"Carly….." Emily started, but Carly quickly cut her off.
"Come on Em, you've never been one to give up without a fight, why start now?"
"Because it seems to be what hal wants" Emily said, not being able to come up a good answer.
"So" Carly argued, while sitting down in one of the chairs. "Since when has Hal always wanted what was best for him? I mean... he married me for Gods sake and that wasn't exactly best for either one of us was it?"
"I know, but..."
"No buts! Come on, where's that fighter spirit I know you have? You used to be like a pittbul when you wanted something bad enough, what happened to that? Look..." Carly said in a softer voice "do you remember when I slept with Mike the night before my wedding to Jack?"
Emily nodded and turned to look at Jenn who didn't seem the least bit surprised and had apperently already heard about this before.
"Yeah, I told you to fight for your man" She said, realizing what Carly was getting at.
"Exactly! You told me that no matter what happened between us, Jack still loved me and I still loved him. You told me to stop feeling sorry for myself and fight for my man"
"She took your advice and look at her now? She's still married to the love of her life and they have a beautiful little girl together" Jenn mixed into the conversation.
"So what you're basically saying is stop feeling sorry for yourself and fight for your man?"
"Yeah!" Carly and Jennifer both said in unison.
Emily couldn't help but laugh. She was really blessed to have such amazing friends who would tell her the truth when she needed it.
"The first thing I am going to do now is talk to Paul" she said, getting up.
She didn't have to look for him far, because as soon as she left Jennifer's room, he came walking up to her. He tried to kiss her, but she quickly deverted her head so his lips ended on her cheek.
"I need to talk to you" she said, after seeing the confused look on his face.
They both sat down and he look at her with anticipation.
"This isn't working" She said, confusing Paul even more.
"Okay, well, I geuss we can go back to my place and talk there if that would be better"
"No! THIS isn't working" she said gesturing her hands between the two of them. "The fact that you just called it your place instead of our place or home only adds to that"
"What do you mean it's not working? I thought you were the one that said that even though we didn't love eachother we could still be together and live together"
"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking when I said that" Emily admitted. "Look, I really love Hal and I want to try and see if can still make our marriage work, because I know that I'm misserable without my husband and I am hoping he feels the same way about me"
Paul looked at her and tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away. "Are you sure about this?" he asked, still a little surprised. He hadn't expected this from Emily. He had expected her to stay with him no matter what, even though he didn't care about her.
"Yes, I'm sure. Look..." she said, turning towards him. "You and I never would have happend in the first place if you hadn't gotten hurt by Rosanna and I hadn't gotten hurt by Hal. You needed someone to replace your ex-wife and I needed someone to replace my husband. And the truth is, it doesn't work that way. I need to go talk to Hal, because I wanna tell him all that has been bothering me and beg him to give me another chance"
She got up, but turned back to him one last time before leaving and said "You need to go talk to Rosanna, because something tells me that you two belong together"
With that, she turned around and left Paul alone with his thoughts.
When she was out of hearing range of him, she grabbed her phone and dialed 'Home'. She knew she had no right to still call it that, but it was her home.
She had lived in a lot of diffirent places, but she had never found a place to really call home or that felt like home untill she had moved in with Hal and his kids.
After 3 rings, Parker picked up. "Hello" He brightly said.
"Hey sweetie, it's Emily. Is your daddy there?"
She heard some mummbling, then some shuffeling and then Hal's voice. "Hello?"
"Hey, it's me" she said, feeling somewhat stupid for having to call before stopping by.
"Hey" Hal had to remind himself to sound non-challant, because whenever he heard her voice, he felt like breaking into a smile.
"Paul said you wanted my help with something?" She said, hoping Hal wouldn't think the wrong thing when he heard her mention Paul's name.
"Yeah, Parker is finally moving to Jenn's old room and he says you're the only one that knows what colour paint he wants his walls to be.
Emily couldn't help but laugh. She and Parker had seen a new shiny, bright yellow sportscar once on their way to Carly and Jack and even though Emily was still convinced that Parker had been more impressed by the car itself then by the colour of it, Parker was 100 percent sure that that was the colour his new room would be.
"What is it?" Hal asked when he heard Emily laughing. "It can't be that bad"
At that, Emily couldn't stop herself from laughing again. "Have you ever looked directly into the sun?" She asked him.
Hal's groan was all she needed to answer her question and she couldn't help the smile that formed on her face.
"Do you think you could come by and help me try to convince him to choose another colour? Because he won't pick ANY colour untill you come by to tell me exactly what colour he originally wanted"
"Sure, when do you want me there?" She asked, grabbing her car keys and heading towards the exit.
"Are you busy now?" Hal asked, after stopping himself from answering her question with 'forever'
"Nope, in fact, I just came from visiting Jenn"
"You were there this entire time?" Hal asked surprised. He hadn't noticed any form of friendship or bonding between his wife and his daughter since Jenn moved back to Oakdale, but apparently he was wrong.
"Yeah, we had a lot of things to discuss" Emily said, while getting in her car and closing the door. "I'll be there in a few minutes, okay?"
"Sure" With that he put down the phone and turned to Parker. "there, are you happy now, she's on her way over"
Parker just stood there and smiled at his dad. My mom will be so proud of me when I tell her what I did, he thought happily.
To Be Continued...