Page 57 of Toxic Hope
She still isn’t satisfied by the time we leave, reaching into her backpack. “You have to let me give you something for all of that. It doesn’t feel right letting you pay.” Easton only whistles and walks out the door, making Emma chase him while I laugh behind them.
“I’ve never met anybody who fought having somebody buy them brunch,” I call out while he jokes with her on the way back to the truck.
“Listen,” Easton adds while Emma stomps her foot, “you don’t need to be spending your money on trips to the diner. You have more important things to worry about.”
I already know he made a mistake before she comes up short and goes still. “What? What does that have to do with anything?”
Shit. Usually, I would let my brother get himself out of the hole he dug, but this sort of affects me, too. We were having such a good time, and I feel it slipping through my fingers. “You were saying things are a little tight,” I remind her once I reach them, standing at the curb. “That’s all he is talking about. You’re going through some shit. Let us take care of you.”
She pulls her head back slowly before letting out a silent laugh. “Seriously? Is that what you think you need to do? I don’t like the sound of it, to tell you the truth.”
“Why is that such a bad thing? We both feel the same way,” Easton tells her. “You’ve been through so much already. We want to make it a little easier on you if we can.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” she replies while her shoulders start to rise. God dammit. What’s the problem this time?
“Nobody said you did.” It’s hard as hell keeping the anger out of my voice. “Why are you acting like this?”
“Why? I’ll tell you why.” For somebody as small as she is, she manages to make herself look really tall when she feels like it. “I am nobody’s charity case. This is exactly why I didn’t want you to know.”
“Why won’t you just let people be nice to you?” Easton is not doing as good of a job as I did of keeping his voice down.
“Because your idea of nice means making me feel small,” she almost shouts back. “You don’t understand, because you don’t have to, but when people go out of their way to keep doing these things for you, eventually you get the feeling you owe them something back. I don’t want that. And I don’t want to be anybody’s way of feeling better about themselves because they helped somebody who hasn’t been as lucky as them. Do you hear me?”
I do, and every word pisses me off a little worse than the one before it. She always finds a way to turn everything around. “You have to get used to the idea of people wanting to help because they care.”
“Thank you for the advice.” She lifts her chin before adding, “I want to go back to campus so I can get my car. Can you take me there, or do I have to get a ride?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Easton groans. “Why are you doing this?”
“Will you take me, or not?” She turns her attention to me, being the driver. How can she look at me like we’re strangers when we were having such a good time together a few minutes ago? Am I kidding myself, thinking about any kind of future with her? We can barely make it through two full hours before somebody’s misunderstanding somebody.
“Yes, I’ll take you.” I feel about two inches tall, though. It’s not easy when somebody makes you feel like even the things you do from the deepest part of your heart are all wrong. It’s a feeling that weighs on me throughout the ride back to campus, which at least doesn’t take long. It already feels like forever, but that’s probably because Emma’s anger makes it tough to breathe. I don’t want to look at her. I don’t want to talk to her. I know I’m going to say the wrong thing and make everything worse.
Is this what it’s like to care about somebody? To actually give a shit about not saying anything that could do permanent damage?
All I know for sure is I’m not about to let her drive home without confirming she got there safely. Once she’s in her car, I pull out of my spot and wait for her to do the same. Our eyes meet through our windshields—she is pissed, but whatever.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do about her?” Easton asks once she pulls out, and we start to follow her.
“Fuck, if I know.”
“I wasn’t trying to be insulting.”
“I know,” I tell him, even if he was a little obvious about it. “And you can never tell what she’s going to take as an insult.”
I see him looking at me from the corner of my eye before he mutters, “But here we are, making sure she gets home safe, because for some reason it feels like it’s worth it.”
“Pretty much.” Neither of us does any talking after that, following close behind Emma’s car and only leaving her street once she’s in the house without ever looking back at us.
For some reason, it feels worth it. I just wish I knew whether she feels the same way.
25
EMMA
Walking into the hospital feels even more dreadful than usual. I drag my feet into the elevator, wishing I would have handled yesterday differently. Yes, they overstepped as always, but after thinking it over more, I realize the guys just wanted to help out, and I most definitely overreacted.
Now I’m going to have to pay the price by sitting on my own today. There is no way the twins are going to come and sit with me after the way I acted yesterday. I can’t believe how sad that makes me. I never even admitted to myself how much I hate going through this on my own.
