The Healing (The Things We Can't Change Book 3) (39 page)

I shake my head, eyeing the needle contraption in his gloved hand with askance. “Nope. My dad was a doctor. Did I mention that?”

“Shit,” Nick breathes, and rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. “It all makes sense now.”

“She’s been sheltered, our Evangeline,” Zeke says, and then our eyes connect and he amends seriously, “In some ways, at least.”

That much is true, and I’m coming to realize how little of the world I’ve seen, living under Tony’s thumb the way I did for three years. I’ve traveled across the world with my dad, seen foreign countries and beaches and lives very different from my own, but I haven’t played Xbox or seen a tattoo performed or even planted a tree until I started spending time with Zeke. And suddenly, I’m beyond glad that he’s in my life, even if we’re just friends and even if we always stay that way.

There’s a loud buzzing sound that makes me jump, and my focus returns to the present, to Nick as he touches the needle to Zeke’s skin and the noise intensifies. Zeke stiffens a little bit as the needle makes contact and I watch in horrified fascination as Nick begins to ink the design in.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, my voice hushed, as though speaking will disturb him.

Nick snorts a little, but his eyes don’t lift from Zeke’s chest. “If I had a dollar…” he mutters, and it makes me smile because I know he must hear it a million times a day.

“Like a bee sting,” Zeke answers prosaically, wincing a little as Nick moves the needle in swift arcs along his skin. “And just like a bee sting, the ouch factor mostly depends on where you’re stung. I don’t have one, but I hear the foot is the worst. Most of mine weren’t that bad. Although, the ear one was weird. Needle vibrated my whole skull. And my ribs-” he clams his mouth shut and then refuses to look at me.

“Your ribs?” I ask, and my level of nervousness shoots through the roof.

“My ribs… stung a bit,” Zeke says carefully, and I have a powerful urge to shake him.

“How much is ‘a bit’?” I ask sternly, and Nick laughs at us.

“I like her,” he says, gesturing toward me with the needle-thing. “She doesn’t take your shit. Now both of you be quiet while I do my thing.”

I stay quiet as he works, even though he and Zeke continue on, Zeke lecturing Nick about his need for ‘chit-chat’ with his customers while he works, and Nick tells him to shut up he’ll end up with ‘chit-chat’ tattooed all over his man boobs. Both of them look immediately to me when he says ‘boob’ and I just sigh and throw my hands up in the air in defeat, and it takes five minutes for them to stop laughing.

After about half an hour, Zeke is finished and Nick pulls away, rolling toward the counter along the wall to switch out needle and ink, and I move in to study the tattoo. It’s beautiful, intricate and detailed, but I wouldn’t expect anything less when Zeke was the artist. I realize with a jolt that the font used for his own words,
tomorrow is never promised,
is the same type that will be used in mine.

I dare to reach out a finger and press it to his hot skin, right at the end of where the last word is inked. “We’re going to match.”

Zeke looks up from where my finger touched him with a pleased expression. “Thought you’d like that. I changed mine last minute. I figured if we’re doing it together, they should coordinate in some way. Besides… Cindy would have liked it. Swirly and girly.”

“I like it too,” I tell him, and he smiles and then hops out of the chair, gesturing toward it with a flourish.

“Your turn, lady.”

I look from him to the chair, and back again, nerves back into place and trembling. “I don’t…” I begin, and then trail off before starting over, whispering, “I don’t have to take my shirt off, do I?”

“Yes, you do!” Nick says loudly, without turning around.

“Shut up!” Zeke snaps in his general direction, and then turns back to me. “You do
not
have to take your shirt off,” he says firmly. “Just sit down and pull it up. And, uh, tuck it into your bra so it doesn’t fall down. And make sure it’s tight.”

“Right,” I say, and hoist myself onto the chair. Knowing Zeke’s eyes are on me, I roll up the left side of my shirt, all the way up over my stomach and tuck it into my bra. I’m very aware of all my skin showing and the way Zeke is staring at me. I close my eyes and say quietly, “Could you give me a second here, please?”

“Oh. Right.” Zeke sounds embarrassed and I can feel him back off a little bit.

I try to rein in all the feelings going round and round inside my head. The shame and guilt at showing two boys my bare stomach, no more and honestly much less than you would see around a pool in the summer, or hell, at a Victoria’s Secret store at the mall. Tony would hate it. He’d kill me.

But he doesn’t matter anymore, and this is one final ‘fuck you’ to his memory
, I tell myself, repeating it over and over, embracing it, remembering that even though it doesn’t feel that great, it’s good for me. I want this. I want it for my dad, and I want it for my mom. I want it for me, because this new Evie likes to live on the edge and try new things. And that’s that.

“Okay.” I breathe out, air whooshing out of me. “Okay, I’m good.”

“It’s all good,” Nick says brusquely, squeaking his way toward me as he rolls over on his wheeled stool. He settles in next to me, and the sight of the needle contraption in his hand sends a wave of nerves through me once again, though it has nothing to do with Tony. “Just think of me as your family physician. I’m licensed. I swear.”

“I would try to, but my physician was my dad for my whole life,” I say, trying to get more comfortable in the chair and closing my eyes once again, because looking at the needle makes me feel sick. “And unfortunately, he was an extremely good looking man so it’s a little hard.”

There’s an uncomfortably long moment of silence and it forces my eyes open. Nick and Zeke are staring at me, practically open mouthed.

I smile at them, pleased with their response. “What? Just because I’m the girl I can’t make jokes?”

Zeke bursts into laughter, actually doubling over and putting his hands on his knees, while Nick leans over me with a disgruntled expression.

“That’s it,” he mutters. “I’m charging you now. That was rude.”

I let out a huff of laughter but that’s all I get out before the needle touches my skin and I stiffen like a board. It hurts like
hell
as he traces a letter directly above one of my ribs and I gasp, my right hand unclenching and stiffening at the pain. In a second, Zeke is there, sitting on an extra stool and holding my hand, smiling as he watches me.

“Come on, baby,” he taunts. “Squeeze my hand if you can’t handle it.”

“Jerk,” I breathe, but then Nick is going over the softer skin between two ribs and
that
is even worse and I squeeze Zeke’s hand for all I’m worth.

Zeke is laughing softly and even Nick is chuckling, and when he’s done with the words and working on the soft, swirling embellishments, I finally chance a look down, and I fall in love. It’s beautiful, a visible reminder that my dad is always with me, and also that like most pretty things, they are usually only achieved with a little pain preceding them. Healing. Something else occurs to me as I look down at my ribs, and I turn to Zeke, knowing my forehead is sweating and I’m probably pale because
damn
, this shit hurts and even though I like it, I know it will definitely be my one and only tattoo.

“I just realized,” I say to him.

“Yeah?” he asks, laughter dying from his eyes as he takes in the serious look on my face.

“This is where Tony punched me. For painting my toes. When you saw me in the dance studio that first time.”

Zeke looks startled for a moment, looking from the tattoo, to my face, back to the tattoo, and then at me again. Finally, he smiles slowly and then ever so carefully, kisses the back of my hand, not romantically, but reassuringly and comfortingly. “I guess its fate,” he whispers, and I can’t agree more.

Fate; something you can’t change. And these days, I don’t think I’d want to.

Evangeline

78

School starts in two weeks, and I don’t want it too. I want to spend forever in this dreamy, idyllic time with Zeke. Where we don’t have to deal with other people, where he comes to my house every single day and we just work outside on the gazebo and talk, and occasionally have strange but completely enjoyable moments where we leave the house behind and have an adventure.

School means hardship, and I’m a coward and weak enough to admit that I’m scared to face it. Face the rumors, the snubbing I will get from my old friends, the glances of pity or scorn from students who don’t know me at all, the teachers who will undoubtedly pat me on the shoulder in a show of sympathy, and their startled look when I pull away out of fear of their touch.

The whole idea of it makes me feel sick to my stomach, and I can feel the previous happiness and joy slowly fading away, bit by bit. My time spent alone in the house goes back to moping, to drifting aimlessly around the house with no real direction or purpose. Spending time with Zeke when he comes over is again the highlight of my days, and I stretch it out as long as possible, glad when he agrees to watch movies or eat dinner with me after our work is done, if he doesn’t have to go to the club.

Our friendship is real now, I think. Forged in blood, sweat, and tears, all of them literal. I know what makes Zeke tick, and I know the issues he has in his heart. He knows my own fears, my deepest ones, and when someone knows that many of your secrets, you have no choice but to keep them close. I do so happily, because when Zeke is around, I still feel calm, still can breathe and I don’t worry about the future or what is to come in fourteen short days.

But when I’m out on my own and pass our school, or shopping and the back-to-school displays catch my eye, they fill me with a melancholy that is hard to shake, even when I go back home. It isn’t until Zeke shows up once again on my doorstep that I feel there is light left in the world, that I don’t begin and end with school starting up once more.

Eventually, though, the thought comes to me that my relationship with Zeke might be different once school starts up. After all, he’s only here this summer because he was forced to, to pay a debt and stay out of trouble. I try to envision what will happen once school starts, how it will affect our relationship. Somehow, I can’t see us staying as close as we’ve become. What am I thinking, that we’ll go to school and I’ll stand with him and Dominic and Koby in the mornings and sit with them at lunch?

I imagine the rumors
that
would send flying around, the sight of me even speaking to Zeke for a moment, and they fill me with a depressed feeling that I can’t quite get rid of. I wish I could start over at a new school, somewhere anonymous where they won’t know who I am or care if I hang out with Zeke Quain or not. But that feels so cowardly and I’m filled with disgust at myself for even considering it. I have to go back and face everyone, if for no other reason than to find out how cowardly I truly am, because I already know I’m going to have trouble handling it.

Another thing that has me feeling melancholy is my dad; this was the time of year when we would take our annual before-school trip, just the two of us. We would go somewhere with a beach, tradition, and this year we’d talked about going to Florida, renting a house right on the beach in a small town on the Gulf side. Now, that can’t be. I spend a lot of time lying on the couch, staring into nothing, running my fingers gently over the words inked onto my ribcage, which are slightly raised now, a week later. Scabbing over and healing.

I like that it’s solid, touchable now, because it’s as though I have something of my dad to cling to. I know that I shouldn’t be lying here like this, that I should get up and be moving around,
doing
,
living
, but I can’t force myself into it just yet. My thought is always,
tomorrow. Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will feel like getting on with life. Tomorrow, I won’t take a step backward in progress.

Zeke can tell that something is bothering me, because on Friday, just nine days before school starts, he asks why I’ve been so quiet all week, and I battle with myself for a moment before telling him the truth. If there’s anyone who can help, who can reassure and make this feeling go away, it’s Zeke. He’s helped me before, why not now?

“School is starting soon,” I mumble, spreading out the mulch with careful precision. It’s what we’ve been working on all day, and will be working on for the rest of the week, undoubtedly. The pond is finished, planted and made to look almost naturally occurring. The gazebo is painted, all the plants have been carefully transplanted into the ground and debris thrown away. We’re almost done. In fact, we probably only have a day or two of mulching left, and then Zeke won’t have any reason to come over every day. And once again, I’ll be all alone.

Shut up, drama queen,
I chide myself, knowing the thoughts are stupid and over dramatic and that I’m not really alone. Zeke would come any time I called him, any time that I needed him. I just need to grow a pair and learn how to survive without having him at my side every minute of every day, even if the thought gives me a lump in my throat.