The Wallflower Game

Chapter Twenty-three

Keith pushed himself off the shelf as Emily walked over to their aisle. He heard parts of their conversation but wasn’t sure how Emily was feeling now. The bastard didn’t deserve to be forgiven for what he did, but the fact that he apologised made Keith seethe with anger. How dare he even speak to Emily? Any amount of ‘sorry’s that he said wouldn’t cut it anyway. Keith was shuddering with rage but when he saw Emily frowning, looking sad, he immediately put aside how he felt and was filled with concern for her.

“Em?” Keith murmured as he touched her arm in a comforting manner. She turned and walked into his open arms and hugged him tight. “Emily,” he murmured again as he closed his eyes and leaned his face against her head. He could feel her uneven breaths and feel her tears against his chest. He gently swayed as though he was rocking Kimberly to sleep when Kimberly was still a baby. 

Some moments passed and Emily’s breathing became steady and she stepped back, wiping her tears away. Keith tried to use his hand to dry his shirt but obviously failed. He then looked around and saw that Katy had left. 

“You okay?” Keith asked Emily. 

Emily sniffed and gave him a genuine smile. “I am, now. After seeing him, I feel much better. It’s as though I can put the whole thing behind me now.”

Keith wasn’t sure how that worked, but he nodded and took her hand. Keith was still extremely upset at Nick’s audacity and how he dared to make Emily cry, but he tried to suppress those emotions once again as he considered how Emily felt liberated by talking to Nick again. He supposed that sometimes we had to face our giants again to realise that they weren’t all that big, that there was no need to fear anymore. 

They took their groceries and walked towards the cashier without saying a single word because words weren’t needed. 

Katy sat outside the supermarket, feeling small and miserable. She hugged herself as the air suddenly felt chilly and smiled to herself. When she had went out with Nick, she hadn’t fallen in love with him yet, so she reasoned that her heart wouldn’t be as broken as Emily’s, since they had been dating, after all. But when she saw the look on both Emily’s and Nick’s face when he had pulled away from their kiss...Katy buried her hands in her face at the memory. She felt used and dirty. 

Yet Katy had recovered faster than Emily. That alone made Katy feel like she had gotten over the whole thing. But now when she saw Nick again, her heart was filled with dread and she felt sick to the core. As she listened to the conversation, she realised that Emily had been behaving in a spoilt manner. 

She knew Emily had been the sort to say one thing and mean another, like when she said “I hate you”, she meant “I’m just pissed at you now, try again later”. She knew that Nick had fallen into her trap, thinking that she meant they wanted to break up. For all she knew, Emily did want to imply such a thing, hoping that Nick would fall to his knees and beg her for a second chance. 

Katy knew she should be supporting Emily fully but when she heard the conversation, she was just so angry. Suddenly, she felt as though it was all Emily’s fault for misleading Nick, which made Nick so hurt that he wanted to take revenge, which got her involved in their whole drama. 

She still remembered the look that crossed Nick’s face when Emily ran out of the room, crying. Nick hadn’t chased after Emily, he hadn’t said a single word to Katy, he just kept staring at the door with this look of complete sadness. After a while, he dropped to his knees and stayed there for a long time. When Katy had finally been able to move after the shock and hurt, she left the room, leaving Nick behind. 

What if it was all Emily’s fault? Katy began to cry because of her cruel thoughts. Nick was to blame too. Nobody was completely good or bad, right or wrong. The world was filled with grey areas and Katy felt like she was smack in the centre of one of those grey areas. She was confused. 

After she calmed herself down, she took a deep breath and remembered how Emily ran straight into Keith’s embrace after her encounter with Nick. Katy began sobbing again. She didn’t know why, she just felt so sad that she was alone. Even Emily had someone, and Katy was happy for Emily, but Katy knew she was lonely. She had no one to lean on when she was down. 

“Katy?” Emily’s voice made Katy look up, her eyes all red. Emily smiled at her. “Let’s go home.”

“Where’s Keith?” Katy’s voice was small. 

“He went back first,” Emily explained as she helped Katy to her feet. “He said, and I quote, ‘twins are twins. You guys need your own time.’” 

Katy nodded, still sniffing. The sisters walked home together, healing their own broken hearts. 

By the time Katy and Emily had walked to Keith’s house, their tears were dry. Keith ushered them to the dining table and placed the snacks on the table, pouring soda he bought specially for Katy, which made her smile. Then they sat around the table and ate in silence. 

“Hi Emily!” Kimberly said as she walked in from the living room. 

“Hello,” Emily greeted in a weak voice.

Kimberly’s face fell. “You’re sad,” she pointed out. 

“Yes, I know,” Emily chuckled. 

“Why?”

“I, uh...I met someone who had made me sad before.”

“So that person made you sad again?” Kimberly frowned. 

“Not really,” Emily sighed. “At first, yes, but now I’m not sad anymore. I feel free.”

“Free?” Kimberly echoed. “You weren’t free before?”

Emily shook her head. “I thought I was, but I wasn’t.”

“I don’t understand,” Kimberly scratched her head. “If you weren’t free, you were expensive?”

They laughed and Kimberly frowned again. 

“No, not that kind of free,” Emily smiled. “As in, I was tied down by that person before, but I thought I was free, you know, not a prisoner anymore, but today I truly broke free. It’s tough to explain.”

“You thought you were free when you were tied up?” Kimberly laughed. “Emmie, that’s silly!”

“Yes, it was,” Emily replied softly. 

“Or maybe the strings that you were tied up in were so tight that you became black and blue all over,” Kimberly continued in her grown-up voice. “And then your nerves couldn’t feel anything so you didn’t know you were tied up. Keith said that’s what happens to some people sometimes.”

Emily looked at Kimberly. A little girl had just pointed out that Emily had been numb all these while. She then looked at Keith. He shrugged.

“I told her that when she tied her pinky with dental floss and had pins and needles,” Keith explained. 

Pins and needles. Emily smiled to herself. Yes, that was it. She hadn’t gotten over Nick and she had become numb. She still felt something, obviously, with Keith, but she couldn’t completely liberate her heart for him because a part of her was still hating Nick. 

Now, however, she was free. She smiled at Keith and looked into his blue eyes. Now, she could give him her whole heart.