Chapter 35

Emma frowns. I know she wants to correct me on who exactly up and ran off, but she isn’t that type of person. She is instead appraising me so very pointedly, as though some tiny light bulb has gone off.

She rubs her thumb over my hand to soothe me.

“You said … He left you?” Emma watches me, her expression calm while waiting patiently.

“What do you mean? What?” I recall everything I blurted out and try to piece it all back together so I can replay what I said. “Arrick, I guess.” I shrug, sniffing back the flood that’s erupted over my face, and give up wiping the mess away. It isn’t the first time I’ve cried in front of Emma, and she doesn’t exactly make me feel shy about it anyway.

“You started hitting the booze and reckless behavior only weeks after Arrick moved to the city, Sophie.

We all know how close you were. Do you think that maybe it was the dependency on him that has left you feeling this way?” She seems intent on her line of thought. That serious look on her beautiful face and that slightly furrowed eyebrow hinting she’s onto something “What? You think I’m some sad cling-on who can only be happy with Arrick glued to my side? He’s my best friend, of course I got upset that he moved away, and we didn’t see each other as much, or act the same way anymore. I don’t think him going has given me a serious bout of two years of black hole depression though. Why would it?” I snap again, angry that she is trying to make this out to be something it’s not; trying to make me see, that somehow, I’m a weak pathetic child who can’t survive life without dependency on my best friend. It’s abnormal and unhealthy and is not what is wrong with me.

“I think you have always had very confused emotions concerning him, that what you think is a healthy friendship is something more to you. He left and you fell to pieces, Sophie. I think you’re nursing a very real broken heart and you’ve experienced your first real breakup of sorts. I think this consuming black hole is not as complicated as you think. I don’t think you just love Arrick, Sophie … I think you are in love with him and I have done for a long time.”

I inhale quickly, looking at her as though she has popped out horns on her head, or grown a second one; complete disbelief and stunned into silence with such a ridiculous statement. My tears stop almost as quickly, frowning hard, I stare at her, confounded, like she has completely lost her mind. I’m torn between shocked outrage and hysterical giggling, at just how preposterous she’s being.

“You think I’m in love with Arrick?” I start laughing dramatically, purely out of some weird psychotic break I seem to be suffering from. Either that or Emma is having it, especially with that statement. “You have obviously been drinking your own Kool-Aid, Emma. This is fucking stupid.” I make a move to get up angrily, but Emma raises a palm calmly.

“Sit down.” That domineering, no nonsense tone makes me hesitate. Emma rarely raises a harsh tone to anyone, let alone me. She’s never needed to, and I sit down obediently, a knee-jerk reaction and snap my mouth shut. “Now tell me why that statement makes you react with hostility, Sophie?” She frowns intensely, focusing fully on my eyes and the sheer seriousness of her expression makes me break out in sweats.

“Don’t okay.” I slump back angrily. “Don’t hit me with your professional psychobabble, therapy tone and backwards questioning, Emma. I don’t need it from you right now. Hell yes, it makes me angry … it’s Arrick. He’s like a brother to me. He’s been through everything with me, seen everything, been everything to me. I wouldn’t have gotten through without him.” I bite on my bottom lip to control the wobble in my voice, and turn to gaze meaninglessly across the kitchen, in a bid to control my outburst.

“Ben, Adam, Rylanne and Adrian are your brothers, but you didn’t fall to pieces when they upped and moved away.” Emma is still calm, her tone soft and low as she sits very still. Unemotional and completely calm, masked in all ways and fully turned to Doctor mode.

“None of them were my best friends, Emma. None of them were as close to me as he was. None of them got on the other side of the wall with me and held my hand.” I blurt out impulsively.

“So, this is about Arrick, you agree?” Emma responds gently, pushing me, coaxing, but I know what she’s doing.

“No … maybe a little, but not entirely. He’s just a small part of the problem. He is not the problem.” I shrug defensively, sighing loudly and slumping back angrily. “Okay … Maybe he’s a large part of the problem. When he’s around me, I’m saner, safer, and less fucked up. He has a way of just cutting through my bullshit and makes me see sense. But you’re wrong … I don’t love him in that way, I do love him, of course I do, but I’m not in love with him. That would just be plain weird, and it would be wrong on like a million levels. It’s practically incest.”

Emma sighs, her brows knitting for a moment as she thinks this through.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think you’re in love with him, Sophie. I think you’re hurting and you’re acting out because you don’t know why you feel this way. That it’s all a mess inside of you; a complicated riot of guilt, shame, confusion, and naivety. It’s not incest … There’s no blood tie, not even marriage. There is no shame in falling in love with the man who became your safety net and your rock.

In fact, I think it was probably inevitable, and I’m surprised you didn’t come to this conclusion alone, a long time ago.” Emma doesn’t react when I swipe my chair back and jump to my feet, shaking my head as I pace the floor. My head reeling, emotions going to shit once more, and lungs trying hard to just keep expanding. Like I’m suffocating suddenly, and the room is getting way too hot. Her line of thought is hitting me on subliminal levels and pulling reactions I cannot control.

“No! Nope! If I am in love with him then I would know. I would see it. I wouldn’t date other men!” I turn on her with a sort of ‘see’ look on my face as though I am trying to convince both of us. Breathing heavily, struggling to calm the internal fear, shame, whatever the fuck this is, that’s consuming me.

“You’re broken-hearted, and you’re doing what every young girl does when she’s hurt this way. I’m not concerned with how you’re behaving because I really do think that this is what’s wrong. The reckless lifestyle is not the issue, it’s a result of an issue, and will end when you overcome it. It’s not your past coming to bite you again. I think you’re trying to replace a love that you are in no way over and doing it in a reckless and immature desperate way, because you don’t know how else to navigate it. I think you’re harboring a lot of confusion because your gut tells you that it’s wrong to feel this way about him, and you don’t want to face it.” Emma sits back, overlaying her hands delicately on the table and motions for me to sit with an eyebrow gesture. I just stare at her blankly, numb from the amount of shit that has just left her mouth and unsure how I should even react. Right now, all I can focus on is getting oxygen into my body before I pass out. “Take it from someone who knows how all-encompassing heartbreak caused by a Carrero can be, Sophie. How easily someone who you think is your best friend can become the man you are hopeless for, the man you need.”

Emma’s frowning still, nothing but compassion on her loving face as I shake my head violently. A million emotions crashing inwards, like a sandcastle that’s been hit by a crushing wave. I waiver as that all-consuming tightening of my lungs and the overwhelming pain engulfs me, confusion making my brain ache, and lungs tighten further.

“I’m not … I can’t be. He’s Arrick … he’s …” I trail off hopelessly as his face runs through my mind at a hundred miles an hour.

His perfect smile, his hazel eyes, and the way one look from him could always shut me down. That body I have scoped out on the fly so many times. Knowing he’s hot, knowing his body and muscles are a ten on the fanciable scale, to go with that flawless face, and how I loved all my school friends envying the closeness I had to him. Pride for my dreamy best friend for being so irresistible to them, and me.

The familiarity that always felt like home. His smell, his touch, and his sheer presence, which has always had the ability to make everything seem better. Everything about him just always felt right. My haven, the calm to my storm and the shining light in the dark when I couldn’t find my way home.