A lot can change in two months, one week, and five days. Lives can shift dramatically, sometimes being rendered completely opposite of what they were before.
Emma knew this, as she looked at her checking account online, seeing her savings being eaten up by her basic necessities. If this pace was to keep up much longer, she would be completely broke by the time the new school year started. Either she had to cut back, maybe get by on less food, or only drive her car three days a week instead of five to save on gas money, or she'd have to get a new job. It would be a temporary job, to be sure, at least to take her through the summer. Like a college student – she recalled her best friend working at a mall department store the summer between sophomore and junior years of college. The inherent dirtiness of dealing with the general public would have driven her crazy to work there, but perhaps she was going to have to make a sacrifice.
With the divorce proceedings going along at a steady clip, although at a much slower clip than Will would have perhaps wanted, he knew that they were being thorough and ironing out all of the legalese that he couldn't quite understand. The only thing that gave him pause was wondering what Emma was up to anymore. Ever since the day at the gas station over two months before, he hadn't seen her. A part of him nearly wondered if she had moved away from Lima, started a new life in a new city without telling him. Found a new job, settled down, maybe found a new guy to fall in love with – who couldn't fall in love with Emma Pillsbury, after all? It would have been him if she wasn't as keen as to waiting on the ink to dry on the divorce papers first – or, he thought miserably, if he hadn't been married to Terri at the time.
It was with this fear of losing her all together weighing heavily on his mind that he pulled up to the grocery store one afternoon – the same one that he had collided with her in all those months before – and saw an all-too-familiar redhead walking into the Body and Wash Shoppe next door. A confident stride, and as he looked closer at her hand, he could see that she was holding a piece of paper. Maybe Emma had a lot of shopping to do there.
He quickly took care of the reason he had stopped at the grocery store – he had forgotten to buy a carton of milk the day before, and had run out that morning. At least dry Cheerios were still reasonably edible, just not nearly as satisfying as drowning them in waves of milk. He stuck the carton of milk in his car, and sat down on the bench outside of the store. There was, of course, the off chance that Emma had finished her business in there and was already on her way. But, he suspected that she was still in there, and so, he waited.
"Will?" a familiar female voice asked. "What are you doing here?" He looked up, and saw that instead of it being Emma, it was Terri.
"I could ask you the same question."
"Hello? I work here. This little divorce thing of ours has forced me to get two jobs, Will!"
"Here?"
"Yes, here. I've been working here for three weeks, remember? The lawyer said it was a good idea."
He did remember, now that she mentioned it. How could he have forgotten? Her insistence on only working a few hours a day a few times a week at Sheets and Things wasn't going to be enough if she had to support herself, so they had suggested that she find a job elsewhere, to supplement her paychecks. She applied to Body and Wash Shoppe the next day, and was hired a few days later. "I remember now."
"Good. Now, I'm going to be late for my shift, so if you'll excuse me…" At that moment, Emma came walking out the door. Suddenly, Will felt as though he was in a very small space. On one hand, Terri was standing right there, on the other, Emma was standing right there: the woman he used to love, and the woman he currently loved, sizing each other up.
"Will," Emma said, her eyes big and round, almost like a deer in headlights. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."
"I wasn't expecting to see you here either."
"None of us were expecting to see any of us anywhere, except for me seeing Will in a lawyer's office, thanks to you and your little antics," Terri said, venom rising in her voice.
"I didn't do anything to your marriage, Terri."
"Oh? So explain why my soon-to-be-ex-husband spent the last year of our marriage mooning over you, if you weren't doing something to provoke it."
Emma's fingers curled into a small, delicate fist. "I wasn't provoking him."
"Could have fooled me."
They continued to eye each other, and Will was nearly certain that Terri was two seconds away from lunging at Emma, before Terri let out a low little laugh and walked into the store, muttering something about "foolish little boys."
Emma gave Will a small, regretful smile. "I suppose I might have to work with her," Emma said, "that is, if she doesn't poison them against me first."
"She wouldn't."
She shook her head. "Yeah, she would, Will, and you know it."
"Okay, she would, but you don't have to work here, you know."
"Where else could I work?"
"You could come back to McKinley; the new guidance counselor is horrible with the students."
"I can't," she said, her smile drooping into a frown, "that part of my life is behind me now. Face it, Will, I left, I need to move on."
"It doesn't have to be."
"Yes, it does," she said, her voice dropping as she walked away, "It really does."
He took note of the slump in her shoulders, and reminded himself to casually ask Terri about Emma's employment status the next time they saw each other.
It'd be almost three weeks before they'd see each other again as more than passing reflections in a store window.
-to be continued-