Page 73 of Christmas with Brother's Best Friends

“Is Ryan there?” I ask him as my eyes flicker back to the bathroom door.

“Yeah, why?” Josh replies.

“Put the phone on speaker. I need to talk to you guys,” I tell him, urgency pumping through me.

“What’s going on?” Ryan questions me. “Is it about Emma?”

He’s right on the money.

“I’m really worried about her. I’m trying not to freak out or anything, but she locked herself in my bathroom and won’t come out,” I tell them.

“Wait, what?” Josh blurts out as shuffling and thumping noises sound in the background.

“We need to get over there,” Ryan says.

“We were working in a coffee shop, and she started feeling unwell, so I took her back to my place because it was close by. She got sick and started crying, and I haven’t been able to get her out of the bathroom since,” I explain to them, hoping that they can help me out.

At this point, I have no idea what to do.

“I told you guys that she’s been acting weird,” Ryan says, his words riddled with frustration and concern. “She could be having a breakdown for all we know. We need to figure this out.”

“Without freaking her out,” Josh adds as more noise sounds in the background. “We don’t want to push her away.”

Hopefully, this won’t be the nail on the coffin of what we could’ve had together. But even if we lose her, I still want to know if she’s going to be okay.

“Hurry over here,” I tell them.

“Heading that way now,” Josh replies before hanging up.

I lower my phone from my ear and tuck it in my back pocket, my gaze shifting back to the door that has yet to be unlocked and opened. I’m dying to have her in my arms. Not even being able to see her is torture.

I don’t bother her until I hear a knock on my front door. Ryan and Josh pour inside the moment that I open it, and we all stand in front of the closed bathroom door, sharing concerned looks with each other.

“Emma, it’s Josh,” he says as he leans toward the door. “Could you open up? We just want to talk to you and make sure you’re okay.”

“Go away! I can’t… I can’t do this.”

Ryan tries the doorknob and curses under his breath when it doesn’t budge. “Emma, we need to make sure you’re okay. Open the door.”

“No! I’m not ready.”

A confused expression forms on my face. There’s something holding her back. Something big.

“Keep trying,” I tell Josh before grabbing Ryan’s arm and dragging him down the hallway where she can’t hear us. “You said she kind of opened up to you, right? What did she say?”

Ryan shrugs. “That she was worried about the future. What she was going to do with her life. Where she should be. But I don’t even know if that’s the truth. I think there’s something else that she’s hiding.”

“Emma, I know you haven’t been feeling well lately. Is that what’s wrong? I can take you to the hospital,” Josh offers.

“No!”

“What if it is a medical thing?” I ask Ryan, making his eyes narrow.

“Don’t. Don’t say that something is wrong with her,” Ryan tells me.

I can see right through that tough guy voice of his. He’s scared shitless and so am I. This is a possibility that we haven’t thought of yet.

“Think about it. She hasn’t been feeling well for a while now. She won’t tell us what it is, and she doesn’t even want to talk to her family about it,” I point out. “And she turned down that job opportunity. What if she knew that she wouldn’t be able to do it? Physically.”