Just Like Her

Chapter 96

Tom

"Ems, I'm home!" I called out as I let the front door slam behind me. I didn't expect her to answer.

Instead I tossed my keys in the nearby bowl and sorted through the days mail. Bills and invoices mainly. A few social invitations, all of which I set aside in a pile to pass off to Cynthia to politely decline.

"I was thinking Chinese tonight," I announced to the quiet apartment. "Are you hungry?"

No would be the answer. Well, the answer would the be silence but the meaning would be no. Emma hardly ate these days... or drank water... or did anything remotely close to living.

When she did it was mostly because I forced her, not that she put up much of a fight. Every couple of days I would carry her into the bath and wash her. I insisted she drink a glass of water before I left for work and when I got home, though she rarely finished it. 

Food was the biggest challenge.

At first I naively took it as a good sign, a sign that there was still some spark in there of the fighter she used to be. But it wasn't fight. It was fatigue. Extreme fatigue, which the Internet informed me was a symptom of depression. 

Not only could Emma not find the energy to get out of bed or to bathe, she couldn't find it even to chew.

I switched tactics from pushing solid foods on her to liquids—soups, curries, smoothies were her main staple now. And while it was something, it wasn't enough to stop her from losing weight.

In the last week, I started sneaking protein powder into them in hopes it might help. I worried the chalky texture and flavor might put her off, but it didn't. That's when I realized she didn't taste anything.

She'd become... numb. To everything.

Including me.

I bloody lost it then. I'd never tell a soul but I cried for near an hour in the shower. When I came out completely pruned and with swollen eyes, she didn't so much as blink at me.

I grabbed a clean glass from the cupboard and filled it near the rim with water from the pitcher. As I did, I steeled myself with a deep breath and glanced up at the bedroom door.

Water trickled down my fingers as it poured over the rim.

The door was open.

I blinked several times, expecting my vision the clear and reveal it to be an illusion. A trick of the imagination.

But it wasn't. The door was slightly ajar and behind was the soft glow of a light.

I nearly dropped the glass and the pitcher both in the sink. I stared at the door another minute before slowly making my way across the living room.

With each step the tightness in my chest eased slightly. "E-Ems?"

I pushed the door open to reveal a pristine bedroom. The bed was shockingly empty and—doubly shockingly—neatly made with hospital corners and all.

A laugh burst from my mouth, which I quickly clamped with a hand. "Emma, love, you here?"

The glow of the light I'd seen had come from the bathroom. I followed it and felt my brow furrow at the sight of everything in its place. Everything but Emma.

I think I knew then. Even before I walked back into the bedroom, before I glanced her ring perched on my pillow. Before I thrust each of her drawers open, I knew they'd be empty. I stared a long moment at the closet, full of my work clothes and the dresses I had bought her for various events.