I push my plate away, appetite suddenly gone at the thought of my parents. My shoulders are tight when I walk out of the restaurant. My ex, my family, and all the memories I would rather leave behind… It all feels like it’s pushing me back to where I used to find comfort. It’s pushing me toward the old me and I can barely fight back the anticipation of stepping inside Club Crave again for the first time in years.
22
Emmaline
“I’m sorry, can you check again?” I say laughing nervously. “There must be a mistake.”
I’m standing at the counter, across from a bank teller with a bored expression. He sighs and looks back to the computer, tapping a few keys and clicking the mouse. His eyes scan the screen and then slide back to me. “There’s no money in your trust fund. It was pulled out by a... Mr. Styles. The system says he’s your--”
“Father,” I say through gritted teeth. My heart is pounding in my chest and I feel light-headed. I can feel the full weight of reality waiting to crash down and crush me, but I’m not there yet. It’s too much to take in at once. “Is there someone else I can talk to about this? It was supposed to be a trust for me. He shouldn’t have been able to…”
The teller, Steve, according to his nametag, gives me an obnoxiously placating smile. He turns and taps a woman in a pantsuit with the back of his hand and speaks to her in low tones. The woman eyes me while they talk and then walks over to me, heels thumping on the cheap carpet. She flashes a toothy smile that says she’s ready to go through the motions to get rid of me and no more.
“Let’s just look into this one more time to be sure,” she says.
I force a smile back at her, clutching my hands together on the counter to keep them from shaking. All of it. He took all of it. The words echo in my head and I feel tendrils of hopelessness reaching up to grab me from somewhere dark. I think of all the loans and the debt I thought would be completely covered. If I don’t get this trust money, everything could fall apart. Every last thing. I could lose my business, my apartment, my chance at finishing school. Hell, I don’t even know how I’d find money to eat.
Breathe, Emmaline. I force myself to breath more slowly, realizing I’m on the verge of hyperventilating.
The manager purses her lips and clicks the mouse a few times and then nods her head. I can tell she’s trying to look sympathetic, but I can see right through it. She doesn’t really care. “I’m sorry, Miss Styles. Your Uncle left the right to access the money to your parents. Your father was within his legal rights to withdraw it early.”
I feel numb. My hands are shaking and tears threaten to fall, but I push them back. Not here. Not now. Hold it together. I’ll talk to him. Maybe there’s a way to resolve this and I’m just not seeing the whole picture.
“Miss, could you please step aside so I can help the next customer?”
I jump a little at the sound of her voice, sniffing in a startled breath and adjusting my purse on my shoulder. I step away from the window feeling worthless, walking out of the bank as quickly as I can to find a quiet place outside to sit down. I pull out my phone with a trembling hand and realize I’m going to have to call my mom to get my dad’s number.
I call my mom quickly, before I can talk myself out of it. She answers on the first ring.
“Emmaline,” my mom says. Her voice is stern with a note of warning. She’s probably planning to tell me off for not texting her back, but I don’t have the patience for that right now.
“Mom, I need dad’s number. It’s important.”
“You haven’t texted me back in days. Ronnie and I are trying to make plans and you are making it impossible for us.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to push down the anger rising up and threatening to explode. The fastest way through this whole mess is just to tell her. I doubt I’ll ever get dad’s number out of her unless she thinks it’s the only way she can get to the trust fund money. “Dad took the money in the trust. All of it. I just left the bank. There’s nothing left.”
Silence follows and I can hear the distant crackle of the wind from her end of the phone. “He wouldn’t dare,” she says finally, voice cold and threatening.
“Yeah, well apparently he would, mom. I need his number.”
She gives me the number and swears she will straighten this out if I can’t. Of course she wants to help. I can count on my mom to step in and look after me if she thinks there’s money in it for her.
I hang up the phone and punch in my dad’s number, hands trembling. It rings for a long time until I’m about to hang up. A gruff voice answers finally, a voice I haven’t heard in several years. “Who’s this?” he asks.
“Emmaline,” I say.
“Oh, yeah. I thought you’d be calling today.”
My blood chills. “Why is that?” I ask. I’m barely in control. My heart thuds against my ribcage and my blood pounds in my ears.
“Don’t make me say it, Em.”
I wait. He’s not getting an ounce of mercy from me. Not a fucking ounce.
He finally sighs. “Yeah. I withdrew the money. I made a few bad investments and had to pay off my debts.”
I wait for more, for an apology, some shred of regret or remorse to soften the betrayal, but nothing comes. “There’s none left?” I ask, hating how my voice quivers.
“No. I still owe money. Mom said you had a business and were making good money, so if you can just lend me--”
I hang up the phone, breath heaving. I close my eyes, squeezing them against the tears that finally come streaming down my cheeks and leaving hot trails in their wake. My skin tingles. The wave of reality threatening to crash down on me for the last few minutes finally comes down with crushing force. He left, but I always clung to the idea that he regretted it, that he missed me and would try to make it right some day. It made dealing with my mom’s increasingly disturbing behavior and the other stress in my life easier.
It’s all gone. Not just the money, but my hope too. My hope of making a life for myself better than everyone thought I could. My business. My passion. I can see it all slipping out of reach and there’s nothing I can do.
Even worse than my own failure is the way I’m failing my best friend. I know Scarlett has made sacrifices to work for me, and I’ve been doing everything I can to pay her what she deserves. Now? God. Now I don’t even know if I’ll be able to keep paying her.
I lose track of how long I sit there alone on the bench, feeling more completely alone than I’ve ever felt. There’s a world of responsibility and sadness threatening to close in around me and I have to somehow find a way to shoulder it all and push through. Somehow.
I press an iron to the heat transfer pad, applying a decal to the onesie I’m working on. Scarlett huffs in frustration when she accidentally tears the vinyl design she was peeling from the transfer paper.
“Dammit, be careful!” I snap.
Scarlett looks up in surprise, face reddening. The vinyl is expensive, but I’ve never lashed out at her like that before for a mistake. It’s part of the business.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, feeling myself deflate.