3.

EMILIA

I didn’t get out of bed the next day until Sunny came over.  

She came by with groceries and coffee and the kind of tough love only a younger sister could deliver. She let herself in with the spare key I'd given her years ago and found me exactly where I'd been since Friday morning. In bed. Staring at the ceiling.

"Okay, that's enough," she said, pulling open the curtains. Sunlight flooded the room, and I threw my arm over my eyes. "You're getting up. You're eating. You're showering. In that order."

"I'm fine," I groaned and rolled over to my side.

"You're not fine. You've sent me exactly three text messages in three days, and one of them was to tell me you're going to work for your ex. That's the opposite of fine."

I didn't argue. She was right. I wasn't fine.

Sunny sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand on my ankle through the blanket. "I know you're hurting. But you can't stay in this apartment and torture yourself. Come stay with me for a few days.”

"I can't."

She sighed like she had been expecting the answer. “Just till tomorrow then? I don’t want you to stay alone. Look at you!” She exclaimed.

“I can’t,” I repeated.

"Why not?"

Because this apartment was the last piece of Steven I had left. Because leaving it meant accepting that it was really over. Because I was pathetic and couldn't let go.

I didn't say any of that.

"I just need these two days to gather my thoughts for Monday, and I need to do it alone," I said instead.

Sunny sighed. She knew me too well to believe it, but she also knew when to stop pushing. "Fine. But you're eating breakfast with me right now. And then you're taking a shower because, Em, I love you, but you smell."

I almost smiled, but I couldn’t bring myself to.

We ate the bagels she brought in the kitchen while she told me about her week. One of her students had started reading chapter books on his own. Another one brought in a lizard for show and tell that escaped and caused chaos. Her principal was still terrible, but at least the coffee in the teacher's lounge was good now.

Normal things. Small things. Things that mattered in normal people’s lives and should have mattered in mine too if I stopped being hungover, Steven.

I tried to care. I tried to focus. But my mind kept drifting to Steven. To his company collapsing. To Bianca. To the fact that in two days, I'd have to see him again and pretend I was okay.

"You're not listening," Sunny said, interrupting my thoughts.

"Sorry."

"Stop apologising and tell me what's really going on. Not just the break-up. Something else is bothering you."

I hesitated because I knew she wouldn’t like it, but she was the only one I had to talk to, so I spilt. I told her about my worry for Steven’s company crisis and how I didn’t believe that it was a coincidence.

"Do you think it has something to do with Bianca coming back?" Sunny asked.

"I don't know. Maybe. The timing is strange," I told her with a little shrug.

"Or maybe it's just karma." Sunny took a sip of her coffee. "He throws you away, and the universe decides to remind him that actions have consequences." She shrugged with a smirk on her face.

I honestly wanted to believe that there was comic justice and the universe was on my side, having seen my dedication and unwavering love for Steven, but I knew better.

Karma didn’t come for people like Steven. He was too perfect to face one. Except he didn’t love me back. That was his only flaw.

After Sunny left, I did take a shower. I stood under the hot water until it ran cold, trying to wash away the last three days. The last five years. When I got out, I looked at myself in the mirror.

I looked terrible. My eyes were puffy from crying. My hair was a mess. I'd lost weight I couldn't afford to lose.

But underneath all that, I was still me. Still Emilia Jones. The girl who'd put herself through college working three jobs. The girl who'd graduated with honours in business. The girl who'd been stupid enough to fall in love with a man who couldn't love her back.

I needed to remember that girl. The one who existed before Steven, because from this point on, there was no room for her in his life anymore.

I got dressed in actual clothes for the first time in days. Jeans and a sweater. Nothing fancy. I wasn't going anywhere. But it felt good to be in something other than pyjamas.

My phone had been charging on the nightstand, and I'd been ignoring it all morning. Now I picked it up and scrolled through my notifications.

Twelve texts from Sunny over the past three days. Five missed calls from my mother, who I definitely wasn't ready to talk to yet. She'd never approved of my relationship with Steven. Said I was wasting my life, and I hated that she would finally get her 'I told you so' moment.

There was an email from Alexander with all the job details. I was going to start on Monday at 9 am. The dress code was business professional, and it also had the benefits enrolment information and an employee handbook p*f that was probably two hundred pages long.

No messages from Steven.

I didn't know why I kept checking. He'd made it clear we were done. The job offer was just guilt, a way to ease his conscience. It didn't mean he cared.

I was putting my phone down when it rang. It was an unknown number again, and I almost didn’t answer, but something made me do it.

"Hello?"

"Ms Jones, this is Alexander Miller." I should save his number after the call since I would probably be hearing from him now that I would be working under him.

My stomach dropped. Had Steven changed his mind about the job? Was he taking it back?

"Hi, Alexander."

"I wanted to check in and make sure you received all the paperwork. Is everything clear?"

"Yes. Everything's fine."

"Excellent." He paused. "I also wanted to say that I'm glad you're joining the team. You'll be a valuable addition."

He meant well, but his words made me feel worse. Like I was supposed to be grateful for the scraps Steven was throwing at me.

"Thank you," I managed to say without sounding spiteful.

"I'll see you Monday morning. Have a good weekend, Ms Jones."

He hung up, and I remained on my bed, staring at my phone. I had two days left, and my feelings were yet to be sorted.

“You can do this, Em. You can be professional and work for him while keeping your feelings locked away. You can pretend that seeing him everything isn’t killing you,” I muttered.

I was good at pretending. I had pretended I didn’t care for him for years before I signed that contract.

Sunday passed in a blur of anxiety. I tried on six different outfits for Monday before settling on a black blazer, white blouse, and grey pants. It was professionally boring and wouldn’t make Steven think I wanted to make an impression.

I went to bed early but couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about walking into that office. Seeing Steven. Watching him pretend I didn't exist.

At two in the morning, I gave up and turned on the TV.

The financial news was still talking about Riorson Industries. The crisis had gotten worse. More investors pulling out. Rumours of bankruptcy. Federal investigators are looking into possible fraud.

Fraud.

That was new.

I turned up the volume.

The anchor was interviewing some financial expert who was speculating about what could have caused such a sudden collapse. Insider trading, maybe. Or embezzlement. Or a massive bad investment that Steven had hidden from the board.

They showed a clip of Steven from a press conference earlier today. He looked terrible. Exhausted. Angry. The reporters were shouting questions at him, and he ignored all of them, getting into his car and driving away.

My chest hurt watching it.

No matter what he'd done to me, I didn't want to see him like this. Struggling. Suffering. It felt like I was the one going through all that.

I grabbed my phone before I could stop myself and pulled up his number.

I typed: I saw the news. Are you okay?

My thumb hovered over the send button. This was stupid. He didn't want to hear from me. He'd made that clear.

But what if he needed help? What if he was alone in that big penthouse, dealing with all this by himself? What if he needed me to release his pent-up frustrations? That was what I had done for him before, and I didn’t mind doing it again.

I hit send before I could talk myself out of it. The messages showed delivered and then read.

My heart pounded painfully in my chest as I waited. One minute passed. Then two. Then ten. Still, no response.

I should have given up, but I couldn’t.

I typed another message: If you need anything, I'm here.

Read.

Still no response.

“Why must you act so stupid?” I muttered angrily, knocking the side of my head twice before placing my phone face down on the nightstand.

I pulled the sheets over my head as though it would cover my shame and tried to sleep.