Well, it's Complicated...

Chapter 18 - Phil

Chapter 18 – Phil

“Excuse us for one second…” Emily said, grabbing Amber’s wrist and dragging her into the kitchen.

“What was that all about?” I asked after the girls left the room, not really expecting an answer.

“I have no idea,” Dan replied.

In the past 45 seconds, Emily kissed Amber, which was weird enough in and of itself; Emily had broken up with me and Amber apparently broke up with Emily; and Emily dragged Amber off into the kitchen as if she had done something wrong.

“What did you think of Emily and Amber kissing?” Dan asked, yanking me out of my thoughts.

“Huh? Oh, well…I’m kinda more focused on the fact that Emily just apparently broke up with me than Emily and Amber kissing at the moment.”

Dan winced. “Yeah, sorry about that.” He wrapped his arms around me and planted a kiss on my forehead—well, technically, on my fringe.

As Dan held me, I wondered why: why Emily had kissed Amber, why Emily broke up with me literally 2 seconds afterwards, and why Emily dragged Amber out of the room. I tried to come up with a story that made it all make sense, but none of the things I thought of made any sense at all.

A couple minutes later, Amber and Emily walked out of the kitchen, and Dan and I stepped apart. I half-expected Amber to walk straight into Dan’s arms, but she walked arm-in-arm with Emily straight towards me. Emily shuffled forward, her eyes cast downward. Amber gave her a gentle push in my direction, and Emily stumbled forward a couple steps. “Go on,” I heard Amber whisper. “I’ll be right here.”

Emily took another couple steps towards me, quickly glanced back at Amber, and took the last two steps to be standing at a comfortable distance from me. She stood there silently, twisting one of the bracelets on her wrist. Finally she lifted her head to look higher than the floor, and gradually made her way up to meet my eyes. She swallowed hard and said, barely above a whisper, “Phil, I—I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Emily. I forgive—”

“No, it’s not okay,” she burst out, cutting me off. “I was stupid, and I wasn’t thinking. Well, I was thinking, just not about what was important. I—” She glanced back at Amber, who gave her an affirmative nod. When Emily turned back, she didn’t meet my eyes; she was basically looking at my chin. “I—well, I forced Amber to pretend that we were girlfriends to get you guys back after we caught you kissing in the lounge. It seemed like a good idea—or, rather, I thought it would actually end better than it actually did—but all it did was strain my friendship with Amber and probably make you and Dan hate us both.” Emily finally met my eyes again, and they were brimming with tears.

I stepped forward and hugged her, letting her cry into my shirt. I rubbed her back and said, “Oh, Emily, I don’t hate you. I mean, I’m a little upset about why you did this, but I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”

She pulled back enough to look in my eyes. “R-really?” she sniffed.

I wiped a tear from her left cheek. “Really.” I planted a kiss on her forehead, and she smiled. “Wait, are you still breaking up with me, or…?”

She shook her head. “No. That was all a part of the plan. God, I’m so stupid.” She sniffed, and another few tears started rolling down her cheeks.

I wiped the tears from her cheeks and held her at arm’s length. “Emily, listen to me.” She looked up at me, her normally light brown eyes now tinged with green. “You are not stupid. You aren’t. Okay? You just made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes.”