“Nope. All mine. So don’t even think about yelling at him for interfering in your life. Actually he was kind of hoping we’d...make a thing of it.”
Amber blinks at me and dries her eyes. “You have my father’s approval? Wow.”
“Yeah. I know.”
She sniffs hard. “So...” she says, slowly. “Why?”
“This? Us?”
“Yes.”
“You know why,” I say. “You need more time. You’ll put me on a pedestal and I’m just so not pedestal material.”
She turns away and stomps off to the kitchen area. “You’ve been talking to my psychiatrist, haven’t you?”
“Um, no. That would be wrong.”
“Kidding,” she says, fishing a pack of cigarettes out of a drawer. “But I know what you mean. I came to the exact same conclusion myself.”
“You did?”
Amber nods. The smoke curls up and around her in a Noirish haze. “He’s still here,” she says, tapping the side of her head. “He’s still got a hold of me. And I have to get him out on my own.” The pink rims of her eyes make the green in them shine out all the brighter, and when she looks across the room at me I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look quite so beautiful. “I can’t make you his replacement,” she says. “Because that would be just...grotesque.”
It’s a weird word to use, but I get it. And right then I feel like crying all over again. I hate him. I hate that dead man I’ve never met. I hate that he poisoned her before she even had the chance to know the kind of love I had with Melissa – yes, it was silly and overwrought and full of hormones, and we both cried when it was over and thought we’d never feel good again, but ultimately it was harmless. It’s what everyone goes through. It’s like my sister said once – if Romeo and Juliet hadn’t come with a bodycount they’d have got over it. It’s how we all learn to love. Only he taught Amber all wrong and she has to learn again from the beginning.
“I should go,” I say, because I don’t trust myself to stay.
“You don’t want to get sushi?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. Why don’t you order some for you and your dad?”
She sighs. “Is he really downstairs?”
“He is.”
She rubs her forehead. “Okay,” she says. “Can you ask him to come up?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks.”
Amber opens the door for me. For a moment we stand there, neither of us wanting to move. “So...um...”
“Yeah,” she says.
“I’ll be seeing you.”
She smiles sadly and shakes her head. “No, Jaime. You won’t. That’s what breaking up with someone means.”
My throat aches. “I know.”
“Yeah.”
She doesn’t reach out. Maybe she’s thinking what I’m thinking – it would be too much like temptation. So I lean forward and kiss her on the forehead – a brother’s kiss. “Bye,” I say.
I think I’m supposed to say something profound, but it’s all my throat will let me say.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Amber
I’m shaking and I wish I knew how to stop. Deep breaths, counting down from ten – none of the usual methods are cutting it.
Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I’m just about to undo all the work I’ve done over the last year.
Lauren gives me the signal and my head feels like it could break loose from my shoulders and float off over the audience like a helium balloon. I feel my dry lips furl back over my teeth in what’s probably more a rictus grin than a reassuring smile.
“Ladies...and gentleman, would you please give a warm welcome to one of the bravest women it has ever been my privilege to know – Amber Gillespie.”
Brave – hah. That’s a laugh. My legs are shaking and I feel like I might never unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth.
There’s a glass of water on the lectern. I grab it like a life preserver and take a sip.
I can’t see so well beyond the lights – a small audience, Lauren said. Only fifty people or so. But I can feel them. The same scrutiny I’m still getting used to. (“...isn’t she?...didn’t she?...but she looks so normal...”) only multiplied by fifty or so. For a moment I want to turn and run, but I remind myself why they’re here.
“Good afternoon,” I say, hoping they can’t hear the tremor in my voice. “My name is Amber Gillespie. You might have heard of me.”
This nod to my notoriety gets me a ripple of laughter – faint, but enough to reassure me. “I want to first thank Lauren for her kind introduction there.” Great, I’m already going off script, but I can’t let that pass. “Kind of hyperbole on her part – you have no idea how nervous I am right now.”