Saving Forever (The Ever Trilogy: Book 3) (33 page)

She opened her eyes, just a little, and I saw amber.

acknowledgment of paternity

There was an inn down the street from Eden’s cabin. It was really truly an inn, rather than a hotel or motel or B-and-B. I retreated there, sat on the old white metal-frame bed with the fifty-year-old quilt, and I sketched. Feverishly, obsessively. I drew Ever, again and again. I drew the baby, who did not have a name as yet.
 

Days passed. I didn’t leave the inn, except briefly to find food at a gas station a few miles south. I called Ever, but she answered the phone and hung up without a word. It was her way of letting me know she was alive without talking to me. I wasn’t sure if she would ever talk to me again.
 

I got a text from her, at three-thirty in the morning, three days after she left:
Don’t call me again. I need time.

Okay. Im at a little inn not far from the cabin.
I hit “send” and waited for a response. There was so much else I wanted to say, but I knew I couldn’t, not via text.
 

My phone vibrated with her single-letter response:
K.
 

Nothing else after that, for two more days.
 

And then, at eleven at night:
Do you love me.

I’d been asleep, too distraught and numb and afraid and mixed up to function. I was barely eating, barely sleeping, floating through the days, hoping against hope that she’d come back, or call me, or anything.
 

I answered immediately.
Yes.
 

You do?

Yes. Forever and always. I don’t deserve your love back, and I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I’ll always love you.
I sent it, wishing I could pack more into the message as it sped through the ether.

Don’t, Cade. Just don’t. I’m not ready yet. I might never be.
 

The next morning, a knock on my door woke me up. I opened it, wearing a pair of gym shorts and nothing else. Eden was standing there, looking uncomfortable.

“I won’t be long. I just—” She glanced up, then quickly away. She had a piece of paper in her hands. “I wanted to give you this. It’s an acknowledgment of paternity form.”

I took it, stared at it. “I don’t have a pen.”

She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I’m not…making any sense.” She blew out a shaky breath. “You don’t have to sign it. I’ve thought a lot about this, and—god, I’m so nervous. I don’t expect anything from you, Cade. If you…you can go. You can…do whatever you want.”

I shuffled backward, confused and needing time to regroup. “Come in. Let me grab a shirt.” I slipped a T-shirt on over my head and sat on the edge of the bed. Eden took a chair in the corner, by the window. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Eden.”

She didn’t look at me. “I’m giving you the option of—of walking away.”

I was angry. “Walk away? What kind of man do you take me for? She’s my
daughter
. My child. I had my parents taken away from me, and you think I’d—I’d just—fucking walk away? Leave her with one parent?”

Eden shrank away from me. “I just wanted to give you the option. Let you know that I don’t—I don’t expect you to—”

I cut her off. “I don’t know how this will work, but I’ll never just
walk away
. There’s no us, there will never be an us,” I gestured between the two of us, “but she’s my daughter, and I’ll always be a part of her life. I don’t know how, but I will.”

Eden sniffed. “You’re a good man, Cade. I didn’t think you’d walk away, but I had to tell you. You deserved the option, at least.”

“Give me a pen.” She dug in her purse, handed me a slim gray ballpoint pen. I signed my name to the form without hesitation. “Have you named her yet?”

Eden shook her head. “I’m…trying, but…nothing seems right. And I’m—I’m fucked up, in my head.”

“Me, too. God. Me, too.” I glanced at her, saw the guilt etched on her face. “This is my fault,” I said. “I let this happen.”

“We both did.” She stood up. “You should be the one to name her.”

I nodded. “I’ll give it some thought.”

She paused in the doorway. “Have you heard from her?”

“A couple of texts. She’s alive, and needs time. That’s about all I know.”

Eden nodded, and then left.

I was officially a father, legally. I’d claimed a baby as my own.

The next day—after a week away—just past eight in the morning, Ever came back.

it’s not for you

I was sleeping, and I dreamed she was there with me. Watching me, sadness in her eyes. Anger in her posture. I dreamed she watched me, crying silently.
 

And then I woke up, and realized the dream wasn’t a dream. It was reality.

She was in the same clothes she’d been wearing when she left, a pair of tight, dark-washed jeans, a white V-neck T-shirt, and a black hooded North Face fleece. Her hair was tangled, tied back in a messy bun, unwashed and greasy. Her eyes were dark-rimmed with exhaustion, and held a thousand-yard stare of resigned bitterness.
 

I was still in bed, my hair sleep-matted, naked from the waist up. “Ever.” I kicked the blankets off, lurched out of bed.

“Stay—stay over there.” She pointed at the bed.

I sat back down. “Ev, babe—”

“No, Cade, you don’t get to call me that. Not now.” The venom was quiet, but it sliced like razors.

I slumped, rested my forehead on the heels of my palms, knowing what was coming. “This is goodbye.” I glanced up at her, my eyes burning already. “Isn’t it?”

She pulled her legs up onto the chair, folding them beneath her. She shook her head, the bun containing her black hair wobbling. “Just listen.”

“Okay.” I felt a sliver of hope.
 

She glanced over her shoulder at the small bathroom, and sighed. “You know what, I feel nasty. I haven’t showered in I don’t even know how long. I don’t even know what day it is.”

“It’s Thursday. You’ve been gone a week.”

“A week. Jesus.” She stood up and moved toward the bathroom, then paused and glanced at me. “Is there a toothbrush?”

I pointed at the small suitcase in the corner, zipped closed, untouched. “That’s all your stuff. I brought it in from the car. You should have all your toiletries.”

She knelt by the bag, opened it, pulled out her toiletries case. “Thanks.” I just nodded, and she closed the bathroom door behind her.
 

Half an hour later, she emerged wrapped in a towel, another turbaned around her hair. She tossed her brush on the bed and sat down beside it, shaking the turban loose. She bent over at the waist, squeezing her hair dry and then brushing it. I watched her from the other side of the bed. I’d dressed, and took a moment while she was brushing her hair to brush my teeth. It was an odd moment, strange yet comfortably domestic, familiar but poisoned with tension. When her hair was straight and shining, she turned around on the bed, facing me while sitting cross-legged, still wearing nothing but the towel.
 

Her jade eyes were rife with a myriad of emotions, too many to name, to list, to understand. She just stared at me for a very long time, as if trying to sort out what she was going to say. I could only wait.
 

Finally, she took a deep breath and let it out. “Cade, I don’t even know where to start. This is all…so much. I guess I can understand why you were so closed off after I woke up. Why you seemed to be pulling away.”

I forced myself to meet her eyes. “Because I couldn’t bear knowing what the truth would do to you.”

Quietly: “You don’t know what it’s done to me.”

“Then tell me. Tell me everything.”

She shook her head, and then jabbed her index finger at me. “
You
tell me everything.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m not sure I
want
to know, really, but I
have
to know. So tell me.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything! Why? How—how long—how many times?” A long, agonized pause, tears in her eyes. “Who else?”

“No one. No one else. I swear. Not that it makes it any better, but—there was no one else.” I wiped my face with both hands, groaning. “As for the rest? How, why? How long? God, it was…it didn’t start right away—you’d been in a coma for a year—”

“‘Didn’t
start
,’” Ever repeated. “Meaning it was more than once.”

I could only nod and try to breathe. When I could speak again, it was in a rasped whisper. “Yes. It was more than once. You’d been—gone. I don’t even know how to talk about it, Ever. You were gone. But you weren’t dead. I could
see
you, I could visit your body, watch you breathe and watch the heart monitor spike. I could touch your hand. But I couldn’t touch
you
. I couldn’t grieve, or mourn, or move on, because you weren’t dead. And I didn’t
want
you to be. Please, you have to know that. I never stopped loving you. I never lied to you. There was only you. But…I was so fucked up, Ev. I’d lost
everyone
. Mom. Dad. Grams. Gramps. And then you. I had
no one
. I was completely alone. And I was hurt. Physically. I’m not sure I’ve ever really told you what it was like for me, when I first came to in the hospital. I’d shattered my left leg, basically. Broke it in three or four places. I’ve got pins and rods holding it together. And my arm…it was sliced to fucking meat by a piece of the car. I’d cracked my head open. I wasn’t—I wasn’t as hurt as you, obviously, but I was pretty fucked up. I couldn’t walk. Couldn’t dress myself, could barely feed myself.”

Ever’s eyes were pained, compassionate. “God, Cade, I had no idea. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Because it didn’t matter. I’m fine now. My leg aches when it’s super cold, and sometimes before a thunderstorm. But I’m fine. All that mattered—all that
matters
—is you.” I scraped my thumbnail along the seam of my jeans, on the outside of my leg, unable to look at her.
 

“I had to go through a shitload of physical therapy before I could really function. And the only person who could take me there, after I’d been released, was Eden. She was the only person in my life. Period. She was the
only
person who knew me, or who knew anything about me, or who knew you. Your dad took me home from the hospital, but he vanished again after that. And Eden was just…she was all I had. My only friend. And she was hurting, too. She’d lost you, too. Her twin, her other half. It tore her up like it did me. She took me to visit you until I was out of the cast and could drive. And after that it was just…someone to talk to. For a year and a half, that’s all it was. Someone who understood.”
 

A thick silence, and then Ever sighed. “And then?”

“And then it got to be too much. A year of…emptiness. Missing you, and visiting you. Talking to you. Writing you letters—”

“I read them. All of them, the letters you wrote.”

I nodded. “I had to keep going, knowing you were technically alive. But, according to the doctors, you would almost definitely never wake up, and, if you ever did, there was a huge possibility that you’d be severely brain-damaged. They talked to me about—about donating your organs. Letting you die. It’d be more merciful to everyone, they told me.”

“Did you want to do that?” She whispered the question. “Did you consider it?”

“I almost knocked the doctor’s teeth down his throat when he suggested it. It was…right around Christmas. Around the one-year anniversary. He seriously called me into his office during fucking Christmas and suggested I let you die so they could harvest your fucking organs. Eden had to push me out of the office before I fucked him up.”
 

“So, no,” Ever deadpanned.

I laughed. “No. I didn’t think about it for a goddamned second. You were my wife, my one true love. And if there was a chance—a
chance
—I’d take it.” I had to pause to breathe, to gather my courage. “You can’t…you simply
cannot
fathom the pain. How much I missed you. How much I needed you, and you weren’t there. But you
were
, yet I couldn’t have you.”

“I read your letters,” she said, “I think I have some idea of what you were going through.”

I snorted. “Ev, babe. Those are
words
. And…there aren’t words for what it was like. Those letters were as close to how fucking completely shredded and empty I was as the flame from a lighter is like the goddamned sun.”

“Oh.” Her voice was tiny.

“Yeah. Oh.” I sucked in a long breath. “And then there was Eden. And she was—she was
you
. But not you. I could never mistake her for you, physically, emotionally, anything. So it wasn’t that. Like she could replace you. Nothing, no one could ever replace you. But she was like…god, how do I even put it? She was like a mirror image of you. A reflection of you. Part of you—enough to remind me of what I was missing, what I’d lost. But hadn’t lost enough to be able to heal from it. It was like someone had gouged out my heart, and every time I saw you it was like having acid poured into the open wound. Every day. And it never healed. Never closed, never hurt any less. Not for a moment. And Eden being around was a reminder of what it had been like to be whole.”

Ever shuddered a sigh. “Holy shit, Cade.”

“Yeah. So that’s how it happened. I was so lonely, Ev. So alone. And she was
there
. The tiniest bit of…not pleasure, but—what? How do I even say it?” I scrubbed my hand through my hair. “A split second, a minute or two of…of not-pain. A chance to feel
anything
but the fucking endless pain.”

“How long? How many times?”

I shrugged. “I don’t even remember. I stopped keeping track. I never counted.” I looked into her eyes, let her see into me. “It wasn’t just once, but…that’s all that matters. There’s no way in hell I’ll tell you details. I just want to forget it ever happened, in some ways. But in other ways? It was all that kept me sane, Ever. That doesn’t make it okay. That doesn’t make it any less of a betrayal. And I know that. I know there’s no forgiving or forgetting. I regret that I hurt you, and it’s fucking breaking me knowing it’s destroyed what we had. But, in a way, that thing with Eden was all that kept me from…I don’t know. Self-destructing. Just dying, like Dad did after…after Mom died. So you can get as mad as you want, but I’m not going to tell you anything else, other than that it lasted…a couple of months, at most.”