is a little drunk. But I also think he’s more sober than she realizes, too. I think this Andrew is on the other side of a binge, on his way out, coming through the pain, but bringing it with him. It never leaves him, really.
“It’s okay,” I smile at my friend. My eyes find him again, and when Lindsey turns away, I mouth, “I’m so sorry.”
His face falls the second my lips send the message. I don’t know why I said it, other than I had to—I need to say so much more. I need to read those letters.
I pull the door open and step into the hall, breathing deeply to survive one more night, to be a pleasant dinner guest, to impress my mentor and not to offend her son. I just need a personality for a few more hours, and then I can figure things out.