Love Exactly (9 page)

“I’m not an excellent poster child for things parents approve of either. There’s so much guilt I deal with day to day. I know that I hurt them,” I explained, my voice diminishing to a cracking whisper that was only just audible against the sound of the waves.
 
I closed my eyes, unable to bear the look on his face as I admitted, “What’s worse is the anger I feel at myself for it.”

I felt Evan get up and kneel in front of me, pulling my face to his own. I concentrated on the touch of his rough finger tips, the smell of his heady Axe cologne and then the feel of his forehead as it pressed against mine while I tried to calm my breathing.

“Tell me something…” his voice drifted with the waves; “tell me why it feels like you’re a part of my soul?”

I opened my eyes to look into his, watching as the yellow around his iris darkened to a burnt orange and the brown faded to a muted green.

“Because you’re a part of mine.”

It had been four weeks since I saw Evan last. The days had past in a blur of teaching myself another song on guitar, editing pictures, and doing small assignments for work. The paper must have given up on the rumors of my famous beau, because I was stuck back on high school sporting events and pining for the music related articles. When I wrote about music I felt like I was really writing again, but then it would fade away in the loneliness of my apartment and the blinking of the cursor over my mostly blank manuscript. I wanted to say it was because I didn’t have any ideas to write, but that was just a farce; a sad cover up to the truth. I still couldn’t bear to do it. I half wished Evan would force me to write, but he didn’t ask why I wasn’t, even as he worked on his own writing. He occasionally looked up at me with an accusing look, only to smile at me and continue writing or erasing what was there.

“You look stressed,” he finally conceded as he put his pencil down and looked up at me.

“Why haven’t you asked about my writing?”

He shook his head. “Because it’s just that—it’s your writing.”

“I ask you about your music,” I huffed.

He looked down at his watched and tapped on the face of it, before his eyes drifted back to mine. “I’m not going to push you, Em. If you want to do it, you’re going to do it. I’m sure you’ll tell me when you decide you’re ready.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You promised.”

I nodded and he sat up. “Is there something else bothering you?”

“I’m just worried I’m going to get an assignment at my old school—I know I will. It’s the biggest school in the state and the basketball team has won the Chapter A Championship for six years straight. College scouts go to those games and there’s a few big ones coming up,” I explained.

“It sounds like it’d be good exposure for your writing.”

I flopped back down on the bed to stare at the ceiling. Soon Evan was hovering over me, his body just inches from mine.

“Hate me all you want. It’s the truth and you know it—it might even be good for you,” he commented as his eyes darted over my face.

“Ughh…” was my response just as my phone vibrated. I held the screen up so I could see it, Evan still hovering over me expectantly. “Mother f—”

Evan’s hand went over my mouth. “Watch it missy,” he teased with a smirk.

I bit his hand and he rolled to the side of me shaking it as I sat up and put my head in between my knees.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and it was obvious his hand wasn’t injured because he began rubbing my back with it.

“Hell just froze over,” I replied, my hands tight on my cell phone as I tried in desperation to think of an excuse to get out of it. Evan’s hands were running over my skin—he was the perfect excuse. I started to reply.

“So I guess we’re going to your old school?” Evan commented, and he had one eye brow up as I looked over my shoulder at him. There went my excuse.

“It’s not that easy, Evan.”

He took my hands in his, flipped them and ran his fingers over the swirling hearts on my wrist.

“Bad memories?” he asked, and when I nodded he sighed. “Won’t it be better to face them? It’s been a long time.”

I exited out of the message and took a deep breath. “Yeah, it’s been a long time.”

“I’ll be with you,” Evan reminded me as he wrapped me in his arms.

I was quiet as I thought back to what happened over five years ago. It had been so long ago, but I’d blocked it out so well I could barely see past the vapors of pain that remained. I liked it that way, but I felt the fear building that with one misstep I could have all those memories back; that those demons would begin to haunt me again. I’d never dealt with them, and I knew demons un-exorcised would always remain. I didn’t want Evan to know how much I feared those halls, so instead of telling him it would be too much I agreed.

Two hours later I sat with my camera bag in my lap, and Evan’s arm resting behind my head as he pulled into the jammed school parking lot.

“I didn’t realize when you said the school was the biggest one in the state that it was the size of a small college,” he commented as he looked around him at the twelve different buildings scattered across the grounds.

I shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.”

His eyes widened as he shook his head. “I guess not…I don’t know how you did it! How did you ever find where anything was?”

I thumped my hands on the camera bag. “The buildings are broken up by subject, so it’s not bad. I spent most of my time in the English one…It’s named after some old dude that donated a lot of money to the school—Pierce I think.”

Evan smirked at me. “Does that mean I could have a building named after me?”

I rolled my eyes and put my hand on the door handle. “Let’s get this over with.”

Evan nodded and his sunglasses fell over his eyes. “My disguise is in place.”

“Won’t stop everyone from drooling,” I muttered to myself as I got out of the car and tried not to smile as he walked up to me and put his arm around my waist.

“You don’t even have a disguise to prevent saliva dripping. We don’t want those basketball players to trip in their own juices, do we?”

“I didn’t wear a v-neck this time.”

Evan sped up and turned, walking backwards and motioning to me with his hands. “Your shirt is like a second skin and,” he commented, “skinny jeans don’t leave too much to the imagination even if they’re black.”

I tried to ignore my surroundings, tried not to let the feelings sink in, but when Evan stopped walking I practically rammed into him because I was so distracted by them. I never wanted to return here. I wanted to leave it in the darkest recesses of my mind.

Evan held me out at arm’s length. “It’s just a school.”

I looked at the buildings, feeling the ground I had hated so much underneath my feet. “I spent two years here wishing every second away until I could get the hell out…to escape, and here I am again…feeling just as trapped as an adult.”

Evan heaved a sigh, lifting his sunglasses so I could see his hazel eyes. “I know you don’t expect me to understand but I do.”

His eyes drifted down to the ground and his still new flip flops. “It’s one of the reasons I love being with you so much. My whole life has felt like that for a while now…music, media, people always swooning over me for no reason besides I can sing. I feel like I can escape that when I’m with you, and I don’t feel so trapped when I’m on stage anymore. I love playing again, because I know I get to come back to you.”

“I’m not saying you can’t do that for me…”

He shook his head to cut me off. “Just give it a chance, huh? Maybe I can make you forget this is something you hate. You loved photography, you loved writing. You still can, just let me help?”

I nodded and he slid the sunglasses back over his face. “Let’s rock this thing?”

I laughed as his arm snaked around my waist again, a soft, reassuring pressure.

“Sounds good,” I replied.

I was starting to forget as we walked into the gym and headed up the bleachers to an area that would be ideal for the photography, but I could feel eyes on me. It wasn’t just the eyes of girls staring me down; it was more than that. My body froze.

“What’s wrong?” Evan asked, looking over the top of his sunglasses.

I knew the color had drained from my face, and my muscles all of a sudden were paralyzed. It was then as I tried to in vain to push the demons away that I realized I couldn’t. I could feel them crawling out from the darkest recesses of my memories, their hunched backs and dripping claws began to poison my thoughts; the feelings returned, the ones I despised so much. The ones I’d allowed Eric to create. It was the desperation, the loss of hope and most of all the self-doubt that started to take me over as I felt his eyes burning into my back. I felt, no knew, I’d lost myself in the abyss of someone else’s tyranny again. When I looked over Evan’s shoulder Eric was standing on the gym floor with his arms crossed, a threatening smile planted on his face.

Evan’s eyes followed mine and his muscles tensed as they reached where mine were. “That’s not—”

“The ex? Yeah, that’s him,” I managed to choke out.

I pulled my eyes away from Eric’s and instead turned them to Evan. His vein in his arm was pulsating along with one I had never noticed on his forehead. It angled from the edge of his inner brow and stopped at the edge of his widow’s peak on the opposite side.

“Let’s just sit and watch?” I suggested. Evan didn’t answer, but instead nodded as his jaw clenched.

Evan sat next to me, leaning back against the empty bleachers above us with his arm wrapped around my waist and one of his feet pounding out a furious beat on the empty bleacher in front of us. I reached out and put my hand over his knee.

“Calm down,” I commented, but I could feel my whole body shaking and a sweat building on my forehead.

Evan sat forward with his elbows on his knees and looked over his sunglasses at Eric’s back.

“I just want to pummel the shit out of him,” Evan finally hissed as we both watched the high school boys crowding around Eric. He must be the coach. This sent my trembling overboard and Evan grabbed my hands in his. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head and tried to keep the edge of black from fading in. He was winning. I was letting him win again.

“He’s the coach…I have to interview the coach,” I managed to explain.

Evan looked around the room in a desperate attempt at finding an escape.

“I’ll be with you,” he finally conceded.

“You’ll kill him.”

“I might try.”

This caused a laugh to ripple through me, and I felt the pressure easing up as Evan’s eyes darted back and forth over mine.

I looked down the bleachers where Eric was barking orders to the poor high school boys. They didn’t look frightened of him, and in truth he didn’t look like much. He was only about 5’6”, with thin honey brown hair that was wavy and in desperate need of a trim. He seemed to have cut muscles, but when you looked at his small frame it was only due to the fact he was scrawny. As I glanced over at Evan the comparison was almost comical. Evan’s thick hair seemed to have a natural style to it, and his tattoos easily fit his bad boy frame. He was at least four inches taller than Eric with broad shoulders and a small waist. He was still lean, but it was obvious who would win in a fight. Evan also lacked that arrogant glow. He had a reason to be arrogant, yet he wasn’t. Evan was just Evan.

“You look like you need something to drink?” Evan suggested, squeezing my sweaty palms.

“I don’t think they have margaritas at the concession stands,” I joked, looking down at the camera hanging at my neck and remembering I was here to do a job.

“I meant a sports drink or a soda?” Evan laughed. “We can get some
real
drinks as soon as this thing is over.”

“Yeah, get me something blue?”

Evan furrowed his brow before standing. “Will you be okay?”

I nodded and watched as he walked down the bleachers. There were a few girls on their cell phones comparing a picture of Evan without sunglasses to him with them. I chuckled to myself as one of the girls shook her head and the other nodded so hard she might have given herself whiplash. I read her lips as she hissed, “It’s him—I swear!”

The other girl looked over her shoulder at me and narrowed her eyes. “Who’s she then?” she snapped back.

The other girl looked up at me, and I fought the urge to wave. Instead I looked back at the basketball court and started to take pictures. I was so focused on the game I didn’t notice Evan holding out the light blue power drink to me until he coughed. When I looked up at him he was staring over his sunglasses at me, and the girls that had been debating over his identity were snapping a picture. I took the drink and glared at them. They lowered their phones and turned back around.

“Thanks,” I said as he sat down and kissed my shoulder.

“I refused my inner bad boy—I walked by him without punching or kicking him,” Evan joked as I took a deep sip of the drink.

“Speaking of your inner bad boy…you might need a better disguise.” I nodded over to the girls still arguing.

“The tattoos are the same,” the one who was attempting to give herself whiplash whispered, but she was so excited it came out in a high pitched squeal that Evan and I easily heard.

Evan was leaning his elbows on his knees again with his un-tattooed hand over his outer forearm.

“I don’t think that’s going to help,” I commented as I nodded towards the star trail etched into the flesh between his thumb and pointer finger leading up to the Koi fish, only half-covered by his hand.

He replied to my comment with a shrug before changing the subject. “So how are you feeling about your tattoo; someday it might curse you like mine is now.”

I rested the camera back down in my lap and flipped my wrist to look at the ink.

“I don’t think anyone really notices it’s there.”

He reached forward and took my wrist into his hand before leaning down and kissing the tattoo. I hadn’t realized the tattoo had made the thin skin of my wrist even more sensitive, but now it was very apparent as the goose bumps traveled up my arm. I swallowed as I looked into his eyes, his lips still on my wrist, and denied the urge to push him back against the stands and wrap my legs around his waist.