14
Emily
It didn’t take long to get settled back in my old room again. In fact it felt very comforting. I listened to both of Martin’s voicemails, but I didn’t call him back. He didn’t say he loved me or he missed me. He called me foolish and childish. I was more confident than ever that I had made the right decision. In fact I couldn’t believe I had stayed with him as long as I had. Thank God I’d moved in with him. That was when I realized he was definitely not the one. Hopefully he would stop pestering me. I just wanted to put my life with him behind me.
My father still had some wine in his kitchen. I ordered some food to be delivered, opened a bottle of wine, and settled in front of the fire to read. I was in the middle of reading a chapter on bankruptcy when my phone rang. It was Sara. This call I picked up.
“Hi, sis, what’s up?”
“What’s up? What’s up with you? Dad just told me you left Marty!”
I guessed I had to talk about it even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “I did. I just couldn’t take it anymore.”
“So what happened?”
“We got in a fight last night, and I told him I was leaving. He didn’t believe me. And I left. Dad helped me move. End of story.”
“C’mon, there has to be more to it than that,” Sara said. She was relentless, and I knew she wouldn’t give up. Maybe it would feel good to talk about it with her. Being open and honest was all a part of this new Emily makeover.
“I was miserable, Sara. Our relationship was boring. He has everything planned all of the time. He lives on this rigid schedule that he refuses to deviate from. I just couldn’t take it anymore.” Yeah, that summed it up.
“Good for you. Now it’s time for you to hook up with some hot, fun guy and really let your hair down.”
I definitely liked her suggestion. It made me smile. God, smiling felt good. “I should probably take a breather right now.”
“Breather? Why would you want to do that? You need to have some wild sex, Em, and you know it. I’ve been telling you forever that you need a new guy who will make you pant and sweat and scream for Jesus!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. She was always thinking about sex, even after having a baby. “First I’ll have to find a guy who’s interested in having sex with me. I’m not as appealing as you are, little sister.”
“Bullshit. You are beautiful and smart. You could have any guy you want. I’ll never know why you can’t see what an amazing catch you are. Confidence, my dear sister. You just need a little confidence.”
“Well, thank you for your vote of support. I’ll keep you posted. Right now I’m going to finish this bottle of wine and crash. By the way, how’s Brian?” I almost forgot about the baby.
“He’s amazing. I’m still in shock. I can’t believe I had a baby. It’s so surreal.”
“Give him a kiss from his aunt Emily. I really have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okie dokie. Love you.” And she hung up. She never waited for me to say good-bye. I was glad that conversation was over. I wasn’t surprised she’d called me. In fact her call made me feel a lot better. She was right—I needed someone completely different in my life.
I threw my phone down and picked up my book again. I’d been reading for only a couple of minutes when the phone rang again. Crap, it was Martin. Now what? At that point I was more than halfway done with the wine and was feeling fairly brazen, so I picked up.
“What do you want, Martin?” I asked abruptly instead of saying hello.
“You need to stop these shenanigans and come home. I’ll apologize for whatever it is you want me to apologize for, and we can move on.”
God, he was infuriating. “No, Martin. I’m not coming back. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve moved out. Our relationship is over. I wish you the best, but it’s over.”
“No, it is not over. Stop this nonsense, and come back to the apartment. I’ll take a break from studying so we can talk things through.” He always sounded so reasonable, and right now I felt anything but reasonable. I just wanted to hang up on him.
“There is nothing more to say. Good-bye, Martin.” I hung up. I didn’t think I had ever hung up on anyone in my entire life. I had a feeling he might call back, so I turned the phone off. That felt oddly comforting. Now no one could bug me. I didn’t know why I hadn’t turned my phone off before that.
I finished the bottle and curled up on the couch and fell asleep. When I woke up six hours later, I realized I had been sleeping on the couch and burst out laughing. Martin would always criticize me when I fell asleep on the couch. I remembered the first time I’d fallen asleep in the living room, and he’d asked me why we had bothered to buy a queen-size bed if I wasn’t going to sleep in it. He didn’t tolerate such “erratic behavior,” as he called it. It was such a strange thing to get upset about.
Now I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. It was going to be a great day!