I didn’t wake up until 1 p.m. the next day. My top knot was now a saggy knotted mess of hair on the side of my head. At some point, I had retreated under the covers and was burrito-wrapped in both a towel and sheets now. It took me a solid five minutes to untangle myself from the bed. I didn’t bother fixing my hair. Oh, great, Delilah. We are back to sleeping more than we are awake. This was so fun the first time around.

I stumbled down the hall in the direction of coffee and heard my phone ding behind me. I didn’t care. My phone didn’t have the coffee. I poured water into the chamber, added a cup, and waited while the machine made the bubbly steaming coffee-maker noise. I leaned way over on the counter, so close I might as well have been lying on it. I had no idea how I was going to fill my day. I was only sure Emma would be part of it. If I had to wait for the movers, I would at least make the most of it and see her as much as I could.

I heard my phone ding again just as the coffee finished dripping into my cup and I walked slowly back to my room. I pulled my phone from the mess of blankets and saw a text from Emma. Speak of the devil.

I managed to send back a “k”. She always hated that so I kept doing it. By this point, getting dressed seemed necessary. I doubted Emma wanted to hang out with this train wreck who had been wearing nothing but a towel for an entire twenty-four hours.

I was barely dressed when I heard her knock at the door. I walked down the hall, past the couch, and unlocked the door. I twisted the door knob and pulled the door wide open to see her standing there bright eyed and smiling. I immediately began to sob.

You know the kind of cry you have where you can’t catch your breath and it feels almost like a panic attack? The kind you feel in your bones? The kind you have to sit down for because there’s no way your legs are going to hold you up through it? That was me. Emma immediately held me to her and we both slowly collapsed to the floor. She rocked me back and forth, pushing my hair behind my ear.

“It will be okay, Delilah. It will,” she whispered.

“Everything is wrong,” I said, sniffling and rubbing my already puffy eyes.

“You’ll be away from here soon. You’ll feel better,” she said.

“I don’t know that I will ever feel better, Emma. You can only have your heart broken so many times before you just stop picking up the pieces,” I said.

Emma looked at me in the kind way she did when she was thinking something she wasn’t sure she should say.

“What?” I asked as I always do when I see her doing this.

“I just…I think this is more about Samuel than you want it to be,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I just mean I don’t think you’re crying because he betrayed you. I think you’re crying because you don’t want to let him go but feel like you have to,” she said, shrugging her shoulders slowly.

“Since when did you become a therapist?” I asked, laughing a little.

“Am I wrong?” she asked.

I didn’t answer immediately. Because I didn’t know if she was or not. Instead I just sighed the type of audible sigh that let her know I didn’t know.

“Well, what did he have to say for himself anyway?” she asked.

“He just apologized. He said he didn’t know. He had Chinese food with him. And a note. But I haven’t read it,” I said.

“Why haven’t you read it?” she urged.

“I don’t know. I don’t think it will change anything.”

“Or are you afraid it will change everything?” she asked.

“I hate you,” I said.

“I know,” she said.

We picked ourselves up off the floor in unison and made our way over to the couch. Even with all that sleep, I still felt so tired. I was trying to keep going for Emma. I really did want this time with her.

“Is that it?” she asked, pointing at Samuel’s note.

“Yeah,” I said, not really looking directly at it.

“Looks like a little more than just a note,” she said, examining it.

And she was right. In reality, it was a pretty thick little envelope. It definitely felt like more than one page. He’d underlined my name twice on the front. “Yeah,” I said, refusing to make eye contact with her.

“I think you should read it, Delilah. I think you’ll regret it if you don’t,” she said.

“Let’s go shopping,” I said. I hated shopping and Emma knew that but I wanted to do anything other than sit here and talk about his letter. Besides, I hear people talk about retail therapy all the time.

“Okay, D. Okay,” she said, knowing full well if I was suggesting shopping, I was definitely done with this topic. She knew better than to push any further.

So we went off to shop. For five long hours.

* * *

We got back to my house just after dinner time. The sun had all but set on this day, and I couldn’t be happier for it. The crisp evening air nipped at us as we hurried from the car to the front porch. I purchased a bunch of unnecessary things so my arms were full. Emma took my key and opened the door. I essentially fell inside, dropping the bags just beyond the swing of the door, and turned to see Emma still outside the door.

“You’re not coming in?” I asked.

“No, I’ve gotta get home. I’m so tired and David is waiting for me,” she said.

I remembered the early days of pregnancy. You have all the energy and then you have no energy at all. “Okay, I understand. Get some solid rest, okay? You and the babe need it,” I said, leaning in to give my friend a much-needed tight squeeze.

“I’ll see you in the morning, okay?” she asked.

“Sure thing,” I said. Emma turned toward her car and began to walk away.

I watched her take a few steps and then she whirled back around.

“Oh, and, Delilah? Do me a favor and read the damn letter,” she stated. This wasn’t a request even though she called it a favor. Her tone definitely implied a demand.

I didn’t respond with anything other than a small nod.

Sometimes I really wanted to dislike her but I never managed to accomplish that. In all the years I knew Emma, she never did anything to make me doubt her love and friendship. And she never steered me toward bad choices or led me down the wrong path in any way. I was having a particularly hard time with this considering her persistence in reading Samuel’s note. It meant she was probably right. It meant I probably needed to read it. And I really hated that.

I walked over to my couch and sat down in front of the coffee table again. I reached for a fortune cookie. It read:

Nothing is ever as it seems.

Stupid fortune cookie. This is why you always need two. I reached for the second fortune cookie and ripped it open faster. It read:

Fuck this cookie, too. No, really. Fuck this cookie. Perhaps my fortune cookie days were over. Or perhaps I hated that they felt so right in all their infinite cookie wisdom. I leaned back into the couch and propped my feet up. I stared at my name on the white envelope for all of ten minutes. I studied the arch in the way he wrote the “D”. I looked at the small, light lines connecting letter to letter. I tilted my head at the way he dotted the “i”. He had pretty nice handwriting for a guy. This is stupid, Delilah. I huffed and pushed myself up off the couch to collect my bags near the door. I made it halfway down the hallway with them before I dropped them all and ran back to the couch. I took the envelope in my hand and ripped the seal open.

This would be the best or worst decision I ever made.