The Healing (The Things We Can't Change Book 3) (17 page)

After the endless day, I expect to lie awake all night, but the previous long night catches up with me and as soon as my head hits the pillow I’m out. My alarm wakes me and I rocket out of the bed and get ready. It isn’t until I’m walking down Grandview Avenue toward Fifth and Riverside that I realize I didn’t have any nightmares last night. I’m not sure what that means, or how I feel about it, and I fall back on my most trusted method to deal; I shove the thoughts ruthlessly away and ignore them.

I get to the Parker house and have a moment of hesitation where I think of going up to the front door, like I did when Evie was here alone, but decide against it when I realize that I don’t know who will open the door. No way do I want to initiate a conversation with Mrs. Parker or Hunter, especially one where they’ll probably tell me not to act above my place and knock on their squeaky clean front door.

Instead, I circle around the house and out to my project site, reasoning that Evie knows I’ll be here and what time, and she’ll come out to me on her own. In the meantime as I unload the tools we’ll need from the shed, I think back on our conversation from the morning before. I think about everything Evie told me she felt she couldn’t change, and I wonder how to help her change it. I think mostly what she needs is time, time and people telling her over and over again that none of it is really her fault, especially what Tony did to himself. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the people around her aren’t very positive, nor do they seem fixed on helping her.

She’s stuck, with just Clarissa and Hunter around her at home and they’re obviously no help. I heave a sigh as I realize that it really must be up to me and me alone to help fix her a little bit. I tell myself one last lie—that it’s my Christian duty and obligation as a human being to help her if no one else will. And then I pick my topic for the day, one that I think is a smaller issue and can be dealt with through reasoning. Somehow, I think a lot of the others will require not just words and encouragement, but action as well.

I hear the unmistakable sounds of a sliding door opening and then thumping closed, and look up to see Evie quickly descending the stairs of the deck. My eyes check her over as she comes closer, looking for any further damage and assessing her emotional state, but she seems fine. Her arm is still wrapped up in gauze, probably just as much to hide the wounds than to keep them from bleeding, but she appears to have showered and is dressed in denim Bermuda shorts and a red Ohio State t-shirt. I feel relief that she’s at least pretending to be a normal human being, even if she’s still far from feeling like one.

She skips the last step and jumps down from it, walking quickly despite her small strides as she comes down the hill and stops in front of me, eyes squinting against the sun as she looks up into my eyes.

“Hi,” she says, and her voice is so much stronger and steadier than it was over the weekend.

Her hair is still damp from her shower, braided over one shoulder as it has been the last few times I’ve seen her, and I find myself missing the sight of it unbound, in all its different states of curliness. She’s not wearing any make up either, but there’s a healthy-looking flush to her cheeks even though she’s still pale. More time outside with me will fix that, and I’m hoping she looks better because she’s been eating again without me pushing her.

I should be alarmed at her sudden about face, by the fact that she’s smiling up at me with so much dependency and eagerness in her eyes. I shouldn’t want someone to depend on me like this, I shouldn’t let her pin me up with the stars and think that I can single-handedly fix everything that’s wrong with her.

But I’m not alarmed. I’m not panicked, and I don’t feel like my skin is too small to handle my feelings for once. Instead, I feel… important. Needed and wanted and strong, and I don’t want to disappoint her.

“Hey,” I finally reply, and hand her the baby shovel she’s been using. “Ready to get to work?”

“Yep,” she trills, and follows me, duckling style, over to the flower beds directly around the gazebo.

We made pretty good progress last week; the birm behind the pond is complete, the tall trees and thick bushes in place and ready to grow. By next summer, they’ll probably conceal the gazebo completely. The pond still needs installed, but we did most of the low plants at the beginning of the path and are waiting on delivery for the taller ones that will go in as the path gets closer to the gazebo. I decided on the flower beds around the gazebo today because it’s easier for us to work and talk, since only small bushes and flowers are going in here.

Everything still needs mulched and the gazebo needs some TLC, and once the pond is in it will be a job and half making it look more natural, but overall I’m pleased with how it’s turning out. Projects where progress is easily seen are always much more enjoyable, and sometimes I find myself forgetting that I’m not doing this voluntarily, though I would never tell anyone that.

“We’ve got some plain pine bushes to go around the back of the gazebo where no one will really be looking, just for some filler. All those trays of flowers are going in these front flower beds. If you want to help break up the dirt, we’ll use the smaller trowels afterward to actually dig the holes, since they’re so small.” I point and explain, and Evie nods her head gamely and gets to work.

I have to admit, she has a good work ethic and generally gets it right the first time, and Evie never, ever complains. It gives me a level of respect for her that I might not have gotten any other way.

“About last night,” I finally say, once we’re both on our hands and knees side by side. Trays of impatiens surround us, and the sweet scent of flowers fills the air.

Evie’s back stiffens for a moment and I realize just how thin her act must be. I try to keep my voice soothing as I continue, but its hard when I find this particular fear of hers so ludicrous.

“The one thing you said, about feeling like you made Tony the way he was. You know that’s total bullshit, right?”

I watch discreetly as Evie stabs rather violently at the ground, almost beheading one of the impatiens she already planted.

“You know,” she says crisply, “you could at least
pretend
you’re an empathetic, caring person with an ounce of tact. Telling me each of my problems is bullshit doesn’t help me whatsoever.”

She’s right. I should try and be just a little more sensitive, but it’s just not me. I’m already so over my head that it’s all I can do to stay here and
try
to help, as best I know how. I never promised Evie I could
succeed
in helping her.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

“Yeah, I can tell you mean that too,” Evie says with a hint of frostiness. “It wouldn’t hurt you to mean it when you apologize, either.”

Suddenly, I realize what she’s doing. “And we’ll never get anywhere if you keep trying to flip the conversation to me and avoid even
talking
about it.”

She’s silent for a long moment, and I know I’ve hit the nail on the head. “You seemed okay discussing it the other night,” I probe, as gently as I can. “What’s with the stonewalling now?”

She mutters something I don’t catch, and I’m pretty sure it’s on purpose.

“Sorry,” I say in my most pleasant voice. “Didn’t catch that one?”

Evie finally looks at me, and it’s with a glare. “I
said
, its different when it’s… daytime.” She trails off on a whisper, and I finally understand.

It
is
all different in the light of day. Much more real, more raw, more glaringly visible and apparent. The light is shed on the wrongness of it all.

“We can’t restrict ourselves to after dark conversations.” I point out the obvious, and Evie scowls again.

“No, really?”

“Really,” I agree, refusing to take her bait. “Clarissa would kill me eventually. I think she’s already at the end of her rope having me here during the day.”

“Understatement,” Evie agrees with a dry huff of laughter.

Damn. We’re off subject again. “Anyway,” I say significantly, and Evie’s focus again returns solely to the ground.

I watch as she meticulously plants some impatiens, using the utmost care. “You have nothing to do with making Tony the way he was, Evie.”

She continues working and I do too, knowing it’s easier to talk if we pretend it’s second to our work in importance.

“You don’t know that,” she finally answers. “Like I said, I would push him. I was… I was more defiant,
braver
, when I was with him than I am now. Maybe he wouldn’t have been
as
bad, suicidal, if I hadn’t tried to defy him like that sometimes.”

“If you stayed with him, you couldn’t have been all that defiant,” I point out. “And I don’t think it’s just one person that can drive someone to that. Well, okay, maybe it can be, the way Tony did that to you. But the fact of the matter is, becoming abusive is a pretty big leap from the process of being abused.”

“How would you know?” Evie snorts.

She stands up and I see her jerky movements out of the corner of my eye as she retrieves a new tray of impatiens from the floor of the gazebo and kicks the empty one out of the way. For someone who initiated all of this and claimed to want to fix herself, she isn’t cooperating very well. I finally come to realization that talking about her own problems isn’t any easier than it is for me to talk about mine. It makes us very similar, but the difference is that despite her claimed weakness, Evie is at least brave enough to know there is something beyond our problems, a real life and something else to live for. And she actually took a step, if a small and now retreating one, toward getting it.

“Look,” I say, and try to think how to explain what seems so obvious to me, probably to everyone except Evie. “We can at least agree it takes a pretty extended period in a… traumatic environment to make someone like Tony the way he was, right? Whatever kind of trauma you want to make it; psychological or physical abuse, defiance from another person, constant pushing and prodding from someone, right?”

Evie takes a moment to consider this, as if sensing that I’m trying to mind-fuck her and pull something over on her. Which I am, sort of.

“Ye-es,” she finally agrees reluctantly.

“And that’s what happened to you, right? You were trapped under Tony’s hold, he abused you physically and mentally, and it’s affected you and who you are, who you’ve become, right?”

She’s looking at me now, trying to figure out the trick of my questions. “Yeah.”

“And yet even with all that abuse, all that trauma, would you think of hitting another person? Ever? Dealing with it by taking it out on another person? I mean, you’re taking it out on yourself, which isn’t really better, by any means, but did Tony ever do anything that would make you harm another person?”

She looks horrified. “Of course not! Especially after… after all the times he did that to
me
. Violence is… it’s repulsive to me now. I can’t even watch movies with any kind of physical violence in them. I can’t even… I…” She’s lost for words at the idea.

I shrug. “So. I’m just saying, even if you pushed him, he shouldn’t have hit you. Or anyone, Evie. It’s his fault for how he chose to deal with it. And no matter what you did, I don’t think it was you who pushed him so far that he had to deal with it in some manner anyway. He’s responsible for the choice of how he dealt with it. Not you. Not anyone else.”

She gapes at me. Obviously this line of thought, a little something I’d call
rational
thought, is new to Evie. I shrug as she continues to stare.

“So Tony was a weak guy. I’m no shrink or anything, but I think it’s pretty common knowledge that abusive people abuse because of shortcomings
they
feel, not legitimate shortcomings in the person they abuse. They feel they have little control in their life, so they have to control someone else’s. They feel inadequate, so they make someone else feel inadequate so they can feel more superior. There’s some kind of word for it, it’s…” I trail off, trying to remember.

“Projecting,” Evie whispers. “Projecting your fears and insecurities onto someone else.”

I snap my fingers. “Yeah. That shit. But even if Tony was
projecting
all his personal crap onto you, it never gave him an excuse to hit you like that. Never. It’s not okay, Evie.”

There’s more silence, but it’s more of a comfortable one. We actually get almost all the way through the flower bed on the left side of the gazebo before something else occurs to me, though I hesitate to bring it up and waffle for a while. Maybe I should let the subject rest, allow Evie to absorb this much. But I want her to be free of this one worry. I want to shake her and convince her that this one thing, at least, is solved so easily.

I literally have my mouth open to speak when Evie beats me to it, her voice just a whisper. “I’ve always wondered what made him that way, you know? When we first started dating, the first year or so… I had no idea. Maybe there were some hints. He had a quick temper, but we didn’t fight much, not really. It was more about his jealousy. And he was so sweet afterward. But then again… maybe that was the warning sign right there. I guess he was manipulating me, winning me over when I shouldn’t have let him, even then.”