48
EMMA
The Wedding Day, 9:15 P.M.
“I’m going to change into comfy clothes. I’m spending the night in Fiona’s suite. We both are,” Emma said to no one.
“I’ll walk you back,” Ethan said, and then turned to Vee and Dutch. “Let’s meet back at the bar. Act natural.”
“I don’t even know what that means anymore,” Vee said.
“Allie, I’ll pick you up at your room in about fifteen minutes,” Emma said.
“Okay.” She shot a quick glance toward Dutch. “Make it a half hour, I think I need a face mask. Take your time.”
“I’ll text you when I’m on my way.” Emma grabbed Ethan’s hand. “Come on.” When the door clicked closed behind them, Emma’s stomach lurched.
Their clutched hands swung in tandem beside them as they walked in silence to the elevator. Her husband knew that she’d done something awful. Something that made her sell out one of her best friends. But he didn’t know what it was.
Emma knew that it was going to come up. The rest of the lies between everyone—the secrets—whatever you want to call them, didn’t matter. Ethan didn’t care what Vee or Dutch or Allie had done. He cared what his wife did.
People from the wedding were still in the lobby bar as Ethan and Emma walked past. Some approached them, looking for information, but Ethan held up a hand and shook his head, playing the hurt friend. Ethan and Emma still stayed silent as they walked to the other end of the hotel, into that elevator bank, and then into their room. Emma immediately went into the bathroom and started the faucet, and then thought washing away her sins would require more than a sink, so she shut it off and turned the shower on. As she closed the door, Ethan sat on the bed, his head in his hands.
Stepping into the glass stall, she let the water wash over her head and run down her face. She hadn’t bothered to remove her makeup the correct way, so she scrubbed hotel soap onto her face with her palms, detaching the false eyelashes and surely taking some of her own along with it. Her skin felt tight even as the steam got hotter around her, and she poured half of the tiny bottle of shampoo over her head and lathered it until she washed away the storm, and any residual peanut oil. After a coating of conditioner and body wash, she turned off the water and stepped out.
On the counter, she found her moisturizer and let it sink into her skin, relieving it of the tightness and transforming it into peaches and cream. A wide tooth comb trailed through her hair and then she wound it up into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She dropped the towel and put on the hotel robe to rummage through her clothes in the room.
Ethan had changed into jeans and a T-shirt and his Rangers hat, and he stared blankly at the television with the remote control in his hand. CNN was on, but she knew he wasn’t paying attention, as he hadn’t reacted to anything they’d said. It was as if he was looking at a kaleidoscope, mesmerized by the colorful images in front of him as they changed.
In a drawer, she pulled out a pair of track pants and a tank top, then quickly dressed. When she turned around to find her flip-flops, her heart stopped. The small bottle of peanut oil was front and center on the table by the door. She knew she didn’t leave it out in the open—she remembered putting it on her hair and her legs in the bathroom as Ethan slept earlier in the day.
How did it get there?
“Ethan?” she asked.
He swiveled his head to his wife, and she was holding the peanut oil. His face showed recognition, then guilt.
“Oh. Yeah. I used some of that earlier. Sorry.”
“On what?”
He didn’t answer, and instead said, “Emma, what did you do?” He shook his head back and forth slowly, with tears in his eyes. “The not knowing—it’s killing me.”
She had already decided that she was going to tell him the whole truth—the good, the bad, and the ugly—just not now, and not without Vee. But she had to tell him something that would satisfy his curiosity, that he’d understand would make her do what she did. She sat next to him on the couch and muted the television and looked into his eyes.
That face. She loved his face, his cheekbones, his dark hair and light eyes and fair skin. She’d never loved anyone as much as she loved him. Not even little Mikey Miller in fifth grade, when she’d stayed up all night making him a Valentine and planning their wedding and their children, enacting it with her dolls. She swore one day she’d marry Mikey, and that he was the only one she’d ever love.
Kids are funny like that.
“Ethan, you know I love you, right?”
He nodded. “And I love you more than anything. I’m so sorry about the Fiona thing. I’d rather kill myself than ever let anything hurt you ever again.”
“I never wanted you to hurt either. That’s why I never told you.”
He nodded and looked away, then back to her with tear-filled rims. “Just tell me.”
She took a deep breath. “One of the times we were broken up—I slept with someone else. Trevor found out. I don’t know how, but he did. I’m sorry. It didn’t mean anything. It was only once when I was upset. And I missed you. I just needed something.”
She saw the hurt in his face—he knew he was no longer the prize, the only one who’d ever had her.
But he had her now. And that was what should count. They had each other now, even if he had once had Fiona, too.
He pressed his forehead to hers and held the back of her neck. “I have to tell you something.”
“Go ahead.”
Her eyes were closed and filling with tears, which leapt out of her lids and down her face. She’d never wanted to hurt Ethan, and she knew she’d gutted him with her last declaration. He was going to say something just to hurt her back; she knew it. That was the price she was going to have to pay—their relationship would become tit for tat, bitter and angry and jealous.
She deserved it. She deserved to be hurt.
“I never wanted you to be hurt, Emma. It’s the last thing I’d ever want. And Trevor was threatening me all weekend—he had more stuff about me and Fiona. He wanted to break us up. So,” he paused and took a deep breath. “The peanut oil. I put it on his cigar. I wanted to kill him. I thought I did. And I did it for you.”