Emma was sitting in the outpatient chemo clinic, reading a magazine while the chemicals poured into her blood stream. Sometimes in this outpatient clinic, she couldn't help but think about those ladies that sit in hair stylist salons and gossip with their hair in rollers and space-alien looking drying contraptions. It felt eerily similar, until she looked up and met the eyes of another one of the people who were further deteriorated than she was thanks to their disease, whose lips were chapped and eyes were sunken in. She tried not to look up, though. The hair salon thought was much more comforting than the truth. She stared at the page intently.
Molly suddenly appeared at Emma's side, dressed in her work clothes, and handed Emma a bottle of vitamin water - the dark pink kind, which was Emma's favorite. She pulled up a chair from the wall and sat down, facing Emma and twisted the cap off her own bottle of water. "How're you holding up?" she asked. She'd come to pick up Emma when the treatment session was done.
"I'm okay..." Emma answered. She unscrewed the cap. "I'm a little nauseated, but not too bad I guess, considering."
"I'm glad you decided to do this," Molly said, motioning to the bag hanging from the IV pole at Emma's side.
Emma glanced up at it. "I wish I could say the same, but right now I'm pretty bored and my ass feels like it has blisters from being used for so long." She laughed.
"Well blisters or no blisters, I'm glad." Molly studied Emma while she stared down at the label on the vitamin water. After a moment, Molly reached over and lifted the ring from the end of the chain around Emma's neck. She studied it a moment. "This is Brian's," she said.
Emma's eyes locked with Molly's. "He gave it to me," she said, "In Nashville."
"As a wedding ring?" Molly asked.
Emma shrugged, "I guess. I mean, not really because it's not a real marriage, like he so casually reminded me like thirty seconds before he gave it to me..."
Molly stared at the ring. "Are you sure he wasn't asking if it was a real marriage?"
"No, he was definitely saying it wasn't," Emma answered, shaking her head.
Molly shrugged, "It just seems like a big gesture for something trivial," she said, dropping the ring. It landed on Emma's chest, heavy and cold, and she instinctively reached up and wrapped her hand around it. "Why would he bother with a ring at all if he didn't want it to be real?"
"Because he's Brian," Emma said. "And it's not like he went out and spent a lot of money on it, he already had it."
"But Emma, that's his high school ring," Molly said.
"I know," Emma answered.
"Jake never even gave me his ring," Molly said. She paused. "And just for the record, a lot of Jake's statements are questions. Boys are stupid, don't forget. They say things in statements that they mean as questions because they want you to correct them so they don't sound dumb expecting more than you do."
Emma frowned, "I really, really wish it was like that, Molls..." she looked up. "But it's not."
"Lauren thinks it is."
"Who is Lauren?"
"Nick's girlfriend."
"Nick... Carter?" Emma blinked in surprise. "How - what - why were you talking to Nick Carter's girlfriend?"
Molly shrugged, "I have my ways."
"Moll..."
"I called Nick when you went MIA on us," Molly replied after a couple beats. "I wanted to see if you'd gone there with Brian, and Nick said you weren't there but that he'd call me when he found out what was going on and Lauren called me and Lauren told me what she knew and we got together and voila. She thinks Brian's in love with you still."
"That's crazy. He's in love with Leighanne. You know he told me one of the nights we were gone about how they met?"
Molly shrugged, "I don't know Em."
"Brian's over me," Emma answered, "He's been over me since the moment Kevin called Tate's High in '93 and told him there was an opening in the band. He's over me. He's just doing this because he feels guilty about leaving back the way that he did. He feels guilty and that's why he gave me a ring." Molly sighed. The IV machine beeped beside Emma and she looked up. The chemo bag was empty. A moment later a nurse appeared and started unhooking Emma's IV.
Lauren was in the bath tub, neck-deep in bubbles, Igby laying on a towel in front of the sink basin, when she heard the door downstairs slam. She sat up. Igby's ears seemed to stretch even higher into the air than they normally did. Bubbles slid across her skin as she stood up and grabbed a towel from the hook. Igby stood up and started barking. Lauren could feel her heart pounding.
Pulling on a robe, she tied the waist band tight and opened the door. Igby went rushing down the stairs. "Igby!" she hissed, but he was long gone. She imagined a robber-slash-attacker sneaking into the house and a rush of fear for Igby went through her senses. She looked around for a weapon of some sort, but only found her hair dryer. Deciding that was good enough, she rolled the cord around her arm and held it in front of her like a gun before slowly descending the stairs, dripping bubbles along behind her as she went.
She could hear Igby's claws ticking on the wood floor in the dining room and she took a deep breath, held her hair dryer high, and stepped into the dark room. The shadow of the intruder was a couple feet away and she swung the dryer ferociously. A muffled umph! followed the swing as she caught the intruder in the face.
"Ow, God, what the hell?"
"Nick?" Lauren gasped. She reached for the light switch by the door. "What the -- Oh shit." Blood had exploded from his nose and down onto his chest. His hands were covering his nose and his eyes were squeezed shut. "Oh my God, I'm sorry Nick, I thought you were an intruder..."
"An intruder with the keys to the front door?" Nick asked. His voice sounded pinched.
"I don't know, I didn't think about that." Igby's tail was wagging excitedly from the doorway, where he watched the two of them like a tennis match, his head bobbing one way, then the other.
Nick's eyes were bloodshot and a bruise was already travelling up into his eye sockets. He looked at the hair dryer, "Really? That's your weapon against intruders?"
"I was in the bath, what did you expect me to bring?"
"Something that could do actual damage?"
"Well obviously I did - either that or you're just randomly bleeding from the face for no reason."
"Well it's not like I was armed," Nick said, "If I was an intruder, you never would've got near me with that thing."
"Yeah I would've," Lauren argued.
"Besides, you just got lucky," he added.
"Yeah I got lucky and that's why your honkers broken." Lauren's face paled, "Oh my God, it's not broken is it?"
"I dunno," Nick admitted, "It hurts like a son of a bitch."
Lauren dropped the dryer, "C'mon." She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the kitchen and pushed him into a chair, pulling his head back. "Stay like that," she commanded, "And pinch the bridge, that'll help stop the bleeding."
"But now bloods gonna go down my throat or something."
"No it isn't," Lauren answered.
"Yeah huh, I'm like a cannibal. Or a vampire."
"You don't sparkle."
"Yeah well."
Lauren ran the sink water until it was warm and wet a paper towel. She pulled a chair up beside him and gently started washing blood off his face. Nick winced when she touched his nose. She inspected it gently, fingers barely grazing it. "It doesn't look broken," she said softly.
"Good, I don't wanna look like Owen Wilson, you know?" Nick said.
"You won't look like Owen Wilson."
"Are you sure?"
"I promise."
Nick sat still while Lauren wiped gently. When she'd finished, she went to stand up, but he grabbed her wrist, "Wait," he said.
Lauren lowered back into the seat, "What?"
Nick righted himself, and felt a little dizzy for a moment. He blinked, "Whoa, trippy." Lauren went to stand up again, but again he caught her wrist. "Wait a second," he said, "Just wait." He stared at her for a long moment.
"Nick, seriously, I have a wet, bloody paper towel in my hand, can't I just throw it away?"
He let go of her wrist and she stood up and went over to the trash barrel. When she turned around, he'd moved from the chair to the floor. He was on his knees - both of them - like he was praying or begging. She stopped short.
"What the hell are you doing?" her voice shook.
Nick reached into his pocket. He pulled out one of those plastic bubbles from the 50-cent prize machines out front of Walmart - or in this case, it'd been in the hall at LAX. He popped the bubble open and looked at the plastic peace-sign ring it held. "I know this is a piece of crap," he said quietly, "But... everything nice was closed and I couldn't wait." He looked at the ring, turning it over in his palm. "It's a piece of crap just like I am..." he looked up at her, "I know I treat you bad, and I know I'm a pain in your ass..." he sighed, "I take you for granted, like you said, you're right. But I love you, and I wanna be a pain in your ass for the rest of your life... I want to be your piece of crap. And I just wanna know if you'll put up with me long enough for us to get old together and stuff?"
Lauren stared at the ring as he held it out.
"What are you saying right now, Nick?" she asked, breathless.
"Lauren... will you, like, you know... marry me and stuff?"
Tears filled her eyes. "You are such an ass," she whispered, voice trembling.
"Is that a yes?" Nick asked.
Lauren slid to her knees, too, and took the ring from his hand, slipping it onto her finger. "Yes," she said, "Of course it is."
