The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates (26 page)

              “What have I done?” I hugged the pillow even closer. My throat was still tight, but the sobs had finally subsided.

              “It wasn’t your fault! You didn’t know!”

              “But I knew yesterday and this morning! It’s my fault now!”

              “Who could have expected you to be rational about this yesterday? And this morning was just a misunderstanding. If Finn had stuck around for another two seconds this wouldn’t even be an issue.” She sat back against the bed frame and grabbed the cookie bag again. “No wonder you’re freaking out so much. Having all of this come down on you at once? First Finn, then your mom.” She shook her head and took a bite. “Hey, these are pretty good.”

              I rolled over to face her. “So what should I do?”

              She eyed me and chewed her cookie slowly for several seconds before answering. “I promised I wouldn’t meddle in this one.”

              “You’re involved now,” I said irritably. “You
’
re doing double duty. You made that promise as Finn’s sister, now you’re acting as my best friend. I need an answer.”

              “I can’t,” she said. “Not on this one.”

              “Come on, Shannon! You’re the only one I can ask!”

              She shook her head. “Okay, a compromise. I won’t tell you what to do, but I can help you decide. How’s that?”

              “Okay. Whatever. What should I do?”

              “What do you
want
to do?”

              “I don’t know! That’s what I need you for!”

              “Okay, fine,” she said. “We need something more specific.” She looked me straight in the eye. “Are you attracted to Finn?”

I thought about it, sort of taken aback.
I thought back to that moment, our moment in the hallway. I remembered the heat under my skin, his hands on my back and in my hair, his heavy breath when he finally pulled back.

“Yes.”

The word seemed too small too account for just how big of an admission it was for me. My face bloomed red and I buried it in Shannon’s pillow.

              A ghost of a smile flashed across her face, but it was gone almost immediately. “Okay, so do you want to date him?”

              “I don’t want to lose him!”

              “That’s not what I asked,” she said. “I asked if you wanted to date him.”

              “Even if I did date him, how could I know it would last?” Ethan’s stories about his short lived dating exploits were still fresh on my mind. “If we dated and it didn’t work out, then I’d lose one of my best friends! And it’d be hard for you and me because wherever you are, there he is, too!”

              She opened her mouth to say something but hesitated. “I see the problem.”

              “Thank you.” I sat up and peered into her eyes. “So what do I do?”

              “You want to date him?”

              “But I’m afraid to lose him.”

              “But you want to be with him?”

              “Yes! All right? I want to be with him!”

              I heard that funny clicking noise again, and this time Shannon heard it, too. We both wheeled our heads towards the door, which was slowly swinging open. Finn stood in the doorway in his pajama pants and a T-shirt, his face hopeful.

              “These walls aren’t soundproof,” he said in a subdued voice. He was watching me, waiting for me to say something.

              I sat up and somehow, in that one moment, I could think clearly. My heart didn’t race. My breath wasn’t constricted in my throat. A strange calm had come over me. “I don’t want to lose you,” I said.

              “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

              What was I supposed to say to that? I couldn’t get involved with Finn if there were any chance whatsoever that it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t handle that.

I stared at him, my mouth clamped shut. He was waiting for me to say something. Anything.

But I couldn’t. I only stared into his hard green eyes. Shannon glanced back and forth between us, unsure if she should say something. Thankfully she decided against it.

Finn couldn’t wait any longer. “I need an answer, Emily,” he said. I still couldn’t speak, so he went on. “You said you wanted to be with me, but I need to know if you’re willing to risk it. I need a definite answer. Yes or no.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. This was not what he wanted to hear.

“You won’t.” His hands were balled into fists at his sides and he was fidgeting with the loose fabric of his pants with one thumb. He took a deep breath to calm himself. “If you say no right now, then I will do everything in my power to keep anything from changing. You and I will just go on being good friends. No awkwardness.”

“But-”

“But nothing,” he interrupted. “We’ll both just forget about it.”

“This isn’t something that either one of us can just forget about!”

“I need an answer.” His voice was hard. Final. There would be no arguing with him.

It was now or never. This was my chance, my one opportunity to get this right. If I said no now, then everything could go back to the way it was. Finn had gone on just fine up until now pretending that he wasn’t in love with me. He could do it again. He would get over me if I gave him a definite no. There’d be no point in his hoping.

But would
I
get over it? I hadn’t been lying when I’d said I wanted to be with him. I’d meant every word. I wanted to hold his hand, kiss him, spend Saturday nights at his house making fun of professional wrestling and reality TV shows. I wanted people at school to see us together and know that I was his, and he was mine.

But what if it didn’t last? What if this feeling faded the same way my infatuation with Ethan had?

No. That wasn’t the same thing. With Ethan I was always terrified of getting involved. I’d hated that my mother bragged about the pair of us to Dad on the phone. I’d hated it every time someone referred to him as my boyfriend. I always just assumed that it was because I hated the idea of having a boyfriend, but now I knew that it was because I hated the idea of having
him
as a boyfriend.

Finn, on the other hand…

But what if it doesn’t last?

“Emily?” Finn’s voice was very low now. I almost didn’t hear it over the thudding of my own heart. I was vaguely aware that Shannon was still there, but all I could see were Finn’s eyes.

“Yes?”

“Is that a yes?”

My heart was pounding so hard that I could barely breathe. I hadn’t meant it as an affirmative answer. He’d said my name so I’d automatically replied. But as I said the word, I imagined that it
was
my answer. It felt right. So right. It had felt right when he kissed me in the hall. It had felt right when he’d tried to drink the ketchup bottle. It had felt right every morning that he’d brought me breakfast just so I wouldn’t have to wait in line. It had felt right tossing M&M’s in his mouth and hearing him promise that he’d protect me. It had felt right to lie alone with him in our own personal snow globe just before Christmas. It all just felt so right.

My heartbeat quickened, but it was from excitement now, not dread. My fingers twitched. They wanted to reach out to him. They wanted his hands, his face, but there was something I had to say first.

“Yes.”

He lost no time then. He crossed the room in three strides and perched on the edge of the bed next to me. He took my face in his hands and his smile was fierce. Suddenly I was painfully aware that my face was a streaming mess. I wanted to wipe away the tears and clean myself up a little, but he wouldn’t let me go.

“You won’t lose me, no matter what,” he promised.

              I shrugged and nodded my head, but I didn’t really care about this in that particular moment. He was taking too long to kiss me. Far too long. In the back of my mind, though I couldn’t see her, I sensed Shannon get up and leave the room. The door clicked shut behind her. All I could do was watch Finn’s face. His bright green eyes, his wide mouth that was always so ready to smirk. His straight nose. His thick, wavy hair that always needed to be cut.

How had I not noticed him before?

              Then, ever so calmly, he bent down to kiss me. A long, soft, content sort of kiss that plainly said “We are in no rush.” An acceptance kiss.

Twenty-on
e

              I awoke the next morning with a jolt as my mom’s cell phone vibrated in my fist. A shrill ringing echoed through the room, jerking Shannon out of a deep sleep as well. “Breakfast in Sweden!” she mumbled incoherently as she slid back down into the blankets. “I’ll have the pork.”

              I glared at her in the bright morning sunlight before flipping the phone open. “What’s happening?”

              “Her surgery’s in an hour. You might want to get up here before she goes in.” Dad’s voice was calm, almost eager.

              “Yeah,” I mumbled through the lingering sleep.

              “Don’t worry,” he said, misinterpreting my tone. “Mom’s doing great. The baby’s doing better than expected so far. Just get up here and wish her luck, all right?”

              “Yeah, I’m coming. Be right there.”

              “Okay.”

The phone went dead and I flipped it closed. “Shannon, wake up.”

“Leave me alone!” She rolled over and buried her head under the blankets, pulling most of them off of me in the process. I shivered involuntarily. The O’Malley’s always kept the house cold at night.

“Shannon, what are you still doing here?” I peered at the clock. “Why aren’t you at school?”

She sat up suddenly. “What time is it?”

“It’s after eight.”

She glanced around frantically, then suddenly relaxed. “Oh, right. I thought that was a dream.”

              “What?”

              “Dad came in and turned off my alarm before he went to work. He said we could skip today.”

              “Why?”

              “So we could go to the hospital with you, stupid! Now go wake up your boyfriend!”

              I hesitated. “My boyfriend?” Then I remembered with full detail everything that had happened the night before. “Oh yeah!” Shannon rolled her eyes at me and shoved me out of the bed so that she could lie back down.

I hit the floor with a thud. I cast Shannon a deep scowl before dashing to the bathroom. I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth quickly before going to knock on Finn’s door. He opened up almost immediately, fully dressed and with a half eaten apple in one hand; evidently he’d been up for a while. The instant he saw it was me, he snatched me around the waist and pulled me in for a smacking, sticky kiss and grinned. I blessed my lucky stars that I’d had the presence of mind to brush my teeth first.

“To what do I owe this honor?” he asked, still holding me close. He took another bite of his apple and crunched it noisily.

“We’re getting ready to go to the hospital,” I said. Last night, my worry for my mother had abated slightly, pushed aside by the excitement of the change in my relationship with Finn. Now that one problem was solved, the remaining one took on a new force. I felt that familiar pang of worry again, but this was far worse than the usual dead weight that I’d been ignoring for the past six months. It was now a full on thousand-pound anvil weighing my whole midsection down. I felt like I was going to vomit. Today was when all of the dreadful unknowns would come into the full light. Today was the end of anticipation. 

“Don’t worry,” he said when he saw my strained expression. He reached up and smoothed out the worry wrinkles on my forehead with his thumb. “It’ll all work out.”

“I know.” If I pretended to believe him hard enough, then maybe it would become truth after a while. “Are you ready?”

“I’ve been ready for hours.” He stepped into the hall, closing his door behind him.

I drove us to the hospital without saying a word. Shannon and Finn both seemed to be fairly calm, and I was doing my best to mimic them. In reality, it was very hard to keep my hands from shaking. I wanted very badly to voice my concerns, but I knew that would accomplish nothing. Shannon would probably just sigh and tell me to stop worrying.

So I chewed on my tongue instead, just hard enough to distract me from the terrible thought of seeing Mom in a funeral home this time tomorrow.

Aaron’s ancient truck was parked near the back of the hospital parking lot when we pulled in, and I parked in the open space next to him. I shut off the engine and got out of the car mechanically. Finn was by my side in an instant, and Shannon was on my other side in the next. I crossed my arms over my chest and took a deep breath as we began walking through the frigid air towards the main building.

It didn’t take us long to find my family. Mom was still in the same room as the night before, only she looked a lot less confident now. Her forehead was creased with worry lines, probably much like my own. Shannon and Finn both excused themselves straight away after the usual polite exchanges of “Good luck,” and “Congratulations.”

I shivered when Finn congratulated her. How could he do that when we weren’t even sure if the word was applicable yet?

“You’re just in time,” Dad said, getting up. “We’re expecting the nurses to come and get us any minute now.”

“Sorry it took me so long to get here,” I said. “I told you I should have stayed.”

He shook his head. “You look a lot better this morning than you did last night, and you didn’t miss anything at all.”

              “You really do,” Mom agreed breathlessly from her bed. Aaron wasn’t saying anything at all, but he was peering at me curiously. I had to admit, he was looking refreshed as well, but no one was commenting on
his
pallor.

              “It doesn’t matter,” I said with a shrug and turned my glare back to Dad. “Mom’s the one we should all be worrying about.”

              “Just because one member of my family is sick doesn’t mean I should neglect the rest of you,” he said.

              I turned back to Mom, refusing to admit defeat. “How are you feeling?”

              “Terrible. I’ve got a killer headache and I haven’t eaten today.”

              “And the baby?”

              “The baby’s still fine,” Dad answered for her. He gestured vaguely at a rack of instruments connected to my mom’s stomach with long wires. It was continually spitting out a roll of paper with an endless line graph on it. It meant nothing to me, but I assumed that I must be monitoring my baby sister.

              Sister. My little sister. It was the first time I’d allowed myself to think of her in such a way. It didn’t help my situation any. In fact, it only made things worse. Now, instead of fretting over my mother, I was fretting over my sister as well. And my sister didn’t have nearly the chance for survival as my mom did. In fact, it was very likely that she’d die. She was three months premature. Three months.

              I forced that thought out and tried to focus only on Mom’s face again, but I couldn’t. Suddenly I couldn’t take my eyes away from her bulging midsection.

My little sister. Aaron was going to be so disappointed. I couldn’t help but grin at the thought of the look on his face when they told him it was a girl and not a boy.

              If she lived, that is. If she died it wouldn’t matter either way.

              The sudden excitement that had welled up inside me deflated like a balloon with a slow leak.

              Mom’s frown deepened when she saw my slack face. “What’s wrong?”

              “Hm? Nothing,” I lied. Nothing is wrong at all, Mom. You’re just lying sick in a hospital bed while my little sister dies inside you. Aside from that, everything’s peachy. Did I tell you I got a boyfriend last night while you were in a medically induced sleep? It’s Finn, of all people! I know, who’d have thought, right?

              Knowing Mom,
she
would have thought Finn straight away. Everybody else seemed to.

              She patted my arm and closed her eyes. “All right.” She didn’t believe me.

              The door clicked open and two nurses came in. “Okay, everybody, clear the room. It’s time to get this show started. Except for Dad, of course,” chanted the shorter of the two nurses. She was very cheery and her full, dark cheeks were marked by obvious dimples. The other nurse, a crabby looking middle aged woman with too much make-up on, didn’t say a word. She just went straight over to Mom and started messing around with the monitors.

              “That means you, hon,” said the shorter nurse to me. “It’s time to go.” She put a hand on my elbow and ushered me out of the door behind Aaron. Her kindly grin reminded me of Ethan. She even had the same skin tone: that weird, in-between dark skin that I couldn’t quite identify. 

I couldn’t look away from my mom. She smiled at me confidently. “I love you, Em,” she said. “You too, Aaron. You two play nice in the waiting room, all right?”

              Aaron scoffed. “As if your hell-bound second child
could
play nice.” His offhand manner quelled my worries a little, though he was probably just putting on a brave front.

              “Love you, too, Mom,” I said from the doorway.

“We’ll see you guys in an hour or two,” Dad called.

Aaron and I followed the hallway until we found the waiting room where Finn and Shannon were amusing themselves with a game of rock-paper-scissors. I pushed open the door and we both went inside. “They’ve taken her in,” I told the twins as I settled into the chair next to Finn. I curled my feet up under my body protectively. Aaron sat across the small room from us and grabbed an automotive magazine from the end table next to him.

Finn’s hand slipped into my own and he squeezed it as Shannon came over and sat on my other side.

“It’ll be okay,” she assured me, though there was no possible way she could know that. “At least, it’ll be okay until you bring the baby home. Last night was your last night to sleep an entire night through, I’m afraid. I hear babies never stop crying until they’re in preschool.”

I grinned a little despite myself, but couldn’t reply. Everybody kept talking as if it were a sure thing that Mom and the baby were both going to be coming home tonight. I knew otherwise. Even if my sister did manage to survive, she’d be in the NICU for a couple of months because of how premature she was. They’d probably keep Mom at the hospital another night or two for observation, if she made it through without complications at least. Today was far from the end of this stupid hospital.

I studied mine and Finn’s hands just to keep my eyes from wondering. My hand fit so perfectly into his. It was an exact match. Meant to be. How the
hell
had I not seen this before? Five years of being his best friend and I never noticed.

“Jeez, Emily! Why couldn’t you two have just waited another two weeks?” Aaron begged from his seat across the room. He’d obviously seen Finn fingers intertwined with my own. “I had fifty bucks you wouldn’t get together until after February! Man, Adam’s never going to let me forget this one.”

Finn just glanced up at Aaron, but I was full-on glaring. “Our mother is going into major surgery and you’re worried about some stupid bet with your friend about my love life?”

“Who’s Adam and why does he care?” Finn asked.

“He’s a guy I work with, and he doesn’t care,” Aaron said. “He’s a gambler through and through. He’ll take any bet.”

“Well what does that make you?” I asked scathingly. “You bated him!”

“And I got screwed! Don’t you think that’s punishment enough?” He flipped the magazine back in front of his face, and then threw it to his lap again. “And where do you come off griping at me for being flippant about Mom’s surgery when you were off gallivanting with your new boyfriend while she was passed out in the hospital?”

My cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment. He’d found the right button to push all right.

“Leave her alone,” Shannon said. “Can’t you see she’s really upset? She wasn’t gallivanting anywhere with anyone.”

“Really?” Aaron rounded on my friend. “So what were the two of them doing last night?”

“He was comforting her, stupid! So was I!” She snapped back.

“No you weren’t,” I said. “Not the whole time.” I tried to pull my hand out of Finn’s, but he wouldn’t let me free. I glared up at him, but he pretended not to notice.

“So the truth’s out,” Aaron gloated, picking up his magazine again. “You’re human after all.”

I stared at him through his magazine, suddenly defensive. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He dropped his magazine again, irritated. “You’re not a saint, Emily. Nobody thinks you are but yourself.”

“I don’t think I’m a saint!” Finn was still maintaining a vice grip on my hand. “That’s starting to hurt, you know!” I hissed at him.

              “So stop struggling,” he answered.

“Then why did you put up such a fuss about going home last night, and again this morning?” Aaron asked, ignoring my misplaced irritation with Finn.

“You were asleep when me and Dad were talking about that!”

“No, I was just pretending,” he said “Nobody bothers you when you’re sleeping, but that’s not the point.” He paused and leaned forward. “Tell me something else, why did you practically kill yourself with work over Christmas?”

“Because nobody else seemed to want to help out around the house!”