Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
I hesitate for a few seconds before leaning toward him.
Aaron’s big mitts frame my face. “I’m so proud of you, Bro. You cracked open that mummified chest of yours and let someone into it. So maybe she’s not the right woman, or maybe it’s just crap timing, but you did it. And I’m just … so fucking proud of you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Emersyn
“Mail.” Leah tosses a large envelope in my direction as she walks into the flat we’ve rented for the summer. “I’m going to talk my mom into moving to London.” She opens a bottle of wine as I sit cross-legged on the sofa and open the envelope. “I want to call this my home. You should too.”
Eyeing her with suspicion, I pull out the contents of the envelope as Harry Pawter hops off my lap. “You’ve said that about so many places we’ve visited.”
“Yes…” she pours a glass of wine “…but I’ve never suggested relocating my mom. I’ve never suggested you move with me. This is my fourth time here, and I love it just as much as the first time. Really, I love it more every time I visit. Tell me you don’t love it here too.”
I shrug a shoulder. “You know I do.” My eyes trace the words on the papers in my hands.
“Then we do it. Nothing is holding us back. Right?”
My heart breaks a little. Correction: it breaks a lot.
“Em, what is it?” Leah shuffles her bare feet in my direction, peering over my shoulder at the divorce papers from Zach with little sticky tabbed arrows where I need to sign.
“Oh … that’s …” She takes a seat at the opposite end of the sofa, drawing her long legs underneath her. “Good. Right? You asked him to send you the divorce papers months ago.”
I can’t speak, so I just nod ever so slightly.
“It’s a sign. At the very moment that I suggest we move here, you open an envelope with divorce papers—that last thing tying you to America.”
“Yeah,” I manage the hint of a whisper.
“So why do you look so miserable?”
“I … I just … I don’t know. He didn’t call or text me, giving me a heads-up that he had finally done it. And he’s been his normal self, posting on Instagram, commenting and liking my posts. He posts photos of Aaron and Danielle and his new niece, Nila. Just … the usual.”
“Just because you’re getting a divorce doesn’t mean you still can’t be friends. It means you’ve come a long way. You’re making a good living doing exactly what you love, and he’s taking back the piece of himself that he loaned you because you no longer need it.” She sets her wine glass on the coffee table and scoots closer to me, resting her hands on my knees. “We love. We let go. We move on. And … eventually, we love again.”
With the closest thing to an actual smile that I can muster, I nod once.
“Maybe he met someone.”
Squeezing my knees, she forces me to look at her instead of the papers in my hands. “That’s a good thing. It means he’s stopped grieving Suzie. And I think you helped him do that. I bet he’s so grateful for that, and Suzie would be too.”
Clenching my jaw, I hold my breath and tell myself not to blink, not to move one inch because I’m one straw away from collapsing.
“But…” Leah frowns “…it wouldn’t be wrong for you to have a good cry about it right now.”
I nod at least a dozen times, shaking the tears from my eyes just as my whole face contorts into an ugly cry.
“Oh, bae …” Leah leans into me as my arms wrap around her neck. I have a good, long cry because I married the man of my dreams without a bended-knee proposal, without a diamond ring, without all the excited butterflies.
No dress.
No family.
No friends.
We barely kissed.
And then he went to the dentist.
Still … I loved (love) Zachary Hays, and I can’t imagine any man even coming close to him.
Zach took his time sending me the papers, so I take my time signing them. Two weeks after they arrive, he sends me a text.
Zach: Did you get the papers?
Em: I did. Thanks.
That’s been it.
I let them reside in my nightstand drawer for the rest of the summer while Leah and I photograph five weddings, a slew of family pictures, boudoir photos, and sport all the free stuff we’re sent for being influencers.
It doesn’t take long for Leah to talk me into moving to London with her and her mom. At the end of the summer, we return home to pack all of our stuff. I have nothing to pack, but I have some loose ends to tie up, so I fly to Atlanta while Leah goes to New York to get the last of her belongings and her mom.