Shape of You (+18)

Chapter Forty

▬▬▬▬ Joel's POV ▬▬▬▬

It was safe to say that I didn't like Emma.

Skinny blue-eyed chick with cropped blonde hair and a lot of attitude? Yeah...she and I probably weren't meant to get along anytime soon. When she pulled me aside at the funeral and started spewing out all this shit about how I didn't deserve Marley, like I wasn't already fully fucking aware of that, all I wanted to do was roll my eyes and walk away from her. She could rant to the fucking air. I'd rather have stayed close to my girl.

I knew she was trying to get a reaction out of me. Have me give her another reason not to like me, as if I hadn't already given her plenty, but, I refused to bite the hook. It wasn't the time or place for that, and I refused to make a scene. Not today. Not at my girlfriend's grandmother's funeral. Instead, I just stared at her with a blank expression, watching as she only got more frustrated. It wasn't until she said a certain something that my resolve broke.

"What did you do for her birthday?" she questioned, arms crossed and eyes squinted. The look of surprise on my face was exposure enough. "You didn't know?"

My face soured as she kept going.

"You show up here, introducing yourself as her 'boyfriend', and you didn't even know her fucking birthday passed?" Shaking her head in disbelief, she laughed. "That's as rich as it gets. What does she see in you?"

"When was it?" I grumbled, needing answers more than I needed my pride.

"Two days ago."

Closing my eyes, I held my composure, but recognized that day as the worst one Marley had. She refused to get out of bed, and cried the most she had since the actual day her grandmother died. Everly was so concerned, and I was unable to do anything to help. She pushed me away more that day than any other. I thought it was just grief hitting her harder than usual...but now I understood better.

Snapping my head in Marley's direction, seeing her looking at me, those green eyes of hers filled with worry, all I could think was, it was her birthday.

Her first.

The first one always hits hard. The first time you open your eyes, a year older, and you realize that special person isn't alive to witness it. That you've stepped into a new place that they will never get to see or experience with you.

The first one always hurts the worst.

The day after the funeral, when I managed to get out of Marley's bed, this was the first place I came, and I worked all day, doing one of the only things I was good at. A memory from the time I brought her here, when she got lost looking at a simple rocking chair I made, came to mind, and next thing I knew, I was building her one. The design was very similar to the one she liked, clean lines, light wood, flowers...only this time, they were lilies.

I thought she'd appreciate that detail.

I just couldn't believe how crazy the woman made me. Keeping her birthday from me when all she had to do was tell me. It fucked with my head, realizing how I might have been able to help her if I'd just known, but then again, realistically I probably wouldn't have. And then, it's not really her fault at all. I should have asked her when it was a long fucking time ago.