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)
She laughs and stumbles back a few steps. “Are you really worried about being a pathetic dick in my eyes?”
I frown. “Well, I am now that you basically dodged that question.”
Emersyn leans down and presses her fingers to the inside of my wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for a pulse. Good news. You have one, therefore you are the strongest man I know because you lost your wife and kept going. That’s a superhero kind of power, Zach. You might be my new idol.” She smirks and saunters to the kitchen. “Don’t be surprised if I get a little crush on my superhero roommate.”
It’s funny. It’s cute. It’s … confusing as hell.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Two days later, I finish my last route and head home for a three-day weekend. On my way, I purchase fuchsia tulips and take them to Suzanne’s grave. I miss her, but I don’t miss seeing her in pain, and that’s what I focus on when I visit her. Today, I give her my blessing to be with Tara. I want her to be loved—always.
After a “See you later, my love,” I grab some groceries and drive home to my roommate and Harry Pawter.
“Hello?” I say, toeing off my shoes and shutting the front door. To my right are three rows of boxes with labels.
Sweaters.
Shoes.
Dresses.
I can’t help my smile. Emersyn went through Suzanne’s closet for me. For a few seconds a little guilt comes over me. Maybe I should have forced myself to do it. Maybe I should have invited Michelle over to help and just endured her weepiness. Truthfully, I didn’t want her to make me cry again. I’m past that. I’ve learned to feel the pain without letting it crush me, but I know she would bring it out of me again.
“Emersyn?”
Harry Pawter meows and traipses around the corner, making red paw prints on the wood floor.
Blood. So much blood.
“Emersyn!” I gulp my next breath and trudge through my fear, driven around the corner to the kitchen on a nauseating wave of panic. The bloody paw prints lead me to the other side of the island. “Jesus …” For a nanosecond, I pause, unsure of what to do first. “Emersyn …” I hunch next to her bloodied body as I reach for my phone.
“9-1-1. What is your emergency?”
“I need an ambulance for a young woman. She’s fallen into the open dishwasher racks, and there’s broken glass and blood everywhere. She has epilepsy. I think she may have had a seizure.”
Emersyn tries to move her hand, but there’s a thick shard of glass lodged into her forearm. She’s bleeding all over—her arms, her face, her neck.
“A-Zach …” Emersyn starts to cry, her breaths erratic as if what happened just registered.
“It’s okay. Just try to hold still.”
I confirm my address and attempt to answer a series of questions for the operator. As much as I want to help her, I’m afraid to move her, especially with glass wedged into her neck so close to her carotid artery. That familiar helplessness I felt with Suzanne comes rushing back like a hundred-pound weight crushing my chest.
Aside from keeping Harry Pawter out of the way, there’s nothing I can do when the paramedics arrive.
“Is she your wife?”
Tearing my gaze away from the congestion of men and women around Emersyn, I focus on the woman asking me that question. “No,” I whisper. “My wife died.”
She doesn’t need to know that. I’m not sure why I said it.
This question gets asked again and again.
By another medic.
And once we get to the hospital, I’m asked the same question by several nurses there.
“Does she have family we can contact?”
I shake my head, trying to see past the second nurse questioning me as they take Emersyn through two big metal doors. A cold draft replaces her presence for a few seconds until the doors close again.
I fucking hate the cold, the bitter antiseptic smell, the suffocating lifelessness of hospitals.
“She doesn’t have any family or emergency contacts?” I’m asked again.
Another slow headshake. My brain can barely see through the thick fog. “She lives with me. She’s a … friend. I suppose I’m her emergency contact.”
When they determine I’m completely useless, I take a seat in the waiting room.
Four hours later, I’m allowed to see her because she’s asking for me. Suzanne’s voice still whispers in my ear, telling me to do it.
Do what? I think, feeling angry because I know she wants me to do something grand in my life, but I’m kind of preoccupied with her ex-BFF having been slaughtered by our dishes. I’m doing the best I can for Emersyn.
“Hey …” Emersyn’s voice drifts across the room before I can bring myself to inch closer. The bandages look like a half-ass attempt at a mummy, a patchwork of hidden tragedy.
“Hi.”
“I’ll replace the dishes. The nurse told me. She said I fell into your dishwasher when I had a seizure. It’s … kind of fuzzy right now. I don't remember it happening, but I remember some things from after it happened.”