She's With Stupid Page 13

  Still in a daze, Emilie looked down and realized that Rich was bracing her right arm with his hand and must have been doing so for quite some time. He was very likely the only reason she was still standing upright. She looked up at his face, and he gave her a look that was very close to pitying.

  “Okay,” she said in a small voice. “Yes. I should get back to my room.”

  “Actually, I needed to ask you about that frog project.”

  It was the first thing Leo had said since Emilie came into the room. She looked at him in bewilderment, shook her head, and silently followed Rich. Leo made a move to grab her arm, which made Clarissa pause in her gripping account of his proposal during a Cyclone’s game.

  “It’s important, Emilie.” Leo’s voice was low, urgent. It made her want to smash his esophagus with the back of her coffee cup.

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, Leo!” Clarissa twirled the straw-like mass on her head around her index finger and shook her head at his odd behavior. “Just go down to her room during your free bell. She’s obviously in a hurry.”

  “I am, yes. In a hurry. And I have lots to do today, so maybe we can discuss the project some other day. Or not,” Emilie muttered under her breath as she hurried out the door.

  She did not look back to see Leo’s reaction. Clarissa had already lost interest in the conversation and turned back to her fan club, which was currently discussing the merits of a summer wedding. Emilie closed her eyes and silently prayed for the strength not to throw up in front of all these people. That would definitely be conspicuous and all she really wanted was to get to her room and get herself under control before her students showed up.

  She parted ways with Rich down the hall and was turning the corner that led to her classroom when Leo grasped her waist from behind and pushed her through the door to her room. He quickly shut it behind them and blocked her only exit by locking it.

  Emilie backed away from him as if he were a plague-ridden rat. Which he most definitely was. “You can turn right around and go back to your little fiancée because I have nothing to say to you.” Good, that sounded very strong and not the least bit like I’m about to curl up in a ball and die.

  Leo’s expression turned mulish as he observed her defensive position, arms crossed, back against the blackboard. “You can’t just walk away from me, Emilie. I can explain all of this, but you have to let me—”

  He was cut off by Emilie’s high-pitched screech of indignation. “Are you insane? Did you fall down and hit your head when you were on your knees proposing to another woman? You can explain?”

  “I—”

  “Oh, shut up. There is no possible way you can explain away the fact that you asked another woman to marry you. And you did so right around the same time you were telling me how much you loved me and needed me and wanted to hold me forever. Could you be any more of a jackass?”

  Emilie could feel her blood pressure rising at an alarming rate, and her skin was flushed and damp with perspiration. She turned away, but she could feel his eyes on her as she made her way around the room, robotically picking up stray books and straightening up desks. Leo just kept staring as she finally sat down behind her own desk and stared blindly at her computer.

  After a few silent, tension-filled moments, she managed to glance at the silent figure across the room. She was utterly disgusted to see that he looked hurt. It was quite evident that he was fully expecting her to offer him some kind of absolution.

  With a furious shake of her head Emilie ignored him and turned back to her computer. He wanted her to understand? Well, he could wait till pigs grew wings and learned how to fly to the moon because there was no way she was going to understand any of this.

  She closed her eyes, counted to ten, and when she opened her eyes he was exiting the room, the soft click of the door the only sound in the crushing silence. Pulling her knees up to her chest, Emilie laid her head against her thighs and could not stop a few stray tears from leaking onto her wool skirt as her frantic brain attempted to process what she was feeling.

  Moments later, Emilie’s head jerked up as she came to a stunning realization. She wasn’t altogether certain that she was crying because of Leo’s duplicity. In fact, if she was brutally honest with herself she had to admit that, despite the humiliation she felt, despite the deep cavern she could feel opening in her stomach when she thought about how willfully blind she had been, she wasn’t really crying because of what had Leo had done.

  She was crying because, when Leo left the room, she’d felt the relief of his absence like a physical blow.

  Though this seemed like irrefutable proof that she was truly screwed up, possibly beyond repair, knowing she finally had a legitimate out of her ‘relationship’ felt immeasurably and inconceivably right. There could be only one logical reason for Emilie to feel like that, which meant that she was an even bigger fool than she had feared.

  “What the hell happened?” Kate yelled, spilling diet root beer out of her cup and all over Emilie’s bedroom rug in the process.

  Kate had rushed right over as soon as she received Lana’s frantic messages saying that something bad had happened to Emilie and that Kate needed to get to the apartment as soon as possible. She had instantly ditched an irate Will at the Root Beer Stand the cheapskate had so generously taken her to for their six month anniversary and driven like a madwoman to Emilie’s place, only to find her usually calm and collected friend huddled in the middle of her bed. She had obviously spent the better part of the afternoon crying.

  Now in the place of tears was an eerie silence. It was only after repeated requests from both Lana and Kate, who were as confused as they were scared, to find out what had happened, that they finally managed to get the words “Leo,” “jerk,” and “fiancée” out of her.

  Not quite understanding, Lana asked her to repeat that.

  Frustrated, Emilie pushed to her elbows and bit out, “Leo has a fiancée. And she’s not me!” before collapsing back into a heap on the bed.

  More soda pop sloshed onto Emilie’s floor. “He has a WHAT?!”

  Oh, Kate was going to kill him. She’d always known that guy was a rat bastard, but she hadn’t thought for a moment that he was a two-timing rat bastard. Despite his many faults, which Kate could happily categorize with color charts and graphs, he had seemed to only have eyes for Emilie.

  Lana was sitting next to Emilie on the bed, stroking hair that was wet with tears away from her face and staring up at Kate with fury. “What kind of a sick freak does this to someone?” she whispered menacingly. “How could he socialize with all of us, make every effort to act like a devoted boyfriend, and all the while be engaged to someone else? I swear by all that is holy, I am going to kick his balls into his throat the next time I see him.”

  Though her face was once again buried in her pillow, Emilie’s body began to tremble. She was shaking so hard, Kate was afraid she was going to come apart at any minute. It took a minute for them to realize that Emilie was alternately laughing and crying, like she couldn’t decide which emotion racing through her system to give in to.

  Pacing back and forth, trying frantically to get her emotions in check —Emilie was hysterical enough for all of them —Kate tried to get more details out of her. “How can he have a fiancée? When did you find out about this? Who is she?”

  Taking a calming breath, Emilie rolled over on her back and stared blankly at the ceiling. “Her name is Clarissa; she is a completely vapid, moronic Barbie who works in my building as a teacher’s aide, and I hate everything she stands for.”

  “So she’s thin?” said Lana.

  Emilie grimaced. “Two of her could fit inside my jeans. And she’s so blonde.”

  This information pulled the also-blonde Kate up short. “Meaning?” she asked cautiously.

  Emilie glanced up. “She acts blonde,” she stated simply.

  Before Kate could make a tart reply, Lana cut her off. “She’s saying this chick is ditzy and twitty and basically em
braces every bad blonde stereotype out there, right, Em?”

  Emilie nodded solemnly and Kate was mollified. “What kind of name is Clarissa, anyway?” Kate asked spitefully. “Was she raised on a farm? Did she milk cows and do the polka as a child?”

  “I don’t know,” murmured Emilie. “I just know that they’ve been together since last spring, and that when he told me he loved me they were already engaged.” Her voice cracked on that last word, and she turned back over to put her head in her pillow. “What is wrong with me? Am I unlovable? A freak magnet? Why do only jerks and crazies want to date me? And why do they all find it so easy to leave?”

  “A better question might be, ‘why do you only date jerks and crazies?’” said ever-tactful Kate.

  Emilie jolted upright, nearly smacking Lana’s jaw. “Would you like me to make a list of the creeps you’ve both bedded?”

  “Hey!” protested Lana.

  Emilie promptly burst into tears again. “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just so…this is terrible and I feel like dirt, but at the same time it feels like I’ve been let off of a really painful hook. I had no idea I was so masochistic,” she said with a bewildered expression on her face.

  “It’s not masochistic, Emmy!” said Lana. “Maybe deep down you knew that Leo wasn’t the one for you—”

  “Who is then?” Emilie interjected. “Ethan? We all know how well that ended. Only a glutton for punishment would ever, in a trillion years, go back for a second helping of that kind of hurt.” She pushed her tangled hair from her face and stared at her stained carpet for long moments before heaving a broken sigh. “Is this my fault? Did I push Leo into another woman’s arms because my too-stupid-to-live subconscious wants to be with Ethan?”

  Lana put her arm around Emilie, and Kate quickly crossed the room to bracingly rub her back.

  “This is not your fault, Emilie,” Lana said emphatically.

  “Absolutely not,” Kate agreed. “This is entirely Leo’s fault. No matter what long-suppressed feelings you may have for Ethan, you were not the one cheating! Leo was. He’s the ass, not you.”

  “Then why do I feel like fortune’s fool right now?”

  Lana let out an unexpected giggle. Emilie and Kate looked on in astonishment as Lana tried in vain to muffle her amusement.

  She wiped a tear from Emilie’s cheek and grasped her hand. “I’m sorry, Em! It’s just… only you would quote Shakespeare in the midst of abject misery.”

  After a moment, Kate broke out in a smile that she tried to cover with her hand. Emilie glared at the two of them before flopping back down on her back with a half-hearted sigh. Lana and Kate, worried they had hurt her feelings, anxiously peered down at her and waited for some kind of response.

  Finally, Emilie smiled slightly. “You guys suck. You know that, right?”

  Kate nodded obligingly and climbed onto the bed. Emilie rolled her eyes as Lana and Kate snuggled in on either side of her.

  “Seriously, though, why would he do something like this?” Lana wondered aloud. “He seemed so into you.”

  “Cruelty requires no motive, it only requires opportunity,” Emilie said softly.

  “Oscar Wilde?” guessed Lana.

  “George Eliot,” corrected Emilie.

  Kate grabbed hold of her other hand. “Nice.”

  “No,” Emilie said with a sigh. “It’s not nice at all.”

  Chapter 9

  Emilie managed to evade Leo for the rest of the week by hiding in her classroom. She did not even emerge for the weekly staff meeting, having pled a migraine —not a lie, unfortunately— with her principal. She felt like a criminal in her own work place, and she deeply resented Leo for putting her in that position. She resented him for a lot of things, actually, but that was the one she was focusing on at the moment.

  On Friday she succumbed to her mother’s repeated requests for mother-daughter time and headed to her house for dinner. Normally, Emilie would have been more than happy to spend time with her mom, but she was reluctant to do so in her current mental state given that her mother, usually a sweet and amiable woman, became utterly tenacious when she wanted information about her daughter’s love life. This tenacity increased tenfold when her daughter had no wish to share said information.

  Thus, in attempt to avoid an interrogation, Emilie forced herself to bury her misery and smile cheerfully while her mother force-fed her pot roast and mashed potatoes and regaled her with tales of her “adorable” new boyfriend, Al, whom she had dated when she was nineteen and had recently “reconnected” with.

  These gooey tales of rekindled love were sprinkled liberally with hints about the wisdom of letting go of your pride and giving people “second chances.” She even went so far as to ask how “that sweet boy, Ethan” was doing and if Kate had heard when he was getting out of the corps. Emilie narrowed her eyes at her mother’s innocent expression and tried to ascertain whether her mom knew more than she was saying or if she was merely bluffing. Moms were tricky like that.

  Unable to decide what angle her mother was playing, Emilie opted for a mumbled, non-committal reply. Her mom simply raised her eyebrows in that all-knowing way that made Emilie squirm and spooned some more mashed potatoes onto her plate. Her mother’s silent censure only made Emilie’s headache worsen.

  She sucked it up, though, and directed the conversation back to her mom’s life. She even managed to nod and say encouraging things about her mother’s old/new boyfriend, all the while crying inside that her mother’s love life was by far healthier and more actual than her own.

  By the time she kicked off her shoes and flung herself dramatically onto the couch that evening, Emilie felt emotionally and physically drained. She thought about making peanut butter cookies but didn’t think she even had the energy to bake at this point. She planned on hibernating for the rest of the weekend and kept telling herself that she only had two more months till Spring Break. Then she could spend a blissful week without skulking around corners, trying to avoid the sight of Leo or Clarissa or, even worse, Leo and Clarissa together.

  She glanced up when Lana walked into the living room wearing oversized pajamas, her violet hair still dripping from the shower. She looked almost as disheartened as Emilie felt, which was confusing because Lana had been acting disgustingly cheerful for the last few months.

  Emilie’s eyes narrowed on Lana’s pale face. “Please tell me Brian doesn’t have a secret fiancée, too. I don’t think my brain can handle that.”

  Lana shook her head and sprawled out on the cushy chair next to Emilie. “Nope, nothing like that. It’s nothing at all really.” At Emilie’s skeptical look, she sighed. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this. Your problems are bigger than mine.”

  Emilie chuckled disparagingly. “Gee thanks. Come on, just tell me. It may even make me feel better — I do so long to think about someone else’s problems for a change.”

  Lana was hesitant to tell Emilie her problem, not because she didn’t think Emilie would willingly listen, but rather because she didn’t know how to sort out her jumbled emotions, though confusion was definitely uppermost among them.

  For the last couple of weeks Brian had been ignoring her. Lana could not figure out what had gotten his knickers in a twist, but he had been distant and mildly snarky whenever they managed to spend time together lately. Now a relationship that had first seemed like the plot to one of Emilie’s saptastic romances (girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl rediscovers boy and falls in love all over again) was quickly turning into a nightmarish Lifetime movie of the week, with Lana was starring as the insecure girlfriend.

  To top off the undeniable downward turn her relationship had taken, Lana had gone to the Pub Hub three nights ago hoping to pick him up after his shift, only to find him leaning against the end of the bar with a group of coed’s pawing his goodies.

  Men were stupid. That was the only feasible explanation she could come up with for his behavior.

  Rathe
r than unload her relatively minor baggage on the already depressed Emilie, Lana moved from the chair to flop down beside her on the couch and prop her feet on the coffee table.

  She flashed Emilie a wan smile. “Really, it’s no big deal. I’m just bored.”

  Emilie gave her a pointed look that let Lana know she wasn’t buying it and that they would eventually be coming back to the subject. For now, though, she chose to let it go, and the pair sat in companionable silence, silently sulking over the unfairness of life.

  The quiet was broken by the shrill ringing of the vintage 1940’s telephone Emilie insisted on keeping, despite the fact that they both had perfectly good cell phones. Emilie groaned and pulled the quilt from the back of the couch over her head. “Ten bucks says it’s Kate. I cannot deal with any poorly disguised gloating about my break up with Leo or annoying digs about Ethan’s imaginary interest in me. If it’s the latter, I’ll have to bang my head against the wall, and if it’s the former, I’ll be forced to hang up on her. You do it,” she pleaded with Lana.

  Shaking her head and grinning, Lana reached for the phone. “Hello? Oh, hey, what’s up, Kate?”

  Lana’s forehead almost immediately wrinkled with confusion, and Emilie heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief to let her know that she was glad it was Lana dealing with whatever crisis had arisen.

  “What do you mean you need wedding supplies?” Lana asked the phone. “I thought Emilie had already taken care of them… Okay! Chill. The wedding is months away, so what’s the rush?” Lana’s eyebrows reached her hairline and she covered the mouthpiece of the phone to whisper to Emilie. “She keeps saying she needs to get a pillow for the ring bearer and a unity candle, and she needs to get them now.”

  Emilie’s bewildered expression mirrored Lana’s. “I already got the candle and the pillow. They should be in the bag with all the tulle netting we’re using for the party favors.”