Love and Relativity (25 page)

Dizziness seized me and I stumbled.

“Em?” Whitney grabbed my arm. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just going to run to the bathroom. Be right back.” I worked my way through the crowd and into the bathroom. Leaning over the sink counter, I inhaled and exhaled, slowly and evenly.

Pete’s was still my place. This was still my island, my home. For four more months, it was
mine
, too. I could do this—coexist with Jackson Taylor, once again. I looked into the mirror, at the girl staring back at me, imploring her. If Jackson insisted on breaking up with me, so be it. We’d be friends. Enemies. Acquaintances. Again.

Just like before.

Washing my hands and patting my face with a cool paper towel, I steeled myself and headed for the bathroom door. A giggling redhead bumped into me when I stepped out, stumbling to the left and catching herself on the side of the doorframe.

“Oops, sorry!” she apologized, and I froze in place, feeling a sharp stab pierce at my insides. Jackson’s hands were carelessly around her waist, his eyes glassy and smile wide as he helped her stand upright.

His gaze shifted and focused on mine, his smile falling. “Emma—”

“What, Jackson? Another staff member? Have to nail them all, huh?” I spat at him, venom lacing each consonant. I eyed the redhead and her barely-there tube top. “You make me sick,” I gritted my teeth and darted past him, erupting into a cloud of fury.
Not like before
, I thought, ready to end this night as quickly as humanly possible. He sloppily grabbed hold of me and pressed me into the hallway wall, his breath heavy with whiskey. The redhead fell through the bathroom door and I heard a thud as she hit the floor in drunken laughter.
Good. Serves her right.
“Don’t touch me!” I seethed, pushing against him, fighting his grasp. “I hate you, you bastard! I can’t believe you!”

“I’m sorry, but you have to let me go...thisss iss overrr...” He kept slurring, trying to speak, but I wouldn’t let him. I pushed against him harder, until he stumbled back against the opposite wall, then flew back out onto the dance floor, searching for my friends.

“Fine, just run away, Emma,” Jackson shouted from behind me. “Just like you ran from Jen!”

I froze.

Whitney and Casey spotted me and stilled, their eyes wide when they saw shock cover my face, in a mask of complete disbelief.

Very slowly, I turned to face him. “What....
what
did you just say?”

He stumbled forward a few steps, his cloudy eyes locked on mine. “I ssssaid, just like you ran from Jen.” Straightening his shirt, he moved closer, the smell of the booze on him making bile rise up in my throat.

“You. Son. Of. A.
Bitch
.”

“You don’t like something, you run away from it. Instead of accepting it, you run, run, run.”

Whitney and Casey were at my side now, positioned to strike like my own personal guard dogs.

“Jackson,” Whitney said, her tone ice, “it’s time you go home, right the fuck now.”

“Wait, wait, wait, whoa therree...” Jackson started to laugh, a cocky one that made my blood curl. I shouldn’t have been listening to his drunken rambling, but I was stunned. Maddeningly curious.

He raised his arms defensively. “I think we should ask Emma what
she
wants. ‘Cause whatever Emma wants, she gets. Everrrry time,
mmmhhhmmm
, that’s how it works. It doesn’t matter what other people want, does it, Em? You had your mind made up from day one, didn’t you? I was never enough.”

Casey spoke up next. “Jackson, leave before you make an even bigger idiot out of yourself.”

“Caseyy, Caseyyy, Caseyy, haha.” He ran a hand through his hair and stumbled closer. He was right in front of me now. Glancing at her, he pointed at her as if scolding her. “Back off, ‘kay? You weren’t that good of a fuck, baby. But this girl...” he reached for my arm and I stiffened, “this
woman
, is the best I’ve ever had.”

Whitney rushed forward and slapped Jackson hard across the face, anger so potent I could taste it in the air. Casey flinched and turned for the door, a chorus of oohs and ahhs sounding from the small crowd that had formed around us. Second by second, the chattering and noise on the dance floor began to quiet down, all eyes on the spectacle unfolding around them.

“Let’s go, Emma,” Whitney took my arm. “Jackson, you can go fuck yourself. Don’t you
ever
come near her again.”

“Come on, Emma,” Jackson laughed again, louder this time. He scanned the people around us, including them in his plea. “Tell us all why you left Jen to die in that car crash, huh? Why you still won’t read the damn obituary. Go on! She asked for you to come say goodbye, as she was lying there, drowning in her own blood, and what did you do? You ran in the other fucking direction!”

Gasps and whispers filled the restaurant, the radio’s hum the only thing blanketing the low voices. I couldn’t move, couldn’t force a breath from my lungs, relying only on my body’s natural instinct to keep them functioning. Faintly, I felt Whitney tug harder on my arm to pull me away from the scene, her voice broken and distant, but I resisted.

“No, no. Let him finish,” I murmured. A tingling desire held me in place, and I stepped closer to Jackson to listen to him, a punching bag volunteering itself to take the hit.

He continued. “Wait, wait, what did the obituary say? That’sss right...was somethin’ like...‘
survived by her mother, Shawna Pierce, and her only sister and closest friend, Emma Pierce, who was by her ssside as she passed on off of Prescott Lane at 10:52 p.m
.’ Only, you weren’t really by her side. Your mother just wrote that in the obituary to make you feel better, but you’ve been too busy feeling guilty about that to read it yourself. You weren’t by her side because you couldn’t face the truth, that she was dying, just like this—” he pointed between the two of us—“is dying.” He moved to meet me nose to nose, and we locked gazes; blue to brown, fire to fire. “Don’t fight it, don’t run. Just accept it for what it is. Now you can go to the great Pacific Northwest and go to your fancy school, with your fancy new boyfriend, who can give you everything I can’t. Let me
go
. I’m not yours anymore, and I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”

I found my voice. It was feeble and winded, but dripping with poison. “
You
broke up with
me
.”

“And you’ll thank me for it later.”

I burned him with ferocious, striking daggers, the heat between our locked gazes searing our cheeks. “For the record, you were always enough. Sometimes, almost too much. Like right now, this—” I pointed between the two of us, returning the gesture—“hurting me, humiliating me, pushing me away to make me hate you, because you think letting me go is the right way to love me?
Too much
. But congratulations, Jackson Taylor. You’ve succeeded.” I snatched Whitney’s martini and threw the drink in his face, slamming the glass to the floor, not even blinking when it shattered, then broke our connection. “Sorry about the mess, Pete,” I mumbled under my breath as I stormed away.

Ruben and Jeff broke past the crowd’s edge near my shoulders as I fought to make it toward the door. They sidled up to Jackson’s side, and I could hear Whitney spitting and hissing at them like a rabid animal. I caught Michelle and Kayla snickering near the pool table. I hadn’t seen them since the weekend Kayla ditched Jackson in Orlando. My face burned with humiliation. Of course, they had to be here tonight, of all nights, to witness this spectacle. Next came Pete’s voice, authoritative and bellowing, breaking through the crowd’s clamor. I barged out the front door, Whitney and Casey on my tail seconds later. But I didn’t join them, run toward my car, or call for a taxi.

I tore off my heels and started down the road, down the sidewalk toward Prescott Lane, with only one word fresh on my mind to describe Jackson Taylor’s new role in my life:

Enemy.

Part 3

Happily Ever After

Chapter 11

Jennifer Pierce

May 24th 1988 – September 8th 2011

Jennifer Pierce, 23, passed away at 8:52 p.m. off of Prescott Lane on Sanibel Island on September 8th, 2011 as a result of an oncoming automobile collision. She is survived by her mother, Shawna Pierce, and her only sister and closest friend, Emma Pierce, who faithfully remained by her side at the scene of the accident during her final moments. She’ll be remembered for her zest for life, passion for fine arts and fashion, and her incurable case of wanderlust. She was a devoted daughter, a loyal sister, and a compassionate friend. When she wasn’t attending school, making travel plans, or sketching designs for her own fashion line, she enjoyed jogging, snorkeling, and helping those in need at the island’s soup kitchen. Her dreams were big, and her heart was bigger. She will be eternally missed.

The words stared back at me, stark and unapologetic, my fingers sweaty along the newspaper’s edges. The paper stuck to my fingers as I tried to set it down on the coffee table in front of me. I gently peeled it from the pads of my skin and sat back against the couch, allowing all of my stiff tension to melt away, for the hollowness to deflate. I stared ahead at the clock above the TV.
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
The long hand jumped and I blinked, remembering to breathe.

It was finally over.

I read what everyone else already had, what I was too much of a coward to face for the past year. The whole island might’ve read it, but they didn’t know the truth. They only knew what my mom had written, the picture she’d painted, what she’d wanted them to see. Granted, she did it for me, hoping it would ease some of my pain and offer me comfort. Somehow, she’d thought the false words would help. That they would honor my bond with my sister and present the end of her life in a more idealistic light, a light I would’ve gladly been a part of had I not been so weak and chickened out when I’d heard the news.

But what my mom failed to realize at the time she wrote the obituary was that she was in shock, too. She couldn’t rescue me from the decision I’d made to ride my bike in the other direction, far too burdened herself to clearly think through her actions and what the repercussions would be for me, the daughter who’d lived and chosen to run from those final minutes of Jen’s life, who’d denied her request to see me and hold my hand before she died. She was too shattered to see that she’d written it more for herself than for me. She couldn’t consider how writing such a blatant lie and advertising it to everyone would affect me from that day forward. I hadn’t realized she’d even done what she’d done until two mornings after Jen’s death, at the funeral.

“Very sorry for your loss,” Mr. Strasburg had said when he approached me at the church. “But what a comfort to know you were there by her side before she went home to be with the Lord.” He’d squeezed my shoulder and then complimented my mother on the beautiful obituary that had been printed that same morning. I was so angry at my mother, but there was no energy to express it. From then on, whenever I ran into anyone who felt the need to bring Jen’s death up, the conversation always revolved around the same theme.

“How lucky she was to have you by her side before she passed on, sweetie.”

“How thankful you must be to have been able to say goodbye to her in those final moments, Emma. Not many people get that opportunity, you know.”

“What a strong girl you were for holding her hand, honey. I’m sure she’s smiling down from the clouds and thanking you for being so brave.”

It was bad enough to have to hear those things for the past year, when only a select few others and I knew the truth.

Now, Jackson Taylor, in his triumphant, disgusting drunkenness, announced it to all of Pete’s Tavern, and without a doubt, word would spread to the rest of the island in a matter of weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the town knew already, and it had only been two days since his betrayal. Now, instead of those comments, I’d receive uncomfortable glances, awkward stares, and I’m sure, a few well-intended yet pity-infused comments along the way.

To most, it wouldn’t matter. And really, why
did
it matter what other people thought of the truth? It was my truth, after all. I was the one who had to live it. Why did it matter that I hadn’t read the obituary? It was just a composition of words on paper. The words didn’t matter, only the truth, so why the big fuss to begin with? Why allow it to cover me with a haze of guilt, shame, and regret for over a year now? What did it all mean and what did it say about me that I even gave a damn?

Jackson had answered that question for me, and so had my mom and Whitney, in more or less words than Jackson. But they all knew, all understood the same thing. Forgiveness wasn’t ever easy, but a feat much more manageable when you weren’t the subject of its grace. Maybe I’d always be a broken recipient of grace. And in that musing, I found rest.

I was allowed to be. I was human, not superhuman.