Just Like Her

Chapter 99

Emma

This was a cooking show. Or maybe it was a commercial for a cooking show. It was hard to tell.

There was a blonde lady on the screen with a jarringly brash American accent shouting something while standing in a kitchen. Images kept flashing across the screen—produce, fresh meat, chopped green things, IV bags, frozen fish—it all moved too fast for my tired brain to process.

I just wanted to sleep, but the American lady wouldn't let me. Her speech was incomprehensible, but it wasn't her accent... It was the words. Except they weren't words—not real words anyways. She only seemed to speak in consonants, no vowels.

My phone vibrated and I picked up it, glad of the distraction. My smile widened as I saw Alice's face flash on my phone's screen with an invitation to video call.

I accepted it immediately. She was beautiful—her long black hair framing her face and her skin golden tan from playing out in the sun.

"Alice, you'll never believe—" I started in but she cut me off.

"Is this what you call an extraordinary ending?" She demanded.

I shook my head, not understanding. "I—"

"You promised!" She shouted. "You promised me, Emma."

"I-I told you I couldn't—"

"Extraordinary people do not give up."

"But I'm not extraordinary," I whispered.

She narrowed her eyes. "Apparently not."

The call ended and I catapulted into wakefulness. My hands clutched at my chest as I attempted to catch my breath. Failing, I clamped both hands over my mouth in order to muffle my gasping and not wake Youssef.

I searched the couch frantically for my phone and eventually found it under the coffee table where it must have fallen. I pawed at it and clumsily opened the video messaging app.

Nothing.

The last video called I'd received was two weeks ago and it had been my mum. I shook my head as I felt my eyes sting with tears. I opened the phone log next. A dozen missed calls from Tom. None from Alice.

The dream had felt so real. She looked so healthy.

She also looked enraged.

I swallowed the razor in my throat and opened the Internet browser. I typed in Alice's full name and felt my heart shatter again when her obituary popped up as the first hit.

The second hit crushed what was left of my resolve:

Prince Thomas manages bereaved fiancée

I clicked the link and was assailed with pictures of Tom and I at the funeral. The majority of them were of us entering or leaving an old stone church, though a few captured us standing by Alice's open grave.

I swiped my fingers across the screen to zoom in.

Logically, I knew it was me in the photographs and yet... I never would have recognized that church or any of the faces mingling in the crowd around us. I didn't remember any of it.

I was suddenly hit with a new wave of self-loathing as I realized I had been so distracted by my own feelings I had completely missed my best friend's funeral.

Alice's furious scowl from my dream resurfaced in my mind.

I shook my head.

As if she gave a damn if I remembered her funeral.

I hesitated before opening a new tab and typing in my own name. My finger hovered above the "Go" button.

I'd never once searched myself since I started seeing Tom. It hadn't seemed a good idea then, and even now it didn't seem entirely sound. I held my breath and let my finger fall.

There were more of the same images of Tom and I at the funeral, or more accurately Tom and some lifeless being he seemed to be physically supporting at the funeral. There were some more recent ones, too. I could tell not because I recognized any of Manchester but because Youssef was pictured in them too.

A moan escaped my lips as I clicked on one particularly intimate looking shot of Youssef and I walking with our arms clasped around each other's waists. The article accompanying it was laying out the various rumors regarding the status of Tom's and my relationship. The general consensus, apparently, was that I was having an affair.

I scrolled down. There were more images of Youssef and I. Pictures of us in town. Pictures of us returning to his complex. Pictures emphasizing our physical contact. Pictures emphasizing my naked ring finger.

Close to the bottom of the page there was a single picture of Tom at a fundraiser. Alone.

The comments were vicious. They were downright creative in the various ways they came up with to call me a "whore" and, less-than-shockingly, the racist bigots were utterly uncreative in the ways they spewed their hatred at Youssef.

I peeled my eyes from the blue-lit screen to glance at my friend's closed bedroom door. My stomach twisted as I began to wonder what sort of hate mail he'd been receiving.

I let my phone clattered the floor, where it landed with a soft thud.

You promised me, Emma.

I pressed the heels of my palm into my eyes as silent sobs racked my body.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered to nobody at all.

[A/N: Thank you for reading! Please remember to VOTE & COMMENT on each chapter--even if you're still shouting in frustration at Emma :)

Gratitude shout outs go to: @Nora9606, @addie_kay, & @imperfectwords_ ! ]