Hemorrhage.

I was at the point where all of Molly’s advice and opinion seemed unnecessary. I was pissed off at her, even though inside I knew that she was just trying to help me. I think she thought that because John meant so much to me, that I would have wanted him there. I don’t think she understood everything that was going on, until now, at least. I wanted to blame her. I wanted to yell at her and tell her that it was her fault and that I could never trust her again.

And maybe I couldn’t trust her again, but it wasn’t her fault. She was doing what any good friend would - she was trying to push me. She was trying to make me achieve things that I wouldn’t have even given thought to before.

It was my fault for keeping it a secret. I should have just told him from the start, but then where would I be now? I don’t know what I would do without those memories of him in my life.

Molly was standing in the doorway, looking as distressed as I’m sure I did.

“Where did he go?” She asked, her voice seeming too loud in the quiet hallway.

I shook my head. I didn’t let my voice work.

“He left?” She concluded. This time, I nodded at least.

“Where?”

Again, I shook my head. Was I supposed to ask him where he was going? Get verbally berated and then just casually ask him where he was storming off to?

Molly sighed, almost looking defeated, before she slipped her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her contacts.

“Pat? He wouldn’t know. Garrett? Asleep. Jared? Phone’s off. Fuck.” She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, acting as if she was going through as much pain as I was. I doubted it. My heart was clenching, and my stomach was dropping.

She pressed a button on her phone, and I could hear the electronic ringing tone. My eyes focused on Molly - on the pained look on her face. I wondered what she was up to.

“Kennedy?” Her voice was high, uncomfortable, and it cracked halfway through his name. I now understood her facial expression.

“Do you know where John is?”

Silence.

“Can you call him for me, please? I’m sorry to ask this of you, but something has happened with Emilie, and I really need to know where he is.”

…

“I did call him. He didn’t answer. Please.”

…

“Okay. Thank you. Call me after.”

…

“I-- bye.”

Her face fell, her eyes closing momentarily.

“Molly.” I spoke quietly, my voice coming out in a delicate whisper. I was afraid to speak any louder. I felt like my words had already broken enough.

She looked up, cocking her head in my direction.

“I don’t blame you for inviting him.” I said.

I couldn’t blame her - she was doing what Molly did, and that was push me to my farthest limits. Maybe my limits weren’t her limits, but she was being a friend. I could understand that.

She looked relieved for a second, and she nodded. “Thank you.”

She started walking down the hall, looking at me as she passed. “Come on. We need to go find John.”

I was about to go with her, but then I refused to move. I did not want to go find John. In fact, I wanted to go home, curl up under my dead, and die there. That was looking much more appealing than doing anything relating to John.

“No.”

“You need to, Emilie. You need to tell him everything - even if he doesn’t accept it. He needs to know, or he’ll be tearing himself up for months, years, even.”

“But I don’t want to say it.”

“I know. I know what it’s like to not want to say it - trust me, I’ve been living in my cowardice for a while, but sometimes you just need to stop worrying about how John’s going to react, and do it for you. Let the words out. Get it out there, and let it stay out there. Something’s going to change - something is always going to change, but wallowing your misery isn’t a good compromise for letting things stay the same.”

I looked over at her, and I nodded. I wasn’t sure what else I was supposed to say. I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to explain to John about everything wrong that was going on in my life - Dr. Meyers, the text messages, how I felt about how I looked. I didn’t want to explain it to myself. Explaining something meant that it was finally true.

We continued to walk down the hall, get into the elevator, travel to the ground floor, and head through the parking lot to where she parked her car. We had both just gotten in when her phone started to vibrate in her pocket. I could hear it.

She answered it was a firm, “Where is he?”

She nodded, as if she thought the person on the other line could somehow see her. I didn’t know if Kennedy was good with long distances.

“Are you sure?” She asked.

She rolled her eyes, and cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear as she turned the key in the ignition. Her car idled for a second before roaring to life.

“Fine. Thank you.”

Molly snapped the phone shut, looking irritated as she switched her Focus into reverse and made her way out of the parking lot.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

I wanted to know where he was. I didn’t want to know where he was. I wanted to know what he was thinking. I didn’t ever want to know what he was thinking. My body was split in half - my head and my heart. My head, the rational fraction of myself, was saying that I didn’t want to know. The pain would be unbearable - the mental strain of it all would probably cause me to hemorrhage and die, which would, undoubtedly, give my mother a heart attack. And, Dr. Meyers wouldn’t get to be so smug about being right. My heart, however, craved the truth. Every fiber, vein, and valve was interested in what John thought of me now. In typical teenage girl fashion, some of my thoughts centered mainly around his opinions, his views, and his reactions. His, his, his, with no regards for me, me, me.

I also wanted to speak up to Molly. I wanted to tell her that maybe for once she should take her own advice. I, personally, thought that her and Kennedy were meant for each other. They shared some similarities, like taste in music and humor, but they were different enough that they could learn from each other. They wouldn’t get bored quickly. As far as I was concerned, they should be halfway to the macking stage, preferably thinking about ideal baby names as they did this.

The only obstacle was cowardice. Molly was too much of a wimp to admit that she still loved Kennedy, no matter what distrust he had planted in her and how much hurt he had caused. Kenny was too much of a pussy to man up and make Molly realize that she wasn’t allowed to treat him like this - she was constantly yes, no, maybe, I’m not sure. I was aware of my constant mood swings - sometimes I was delicate. Sometimes I was saying “fuck” and glaring. However, Molly made me look like I was PMSing while she was bipolar.

I didn’t know where Molly was going. Tempe looked different from what I remembered - bigger, more modern, more like a city than a town. I wanted to ask her where we were going, but I was afraid. If I knew where we were going, I would probably calculate the estimated time it would take to get there, and, no doubt, flip out the entire way.

Sometimes all I wanted to do was not worry. To just chill out - be one of those gorgeous, spontaneous girls who didn’t worry (whether or not this was caused by copious amounts of pot, I didn’t care - I still wanted to be like them) and didn’t spend car rides wondering if this was going to be the moment to change everything, forever.

By now, I had figured out my problems:

A) I had no balls. Or guts, if we’re heading for a less crude approach. I was always too nervous, too anxious, too analytical to do anything that I wanted to. I couldn’t do anything without thinking it through anymore, and that often caused me to quit something before I started. I didn’t want the headaches, the stomach flips, or the seating. I couldn’t tell John how I felt. I couldn’t tell my mother what I needed. I couldn’t even tell Molly that I thought she was being stupid and selfish - I could only have these conversations in my head, these “should-have-said” words that I would never utter.

B) I cared too much, mainly about what everyone thought. I wondered if Molly thought I was fat, insecure, immature. I wondered if John thought that I was being self-centered, pretentious, and conceited. I didn’t care what I thought anymore - my self esteem and views all revolved around them, them, them.

C) I was in denial. In Life According to Emilie, I had no problems with my weight. I had no problems with John. I had no problems with Pat. I had no problems with Mia. I had no problems with my mother, with Dr. Meyers, with Lipstick or the girls in the group discussion that sobbed on about nothing of great importance for hours on end. In Life According to Emilie, everything was fine. Well, guess what? I wasn’t fine. No one, in this entire world, has ever been fine, in their entire life, because the word fine means nothing. It has no description. It’s a word you say when you’re being polite - when you’re describing the texture of fabric, maybe - but not when you’re describing your emotions. Something will always be bugging you, or something will always be making you extraordinarily happy. We are human beings. We are not meant to be fine. We are meant to be alive.

By the time Molly was pulling off the highway, I realized that nineteen minutes had passed and she was pulling into the long-term parking area of the
Phoenix airport. I looked around, startled. He had already made it to the airport? Was he really planning on leaving that quickly? Or had I caused the sudden change of plans?

“What time does the flight leave?” I asked, mainly because I wanted to know how much time I had to prepare myself and suck it up before I had to start telling the truth.

“I don’t know. He was supposed to leave tomorrow morning, but I don’t know if he switched the flight times for something earlier.”

Molly had already turned off the car, taken off her seatbelt, and was in the process of getting out. I fumbled with the latch of the door before stumbling out and hurrying to catch up with Molly, who was already half way across the lot and heading to the departure area.

“What if he’s already gone through security?”

“Then we’re going to scream his name through the glass until he gets the message and comes out.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Then him and half of Arizona will know exactly what’s going on, even if you have to yell it at him from twenty feet away.”

“What if he doesn’t care?”

“Then I’m going to beat him with as stick until he stops being a douche bag and mans up.”

“What if--?”

“Stop worrying, Emilie! If something goes wrong, than something goes wrong. We are going to fix this, now. Not tomorrow, not next week, now. Stop giving yourself a ulcer and focus on what exactly you want to tell him first.”

“Okay.”

I hadn’t meant to reply, but the words just came out, like I needed something to fill the silence. We were already entering the automatic doors, and Molly rushed over to the departure screen to see if anything was leaving to California soon.

“There isn’t anything leaving for the next three hours, so I doubt that he’s in security. You take the left side, I’ll take the right. I’ll call you if I find him.”

And she was off, leaving me to stand there for a few seconds, looking idiotically at the space that she once occupied. She wanted me to look for him, alone. As if she really thought that I would be able to get any words out without her there, staring me down and helping me along. She had way too much faith in me.

I started to the left, walking swiftly as I passed by lines of people checking in and groups of elderly women, standing around like they were confused on where to go. I was confused on where to go, too. This airport wasn’t exactly small, and walking around it looking for someone that I didn’t really want to see sounded like a scene on a D-rated movie, or a bargain book.

The plus side was that John was tall, and maybe I could look to see if there were any teenage girls around and ask if they had seen him. I needed to have some guts.

My opportunity came when I saw a girl, red in the face and breathing quickly, standing next to her mother. There was something in her face that kind of just said, “I just talked to the hottest person ever.” so I decided to channel some Molly and ask her if she knew where he was.

I approached her quickly, not bothering to think about what my jeans looked like or how baggy this shirt was.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

She looked up, confused.

“I’m sorry to bug you, but have you seen a guy pass you sometime in the past hour? Tall, with blonde hair? He was probably wearing skinny jeans and he has a chest tattoo--?”

“John Oh?” She cut me off.

I just nodded.

“The last time I saw him, he was buy the deli, getting something to eat. He was really nice too - I didn’t have the nerve to stop him, but my mom did and he was really nice and gave me his autograph and a hug and --,”

“What direction is the deli?”

Her mother nodded in the direction that I was already going.

“Thank you.” I said, before I started walking down the corridor. There wasn’t a crowd of people, but there were enough that I had to dodge large clumps and walk swiftly so I didn’t get stuck behind someone.

I tried to keep my eyes peeled, so I could spot his head towering over everyone else’s.

In the end, I actually noticed his shoes. They were the only Vans in the entire section of the airport, and he was pacing back and forth, his skinny legs slicing through the empty space.

I just kind of stopped. Mid-step. My feet dragged against the airport carpet and I stared at him. He looked frustrated. His eyebrows were pinches in a deep v and he kept ringing his hands together, apart, together, apart, together. People were glancing at him warily - he looked too angry to be in an airport. A few of them probably thought he was a terrorist, the way he looked like he was about to murder someone.

I was scared. I was scared of talking to him, or finally saying something that I actually meant.

And I wanted to run away. I wanted to just turn around and forget that I came here. I could meet Molly at the car - stand there until she realized that I chickened out and couldn’t do it. But the look on her face - the look on Molly’s face, the disappointment when she realized that I didn’t do it, god, that would be unbearable.

So I decided that I would.

“It was your fault in the beginning, but it’s my fault now.” I stepped closer to him, moving three feet in his direction. My voice caused his head to snap up, and he stared at me, the flame in his eyes igniting once again.

He started to open his mouth - he was probably going to tell me to shut the fuck up and get away from him - but I shook my head and continued talking.

“I just wanted to get smaller. Smaller and smaller until I was barely there, the tiniest piece of matter that’d just eventually get lost somewhere in the chaos. I wanted to forget, so I concentrated on not eating and on not gaining weight. That was the beginning.

“And then things just started getting real fucked up, y’know? I wasn’t me anymore. I wasn’t happy. And then with my mom - my mom was concerned, so when I came back and she saw Dr. Meyers at Safeway she immediately started making me go for sessions. That just made it worse - I felt like I was being mocked, with the way that she talked and the way she brought me down. And then things just got worse.”

I moved, standing closer to him now. He stared at me, his eyes focused on my moving lips.

“Pat sent the text messages. Every one - I don’t know why, because I never asked. I realized it when I got my new phone and was switching the contacts. I didn’t confront him about it. I didn’t say anything. Then one day in the group session, some girl was talking about what she really wanted, and then I realized what I really wanted.

“I just wanted you to love me, okay? I wanted you to treat me like the girls that you dated in high school. I wanted that. And I never got that. So I changed. And I’m sorry if you think that I was blaming you, but I really wasn’t. It was just - it happened. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just wanted you to love me. Please don’t get made at me for wanting you to love me.”

It was a bunch of words, stringing out in what felt like the duration of one really big breath.

And I started walking backwards then, and then I turned around and I started walking towards the way I had come, because I didn’t want to see his face or hear what he had to say. I wasn’t ready for that.

So I turned around and I started walking. And I know he said something - I heard him saying, not loud but not quiet, as I walked away.

I ignored him.