Defining Normal | EMBRY CALL

Liminal

Lex and Embry exist in a strange liminal state - not quite lovers, not quite friends - for exactly eight days. On the ninth day, the envelope arrives, slipped through the flap in the badly scratched door to her apartment. There's no postmark, no address, just a simple Lex scrawled in chicken-scratch handwriting. Lex turns the envelope over and over in her palms, perplexed by the creamy smoothness of the envelope. Mail is rare, but personal mail? Totally unfamiliar.

Eventually, spurred on by Liz's impatience - open it, nitwit, I have things to do - she peels back the sealed flap, sliding the folded card out onto the kitchen table. Her eyes quickly skim over the words embossed onto the page, an entirely unexpected combination of phrases that don't quite make sense to her.

With great pleasure, Samuel Uley & Emily Young invite you to join them at the celebration of their marriage....

With shaky fingers, Lex picks up her phone to dial the one number that's burned into her brain. He answers on the third ring.

"Hey," he says, sounding slightly breathless. "What's up? Is everything okay? Do you need a ride -"

He's babbling, and she's impatient. She cuts him off. "I got an invite to the wedding."

He pauses for a moment. "Uh, yeah, you did. Emily dropped it off earlier."

"Why?"

"Why waste money on postage? It's not like I don't know where you live."

Lex huffs out a breath, turning the card back over in her hands. "Not that part. Why are they inviting me? I barely know them."

He's quiet, but the call stretches on, soft breathing over the line. "Well, I thought it would be nice if you came with me. If you want to, of course. I can tell them you're not coming if you don't want to go."

She chews her thumbnail right down to the nub before she replies. Phone conversations really aren't made for the overthinkers, she muses, wondering how best to burst the bubble of hope that seems to be growing between them.

"What are we doing, Em?" she says finally, letting the words tumble out. "I see you every day, we talk every night, and now you want me to go to a wedding with you? I just...I don't think I can...I don't know. I don't know what I want, I don't know how to even talk about this, and -"

Her voice cuts off suddenly, her sudden rambling punctuated by the torturous silence that stretches between them. He wants to run to her, to reassure her in whatever way he knows how - and shit, he barely understands what's going on in her head - but her sudden confession of uncertainty has him wavering.

"What do you want, Lex?" he says, his voice barely above a whisper. Her prior words stung, but an outright rejection would surely wound him further.

She sighs. "I don't know, Em. I just don't. I need space."

"Okay."

"Okay."

He can give her space.

Embry had thought that Tuesday couldn't possibly drag on any longer after her clipped phone call. To his dismay, Quil had overheard the entire thing, down to the last of Lex's sniffles, and had attempted to stage a cheer-Embry-up extravaganza. And so he had ended up sandwiched between Seth and Leah on the floor of Sam's den, watching his pack brothers tussle for control of the Playstation. Normally he'd be well into the fray, content to jostle with the rowdier boys for dominance. Brady, in particular, had a special way of irking him, taunting him just enough to trigger a round of sparring. His usual attempts were all for naught tonight though, with the older boy choosing instead to work his way to the bottom of a bottle of Old Quil's moonshine. He didn't get drunk often, typically burning off the alcohol far faster than it could intoxicate him, but the bathtub hooch was a special kind of potent that'd probably kill a better man.