The Healing (The Things We Can't Change Book 3) (14 page)

“Shh!” I warn as I drag her along behind me, past Koby, up the basement steps and all the way out of the house.

“Zeke!” Evie finally cries, once we’re safely out in the dark night. “What are you doing?”

“I have to show you something,” I say, because even though it’s something I’ve never told anyone, something I never talk about, I know I have to tell Evie. I have to let her know that at least one person understands what she’s going through. “You run, right? It’s about a mile away.”

“Not in months,” Evie mutters, looking down at her legs. She’s wearing shorts and closed-toed shoes, but they’re no Nikes or anything. Flats, or something like that.

“Just a mile,” I prod. “I’m sure you can handle that much.”

Evie glares at me. “Is it absolutely necessary that we do this at three AM?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation.

Evie studies my face in the dim light from a street lamp, and finally, she nods. “Okay.”

“Okay,” I respond, and then we take off down the street.

Ezekiel

57

Koby’s house is in a neighborhood off of Fifth Avenue, much closer to my bridge than my own house. By the time we’ve run the mile, Evie is gasping for air and I feel guilty, even though I didn’t force her or anything. In fact, it will hopefully show her how she needs to get out of that house once in a while.

“We need to fatten you up a little,” I say as we stop under the bridge, not allowing myself to apologize. “Not a problem if you keep going to Koby’s house though. His mom makes a mean batch of cookies.”

“I used… to be able to do… four miles,” Evie pants, bending over and putting her hands on her knees. “I ran four 5-K’s a year! Helped me move quick… on the tennis court.”

“Tennis,” I scoff, forcing my breathing to stay steady so I look tougher. In reality, I’m absolutely dying of thirst.

“Shut up,” Evie says, though without any real rancor.

I wait as she catches her breath and finally stands erect, then notices the wall of graffiti before us. It gives me insane pleasure that her breath actually catches and her eyes light up when she takes it all in. It’s no drawing or art show-winning painting, but it’s not run of the mill graffiti either.

“Zeke,” Evie breaths, and runs a hand over the wall. “Did you do all of this?”

“Yeah,” I say, pushing away a self-consciousness that is totally out of character for me. “There was some old stuff but it’s mostly all covered up now. I did all of this since Cindy… since the accident.”

“Oh,” Evie says, and the single word is rife with understanding. She continues to inspect the wall, the very real-looking crevice I did in the middle to give everyone a jolt of shock, thinking the bridge was about to fall on them. The equally real car bursting through the wall, and the words. Random ones—pain. Loss. Grief. Hate. Injustice. All the feelings I got out of me.

Evie pauses with her hand on the ballet slippers and reads the name next to them aloud. “Cindy Anne Quain.” She looks up at me, eyes brimming with tears and guilt.

“That one’s my favorite,” I say quickly, before she can apologize or something. “If you read left to right like that, it’s her name, but if you read right to left, it actually says
love and miss you
.”

Evie turns slightly so she’s reading backward, and actually gasps, which makes me smile stupidly. People always love that trick.

“Zeke!” she cries. “That is so cool! How do you even do that?”

I shrug. “My friend is a tattoo artist and sometimes I help him come up with stuff. This guy who always liked what I came up with wanted a huge one doing this down his side. Edwards, his last name, reading one way and ‘family’ the other. It took Nick and me a couple days to get it, but it was sick. Looked great.”

“Wow,” Evie breathes. She studies the wall for a few more minutes, walking the length and then slowly back. Then she stands staring at me speculatively. “Why do you do it?” she whispers.

My natural instinct is to push her off. All of the sudden I want to back out, deflect the question and hustle her back home as fast as I can. But I don’t. I shove it all away, promise myself I’ll purge it out later. “I don’t like to… feel,” I finally say, and my voice is quiet.

It’s incredibly hard to keep eye contact and now I understand why she kept looking away when she was talking in the bathroom. They say eyes are the windows, and it’s hard to stare at someone else’s soul when you’re trying to bare your own.

“To feel?” Evie echoes, and I pick up her confusion easily.

I give a quick, clipped nod, anxiety for what I’m doing clawing its way up my chest, trying to get to my mouth to shut it up. “I don’t do emotions. Anger… grief… jealousy… love. Every good thing in life gets taken away at some point. It’s easier not to get attached, ever. So I try to avoid
feeling
for anyone or anything.”

“That sounds… lonely,” Evie comments softly.

I shrug. “Maybe. It’s effective. But I paint because the art, the graffiti, the adrenaline rush of it… it gets it all out of me when it becomes more than I can handle. Sometimes I can’t just shove it away, so I have to get it
out
, and it comes out on these walls.”

I touch the wall, and then look over at Evie. She looks stricken, thunderstruck by my revelation. I shrug again. “So I just wanted to say,” the words are a struggle to get out, too close, too much of a connection with another person, but I force it all out, for Evie’s sake, “I understand what you mean. For the most part anyway.”

We just stare at each other for a long, long time, both trying to readjust our footing with one another. Or at least I am. I’m also beginning to feel my hands tremble with the need to get all this empathy and pity out of me. I’m beginning to think I’ve reached my limit of just blindly pushing it away inside my head.

“So…” Evie finally says, and then has to clear her throat and start again. “So you do it because you want to feel as little as possible. I do it because I want to feel as much as possible.”

“Yeah,” I say, and give a dry laugh at the irony of it. It comes out harsher than intended because I’m almost sweating with the effort of keeping all the feelings inside, being unable to release them. “Weird.”

“Maybe we should try and meet in the middle.”

I jerk around to stare at Evie. “What?”

She looks nervous. “I just… Do you
want
to be like this forever?” Her voice is strong on the last part, and so is the look in her eyes. “I don’t.”

“So stop,” I say, as though it’s that easy. I wish it was, for the both of us. I’m getting creepy-crawly feelings along my back because I feel like I know what she’s about to suggest, the argument she’s going to make.

“I can’t,” she replies, sounding defeated. “I-I tried. I thought I could do it, that I was getting better, but I just keep getting worse. Obviously. I thought I might still be able to dig myself out of it, but then my dad… died. He was one of the only things holding me together.”

“You can’t just try and get someone else to fix you,” I snap, pacing back and forth, swinging my arms as I repress the urge to paint, to release it all, to scream at Evie because it’s as good a way to release it as any. “It’s like asking someone to rip off a Band-Aid for you; they might have the gumption, but in the end
you’re
still the one who has to deal with the pain. So grow a pair and just figure it out on your own.”

“I can’t!” Evie bursts out, and it’s a loud shout. When I look over at her, she’s crying again. “I keep trying, but I can’t! I need
help
. I need someone there who can hold me together until I figure out how to glue myself back permanently. And I’m
asking
you, Zeke,
begging
you, to help me.
Please
.”

“No.” My reply is instant and immediate. I shake my head, back away a few steps, biting my lip as I deny her. “No way. I’ve already saved your ass too many times to count, I’ve done my part. I’m not getting any deeper into this.”
Shit
, I need to paint. It’s all consuming me, Cindy’s face, Evie’s tear-filled eyes, the price of telling my secret and letting another person in much too deep.

I want to help her, wish I could, but the truth of the matter is that I’m too much of a coward to face my own fears, my own problems. And I can’t fucking
think
, everything is crowding my head, I’m burning with a fever as I just try and shove all the feelings away, stop listening to my heart, that stupid thing in my chest that I wish would just shrivel up and die so that I never have to feel another thing ever in my life.

“No. Uh-uh. I can’t,” I repeat, denying her over and over.

“Fine!” Evie screams, and I’m shocked into silence at her outburst, this temper of hers that I haven’t seen in a while. “I heard you the first time!” she continues, and even through my haze of denial and emotion I can see her clenched fists and the angry spark in her eyes. “I get it. You’re too much of a coward to try and deal with your own problems too. So whatever. I’ll do it on my own, and forget you, Zeke Quain.”

Evie spins around on her heel and takes off into the night, disappearing down the dark street. I take just one step in her direction, to follow her, but then I stop. It’s only a few miles to her house, and if she’s stupid enough to run off in the dark by herself, then who am I to stop her? Even if she does see right through me, know exactly why I won’t help her. Knows how spineless I really am underneath my tough act.

My hands clench as her accusation replays in my head, making my own fists ball up, the anger and fear and worry inside me flare up with new strength. I don’t
want
it, I don’t want to feel anything for her, don’t want to like or care about her. I have enough of my own shit to deal with and I’m barely keeping it together as it is.

I take another step backward, as though by increasing the physical distance between the two of us, I can increase the emotional distance, the fact that we seem irrevocably drawn toward each other and destined to keep meeting, keep appearing in each other’s lives. I’ve never believed in destiny, but this seems to be the closest I’ve ever been to seeing it in action. But I
don’t want to
. I don’t want to help her. I just want to go blindly on, not thinking, not feeling, not doing
anything
.

One more step back, and I hear a metallic click. I freeze, because I know exactly what it is.

A can of spray paint.

Evangeline

58

I feel on the verge of death by the time I finally stumble up the driveway to my house. I think I ran two whole miles straight, then walked one, and ran the final one, anxious to be in the safety of home and away from the dark, scary night. My ears are buzzing, I know my face is embarrassingly red and my right leg is feeling numb. I need water, a shower, rest, but I don’t know which I want first.

After staggering into the house, I stare at the stairs for only a second before deciding there’s no possible way I can get myself up them. I turn toward the full guest bathroom on the first floor, step into the shower and sit there and let steamy water pour over me until some small measure of life feels restored and I have the strength to stand and wash my hair. I shave my legs for the first time in what feels like forever, and step out once again feeling, if not alive, at least a little less dead.

I dry my hair and braid it over my shoulder, and then ascend the steps and am faced with my bedroom. A shiver goes through me, just like always, and I dart in and out as quickly as possible, grabbing the first clothes I lay hands on and then scurrying back out again. I wonder if any place in this house will ever feel safe again; my bedroom is no longer safe, and my dad’s office is taboo now. What if I go in there and feel the urge to cut? I’m slowly going to run out of places to hide when it all becomes too much.

It’s the work of a moment to get dressed in the upstairs bathroom and head for the kitchen, drinking what feels like a gallon of water. I’m starving all of the sudden too, and prowl through the cupboards, trying to find something to satisfy myself. I unearth a box of Velveeta macaroni and cheese and find comfort as I keep the lights as dim as possible and go through the familiar routine of making mac and cheese.

I eat the whole box and then groan in satisfied contentment as I haul myself out of the chair and put my dishes in the dishwasher. I’ve caught my second wind or something because I no longer feel as though I’m about to fall over and even though I’ve had barely any sleep, my eyes are wide open. I stare out the sliding glass door and before I even realize it, I’m pulling it open and stepping outside in my bare feet. I cross the deck, slowly descend the steps, cross the second level and then I’m out on the lawn.

I curl my toes into the grass, closing my eyes as I breathe in all the scents of Columbus in the summer, the ones that I haven’t even taken the time to absorb until now; the sweet scent of the fresh-cut grass, the smell of flowers blooming in the air, even the heavy scent of the impending humidity. It’s a full moon tonight, even though it’s low since the sun will be rising soon, and I can clearly see the old gazebo and the less-than-half-finished garden around it, the gaping hole awaiting the pond.