Thanks for the lovely reviews! They keep me motivated! Here's a short chapter to keep you going. I promise the story will get lighter and happier soon.
She sat there as the light faded and the darkness grew. Was there any point turning on a light? Emma didn't need to see the home she'd shared with Will. Everything was familiar, safe. Or so she'd thought. The couch was where they'd watch movies. Lie cozily, their legs tangled, Will's hand stroking her hair. The dining table was the setting for romantic meals, of the kind she'd hoped one day soon might include a proposal. Had she really been that stupid? Those happy little fantasies she'd had of their life together, their future, had she really thought they'd come true? She was angry at herself now, as well as him.
She'd believed it. Believed it all and believed in him. But what if any of it had been real? The memories crowded in though she fought to push them away. A jumble of moments, pieces of their life that she could no longer make sense of. Will's smile the first time he arrived home to find she'd made dinner for them. Him carrying boxes of her possessions the day she moved in, taking a moment to rest them on the table, his hand snaking around her waist as she passed by. What happened next. The first time they made love. The way he'd lie next to her each morning, pretending to be asleep, in fact watching her wake up. How he cut the crusts off her sandwiches with such concentration, determined they'd be straight and even, perfect right angles until she teased him about his newly acquired OCD and he took to cutting them in fancy shapes with cookie cutters.
Emma gulped back the tears. She couldn't make sense of it. They'd been happy. Or at least she'd been happy. Truly happy for the first time in 32 years. And yet that was only because she didn't know the truth. Her skin crawled when she thought of making love to Will a mere day after he'd been with April. Had he even changed the sheets? She gasped. Each thought bringing with it another question worse than the one before.
She hadn't wanted to think about it in that detail. It was unbelievably sordid. But she knew the date of the concert and she remembered the night she'd first been with Will. She always would. God, what had he thought when she'd propositioned him on the stairway that morning at school? That he couldn't believe his luck? With women throwing themselves at him from all directions. And he was just there to lap it up.
Shit. She'd felt special, empowered, safe. Loved. She thought he wanted her, just her. That he'd waited for her. And that she'd waited for someone worth waiting for. Christ. But instead maybe she'd just acted like a slut. Foreplay shall begin at 7.30 sharp. No wonder he thought he could take advantage. She'd offered it up on a plate.
It was so confusing now to think back. To remember how it really was. Because it hadn't actually felt like that. Yes, she'd arrived at the apartment that night confident that she was going to take control of her body once and for all. But when she'd stood there in front of Will in her purple nightgown her resolve faltered. All her insecurities and anxieties flooded back. For a moment she thought she'd turn on her heel and run away but he grabbed her hand, the look he gave her calming her instantly. He held her to his chest until being close to him was all that mattered to her and they lay there for hours, just talking. He said it didn't matter, that she didn't have to go through with it. And she was sure that he meant it. So sure that when they'd kissed and touched and kissed some more, she was the one begging him to enter her.
After that night events ran together in her mind. The questions gathered like clouds warning of an impending storm. Everything had happened so fast. Had she decided to move in? Did he ask her? Or was she spending so much time at his apartment, sleeping over every night, that it happened as a matter of course? Did he even really want her there? Or was she a warm body in the night? There had been a lot of sex. April was right about that. It seemed once they started they couldn't stop. At school, at home, sometimes in between. She felt sick now thinking about it. The auditorium, Will's office, even the janitor's closet. She thought it was because they were so crazy in love, not because...because those were places Will was familiar with. Because it was what he did.
Emma couldn't take it any more. She needed fresh air. Maybe she should force herself to eat. Maybe she needed sleep. Maybe she just needed to leave. She didn't realize her legs were stiff until she tried to move them. She stretched them in front of her scattering the contents of her bag. The test kit looked bright in its white paper package in the dim light and she realized she hadn't even considered what she should do now.