Fateful Hindrance

2. Why Yes, I Am Emotionally Unstable At The Moment

“She’s probably mad at me now.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I didn’t tell any of them I was leaving.”

Her silence made me look up at her.  Her eyebrows were pulled together slightly, head cocked to the side.  “What do you mean?”

I shrugged and I could feel the tears welling up again.  If I didn’t stop this soon, I was going to dry up like a sponge.  “Well, I only told a few people, John, his sister Elena, and a friend of their family, Ed.  Ed was the one to help me get everything arranged without anyone knowing.  I just…I just needed a clean break from it all.  You see, yesterday was Elena’s wedding to her fiancé, Grant.  She’s like a big sister to me, Mom, so I had to tell her what I was doing after the reception.  I hated ruining her big day, but I couldn’t not tell her goodbye, you know?”

“And John?” she asked, reaching forward with one hand to take hold of mine and up with the other to wipe away my tears.  “What about that handsome man of yours?”

I closed my eyes, biting the inside of my lip to keep myself from breaking down.  Too bad that didn’t work.  “I…I broke his heart,” I cried.

It was like the floodgates opened and I was crying twice as hard as I had when I was telling him goodbye.  At the time, I had to be strong, for him and myself.  But now, with it being just me and my mom, I could just let all my emotions out. 

And I did.  Gut-wrenching sobs came out of my chest, accompanied by tears and hiccups and a runny nose.  The whole thing.  It wasn’t one of those pretty crying episodes that you saw in movies either.  I didn’t even need a mirror to know it was ugly. 

But Mom just sat there and held me, rubbing my back in circular motions and telling me it was all going to be okay as I cried against her shoulder.  She didn’t let me go until I was the one to pull back, though my tears weren’t anywhere close to being dried up.

“Sweetie,” she said, reaching up to wipe my cheeks with her fingers.  “Everything’s going to be alright.”

I shook my head.  “I know it will, hope it will anyway, but I want it to be alright now.  And it’s not.  John…God, I’m an idiot for even leaving, no matter how much I wanted to come home.  I broke him, Mom.  If you saw his face when I was telling him goodbye…it’s all I can see when I close my eyes.”

Mom smiled slightly, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear.  “Then why did you come home?”

I just stared at her.  I came home…because it was all I could do other than my other option at the time.  I decided to come home instead of going with Juliet and Ryan.  I decided not to betray everyone I loved, even though I knew I wouldn’t be betraying them at all, as it is.  Not when Ed had been in on Juliet’s plan for me. 

“Because I needed to.”

She started shaking her head then, her smile still in place.  “As much as I missed you and wanted you back home, I got to thinking about something.  You’ve grown up, Em, and you’ve become a beautiful woman right before our eyes.  And since you have grown up, it’s time that you choose your own future.  Sure, we thought that college would come first, but that kind of all changed back in May, right?”  She laughed, making me smile.  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think everything that happened was good for you.  He was good for you.  I’d never seen you act the way you had, but it was sure something to see.”

I leaned forward, hugging her again.  “But what do I do now?”

“Give it a little time,” she suggested.  “A few weeks at least.  Then we’ll see what we can do from there.  But if it were me, I’d go back as soon as I could.”