Confessions from the Quilting Circle - Maisey Yates Page 0,31
people who lived there.
But it felt different, more personal, and it just... She just wanted something different. She had taken that escape from herself.
Sometimes she wanted to be just like all of her friends and shout about the unfairness of life when her mom wouldn’t buy her a new cell phone. And sometimes she wanted to shout at God. Because her dad was the best, and he was gone. Because her aunt Anna had been publicly humiliated by someone they all should have been able to trust.
Because she and her mom should at least be able to get along easily since they were all each other had left.
The front door opened, and Emma turned, prepared to sulk at her mother.
But it was her aunt Anna.
“I got yelled at, too,” Anna said.
“Did you do any yelling back?”
“Plenty of it.” She took a breath. “I figured you had the right idea storming off. But I don’t want to go anywhere. So I thought I would storm over here.”
“You could’ve gone back to your cottage.”
Anna nodded. “Yeah. I figured I would find you. See if you were okay.”
“No,” Emma said. “I’m not okay.”
“Neither am I,” Anna said.
Silence fell between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. She felt understood, somehow. Their pain wasn’t the same at all, but still. She felt like Anna might be the one person who really understood her.
She remembered taking her aunt’s hand when she’d been little and they’d been waiting in a doctor’s office for hours for her dad. Her mom had asked Anna to take her somewhere. They’d gotten ice cream and gone to the beach and Emma had smiled for the first time in two days.
Anna knew her. Emma knew Anna.
“Can I tell you something?” Emma asked.
Anna’s expression was cautious, but her words were compassionate. “You can tell me whatever you need to.”
Emma hesitated, unsure if she should bring this up. “I... I don’t actually care what happened with you and Uncle Thomas. But I think what he did was messed-up.”
Anna blinked. “You do?”
“We were all there. We were all there, and my dad just died, and he didn’t even warn us. He didn’t warn my mother. He didn’t warn Grandma. How could he do that? And he... I can tell that he just expects us to disown you. He just expects us to take what he said as the truth and side with him. I’ve never felt so...betrayed as I did right then. And whatever you did or didn’t do, it won’t make me feel as betrayed as that.”
To Emma’s horror, her aunt’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked, and then sat on the overstuffed floral couch that rested just beneath the living-room window, that looked out over the ocean. “That’s really sweet of you. I did sleep with someone,” Anna said. “Just... If that changes your opinion.”
Emma took a moment to turn that over. “It doesn’t really.”
“Em, have you ever even kissed a guy?”
Emma’s face went hot. “No.”
Anna huffed out a laugh. “That could be why you aren’t as horrified as other people are.” She swallowed. “It’s a really intimate thing to do.”
Normally, this sort of conversation with an adult would make her skin itch, but she felt a strange bloom of pride that her aunt was talking to her like she was an equal. An adult who understood.
It stood out in total opposition to her mom turning down a job on her behalf.
Anna looked down. “I didn’t do it without thinking about it a lot. And I didn’t do it just because... I didn’t do it just to feel pleasure. And I feel like it’s easy to believe that I did. I feel like everyone is so happy to have me believe that I got...seduced and I’m weak. I mean, I did get seduced. But... Not the way they think. He made me feel special. I really wanted to feel special. Because one day I woke up and realized I didn’t know whose life I was living. And once I had that thought, I couldn’t let it go. You can’t live your life for other people, Emma.”
Emma’s pride was replaced by a deep discomfort.
Her grandma had lived her life for her mom and aunt. She’d been a single mom, working hard to give them a life. And her mom had taken care of her, taken care of her dad.
Emma didn’t want to be a weak link in that chain.
Emma couldn’t believe that you could just...set aside all that and live for yourself.