Chapter 3
Emerson
As Mikhail’s slumped form becomes a blip in the rearview mirror, I wring the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white. My heart aches with deep, relentless pain. I wish I could turn around and force him to speak the words he was too cowardly to say years ago, but I can’t.
Mikhail left me on the day we were meant to wed.
He broke my heart.
There’s no coming back from that.
As I make the two-hundred-mile trip home, memories flood my head, each one more painful than the last. I smile while recalling how Mikhail used to look at me as if I were a precious gem, and the promises we made to always be true to one another. Then I fight back a sob when I remember how it all came tumbling down with three painful words.
He isn’t coming.
We had planned a future together, marriages, babies, and worldwide travels that were shattered in an instant. Nothing made sense. We were madly in love and had the world at our feet. Then, bam. It was over. No explanation. No sorrow. Nothing.
Tears well in my eyes, but I blink them away, determined not to let them fall.
I’ve shed so many tears over this man that there should be none left to give.
My time with Mikhail proves that not even the most stringently planned event will occur without a hiccup, but I force myself to focus on the present. I can’t afford to let old emotions take over. Mikhail is my past. I am in charge of my future. This is how it must be.
When I finally pull into the driveway of my home, the gas tank almost empty, I take a deep breath and try to compose myself. I put on a brave face, masking the turmoil inside, hopeful no one will see through my façade.
As I step out of my car and walk into my house, I wave hello to my mother, who watches me from behind tattered curtains. Her skin looks extra clammy today, but her eyes are bright and filled with hope, and her sheeny lips hide a painful night of coughing.
My mother isn’t well. She hasn’t been for some time. That’s why I attended the will reading today. Even if Andrik Sr.’s generosity is minute, it will still be better than the nothing I am currently working with.
“Hey. I’m home.” I greet my family with a cheerful tone, hiding the heartache threatening to consume me.
Everyone is here. My mother, my aunt, and the gardener, whom my mother had to let go of when she became too sick to work. Even my little sister has made an appearance, which is odd, considering it’s a weekday. She should be at school.
My mother defied the odds when she gave birth to a healthy baby girl in her early forties.
I’m sure she will do the same to beat her latest diagnosis.
I pull Wynne in for a hug, her groan replacing my fake smile with a genuine one. “Aren’t you meant to be at school?”
Begrudgingly, she returns my greeting before peering up at me with big blue eyes. They’re familiar yet so opposite to mine. She threw out my family’s beloved red-haired, green-eyed combination, opting for inky locks and blue eyes.
She is the black sheep of our family, and it couldn’t be more noticeable when numerous pairs of eyes stray our way, awaiting what they hope is good news.
“It was a mistake.” I breathe slowly, each word consciously planned to ensure they’ll pass my family’s inbuilt lie detector machines with flying colors. “It was Emerson the company, not Emerson the person.”
My aunt is the first to jump in. “Oh… that’s a shame.” I smile like my heart isn’t in pieces when she joins me near the living room entryway to farewell me with a cheek kiss. “All that wasted time for nothing.” She side-eyes me like she knows I’m a big fat liar before she noogies Wynne’s head and exits our home. “I’ll be back in time for supper.”
I watch her cross the patch of grass between our homes before shifting on my feet to face my mother. She is the one who deserves my true apologies. I ran today like some of our family’s financial obligations aren’t my fault. It isn’t fair, but if she could go back ten years and change the outcome of the decision I made for her, she wouldn’t.
She knows I made the right choice when I convinced her to keep Wynne, just like she knows I’m lying.
Mercifully, she doesn’t call me out on it.
“How was the drive?”
I grimace before following her slow shuffle to the kitchen. “It was fine. I guess.”
My throat works hard to swallow when she interrogates me while pulling ingredients from the refrigerator. “And Mikhail? How was he?”
