Chapter 10

Em

As if he hadn’t just metaphorically slapped her in the face with that comment about Finley being his family…. I mean what the hell was she? Then he absolutely bulldozed over her heart leaving complete and utter destruction when his phone rang.

Em happened to look down at it where it was sitting between them. Did he plan this? Is that why he left it sitting on the couch between them? A name popped up on the screen… Angel.

Angel.?? Seriously??

But even worse than that was the contact picture that also popped up. It was Quinn and a girl in bed. You could easily tell they’d just finished something intimate from the lack of clothes they had on. But just to dig the knife a little deeper…. Em recognized the girl.

It was the same girl she had walked in on and saw Quinn with at the party that time. The same. Fucking. Girl. She felt it. The moment her heart splintered. So he had moved on already? After mere days of telling her he loved her.

You’d think she would be used to it by now. That she would be used to having her heart shredded to pieces by people. And used to being disappointed and walked all over. Apparently you just never got used to those things. Because Em felt like someone punched her as hard as they could right in her stomach.

She felt like Quinn himself had stuck a knife into her chest and twisted it over and over and over and over. She learned right there in the moment, that people didn’t ever truly change. He had been a bully when they first met … and he was hurting her even more now.

She looked at him.. he was watching her. She couldn’t decipher the look on his face but she didn’t want to. Tears running down her face now.. she wasn’t.. and wouldn’t try to hide them. She stood up getting ready to leave.

“Take whichever bedroom you want Quinn.”

Then she walked upstairs and shut her bedroom door, locking it, just in case anyone tried to come in. She laid down on her bed and cried. She didn’t understand it. Was she somehow asking for this? Was she being punished for something??

How many bad things can happen to a person before they completely lose it? River. Her dad. Then Quinn. Huxley. Her mom. Now Quinn again. She felt like she was everyone’s punching bag. She cried herself into a disturbing tossing and turning all night sleep.

The next morning she woke up, and reached across to her bedside table where she got out her prescription medicines and immediately took them.

Oh well she thought. She had done so good and weaned herself off them when they moved here. But this was an extreme case and she felt like she needed them. She would only take them today then see how she felt tomorrow.

Her mom didn’t know she hadn’t been taking them. She wouldn’t agree with Em stopping. But who cares what her mom thought.. right now.. Em didn’t. Not after all this.

She really felt like calling Evan… he always knew what to say to her and how to make her feel better. She loved her new therapist Mara … but Evan was a little piece of home.

Em felt like she had a hangover even though she hadn’t drank a drop of alcohol. Although… dipping into her moms stash again was starting to sound really tempting. Hours and hours of sobbing into your pillow will do that, she supposed.

But she had to get up. Tomorrow was thanksgiving.. and she had a ton of cooking to do whether she felt like it or not. She was cooking for her and the girls, plus Asher and Grey. The twins parents would be there as well.

Her mother actually had tried to convince her to go out and eat at some fancy restaurant a few towns over with her and John and Sawyer. She would love for her brother to be with her on thanksgiving but no way was she spending time with her mom and Quinn’s dad.

So they’d planned on getting a lot of the cooking done today. Tomorrow she and Aspen had planned on getting up early and watching the parade together.. then they’d cook the rest of the food. After they ate they had planned on putting up Aspen and Asher’s Christmas tree and decorations. Since Em already had theirs up, she was going to help the twins.

That night she and the girls were having a sleepover and watching movies, then on Friday they would get up and hit all the Black Friday sales.

It should’ve been the happiest time of her life. It was the holidays. It was snowing outside. She was surrounded by her best friends. But a cloud was hanging over her head.

She would do her best to make the most of it. The medicine would help her.. she thought. Em looked down at the small ‘Q’ tattoo on her hand.. the one she had gotten not so long ago. She thought of Quinn’s tattoo of her eyes that was splayed across his forearm… right across from the tattoo of his moms eyes. She suddenly had an idea.

She called Aspen, then Sylvia and Mickey. Then she thought about it.. and called Asher.

Em took a shower willing her headache to go away. The pain in her knee and shoulder were both worse from the cold and the snow. But she would take it to have snow on the ground. She felt like a senior citizen with her arthritis-y body.

She put on her favorite dark brown leggings and matching cropped workout top.. threw on a puffy vest, her scrunchie socks and some clogs. She loved how easy her short hair was turning out to be. She threw half of it up in a little messy bun on top of her head and left the rest hanging down.

She met her friends outside and they all jumped in her car.

A few minutes later, they pulled up outside the tattoo shop.