The Love Story (The Things We Can't Change Book 4) (21 page)

Except she doesn’t know. She shouldn’t have to know. She’s on the committee and has to go. This is important to her, has been a lot of hard work and I should go regardless of how I feel. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to and it’s not fair to her and knowing that makes me suddenly irritable.

“Right. Because you’re Zeke Quain.” Evie bends down and neatly closes a box, pushing long waves of hair behind her ear. Still looking down, she says quietly, “You know, it’s just a dance. We could go as friends and meet there. There doesn’t have to be any… emotional connection attached to it.”

That
snags my attention. “What do you mean, no emotional connection attached to it?” I demand.

Evie straightens and looks at me. I don’t like this blank look in her eyes any more than I liked the crazy, wild one she had while cutting.

“Just that I know that stuff still makes you a little nervous. So if that part is scaring you off, it shouldn’t.”

My temper, quickly lit and fused with defensiveness, ignites. “I’m not scared of anything,” I growl.

Evie gives me a sardonic look, reminding me of her old self from the summer, the one who actually stood up to me.

“We both know that’s not true,” she whispers.

I hate the idea of being seen as weak. Afraid, all
emotions
and no steel or backbone.

I lean forward slightly, rage over the whole thing making me forget about being careful of her personal space. “I’m not going because I don’t fucking want to go. That’s the only reason. And I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Got it?”

Evie swallows and nods. Point made, I come to my senses and realize she’s actually leaned backward, away from me.

She doesn’t want me to touch her.

The realization slams into my gut. As does the look of fear in her eyes. Just like the other day with Koby, I’ve scared her. Genuinely scared her, for a flash of a moment. That’s clear by the way the fear melts away a moment later, replaced by that careful blankness.

Last time she still came to me. She was honest and sought reassurance from me. This time, she stays silent. She doesn’t say a word. Only returns to her work.

I feel guilt, hot and intense, shot through with ugly darts of shame. It’s so strong that an apology almost spills out from between my lips then and there. But then rage takes over again.

Rage at myself, for letting Evie get to me. Letting my emotions for her get the better of me. For letting them get so strong that I actually acted on what I was feeling.

I mumble some excuse, though I have no idea what the hell it is, and then leave the club as quickly as I’m able. My last thought is that I’m getting what I wanted—distance. A whole lot of it, and now Evie is driving it, not me.

So if I’m getting what I wanted, why does it make me feel so shitty?

Evangeline

105

I get home and can’t focus on a damn thing. I try and do homework, work on my victim speech, but I can’t concentrate. Zeke’s words keep echoing through my head, hot and embarrassing, filling me with shame at myself.

Shame that I actually allowed him to talk to me like that. I don’t know why I couldn’t talk back to him. I used to do it all the time. The only explanation I can come up with is that I didn’t want to anger him further. Because I was scared of him. Just for a moment.

I know Zeke will never hurt me. He would kill himself before he lost his temper that badly. And I know a part of me will always feel a flash of nervousness when I see hands thrown up in anger. It’s just my conditioned response and only time can heal me of it. But I’m mad at
myself.
I should have pushed him. Gotten him to admit the real reasons he’s avoiding me. Only I didn’t.

Why?

I look over my notes, only half-reading them.
Many kinds of victims… someone trapped by people… by a place… someone helpless… needs rescuing…

My thoughts won’t gather together and finally I push away from my desk and head for my bedroom. I change into yoga capris and a long-sleeved running shirt, twisting my hair into a fat knot on top of my head. My Nikes feel good on my feet, firm and familiar and solid.

I strap my phone into my armband and settle my wallet into the zip pocket on the back of my shirt so I can buy water. I stretch and take off down Riverside Drive, toward Fifth Avenue and Grandview. I remember my arduous three AM run with Zeke over the summer and have to grin to myself.

The weakness of the summer is only a distant memory. I’ve been eating regularly and healthily again and my legs feel strong and steady beneath me once more. I make a mental note to start hitting the tennis courts again next week once homecoming is over.

It’s still summery enough for there to be sunlight, despite the later hour of the day and I continue steadily. Out in the crisp fall air, my mind slows, restarts and clears the ugly truth about the day comes to me at last.

I didn’t confront Zeke because I was afraid to lose him.

I’m afraid he’ll never get past his emotional hang ups. And just like a girl, I’d rather have him a little broken and incomplete than confront him and risk losing him for good. I’m filled with disgust with myself. I hit Fifth Avenue and pound my feet against the sidewalk, harder and harder with every step even as my muscles protest the upward slope.

Stupid, stupid, stupid Evie.

I can’t live like this. I can’t allow
Zeke
to live like this. He’s gotten better, so much better. He’s drawing again, letting himself feel the small things but still shying away from the big. I have to try and help him, just as he’s helped me. He took a risk too. I could have told him no when he said to go on a break. He could have lost me completely in the process, if I’d acted as irrationally as I had at the beginning of summer.

But Zeke and I had a deal. Help each other heal. He’s held up his end and now I have to find a way to hold up mine.

And how will you do that?
asks a scornful voice deep inside.
Laying down an ultimatum? Tell me you love me or I’ll dump you? Smooth. That’ll work.

I roll my eyes at that idea and run faster, trying to escape the rest of my thoughts. The ones even more troubling than Zeke’s remaining issues.

You can’t let him talk to you like that,
the snarky voice continues.
The old Evie would never have let anyone talk to her like that.

Anyone but Tony,
I think back angrily.
Besides, the old Evie is dead. This is the new Evie and we’re still figuring out if she’s brave or not. And I let Tiffany call me a slut. Grace and Chantal tell me I’m a cheap, worthless bitch. Josh and Aaron ask how much I charge for rape. I let everyone talk to me like that. Why not Zeke too?

Because it’s wrong?

I’m a victim,
I snap.
I didn’t ask for any of this. I spent all summer convincing myself that Tony wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t. I was trapped. I was a victim and trapped and it wasn’t my fault. I would have fixed Tony too if I’d had any inkling how.

Or had been brave enough to even try.

Tony was—is—crazy, I tell myself firmly. There was no fixing him. He would have had to see there was something wrong with himself first and he thought he was perfect. There was no getting around that.

I come to a stop at a traffic light, gasping for air. Planting my hands on my hips, I look around and realize I made it all the way onto Grandview Avenue. A couple more blocks and I’ll be at Zeke’s apartment.

I slowly turn and begin to walk back the way I came, catching my breath for my second push back home. No need to put myself through that particular torture after the day I’ve already had. Besides, Zeke isn’t even there. He’s still staying with Alex.

I turn back onto Fifth Avenue, walking and sipping the water I picked up at the Giant Eagle gas station, past all the shops that linger close to the downtown Grandview area. Soon enough, it turns into the part lined mostly with old, historic-looking houses. I’m just about to start running again when I hear a door slam and a voice raised in anger very close at hand.

I stop dead in my tracks as the angry tone hits me like a physical blow. It’s one I’m familiar with, a wild, out of control tone that clearly says the speaker is either crazy or drunk. I’m familiar with both and have no wish to hear them again, but I can’t make myself walk away.

“Piss on my carpet, will you? I’ll teach you where to piss, and maybe put it into your water next time too!”

I catch my breath, wondering for a single heartbeat if the man is screaming at a young child. Then the unmistakable yelp of a dog cuts through the air and I realize who the man is screaming at. I look up and down the street, wondering if there is someone else around who can interfere but the street is empty. Cautiously, pulled in by a sense of dread that I can’t ignore, I step several feet to the left and find myself staring up a driveway, my view no longer blocked by tall hedges.

A tall, heavy-set man is standing on a patio to one side of his house, wavering unsteadily on his feet. His hair is wild and his clothes are wrinkled and stained. A dog is underneath the patio table, crouched low on its belly as it whimpers and shifts nervously. The man reaches underneath, cursing violently as dog slips away from him. He grabs it by the tail and hauls it out, ignoring the crazed yelping from the poor animal.

I watch with a fascinated kind of horror, knowing that I should say something to stop it but unable to. It isn’t my business. But I cringe when the man boxes the dog’s ears and it whimpers and crawls underneath the table once more. The man growls that he will teach it a lesson and it won’t piss on his carpet ever again if he can help it.

I stare at the dog, willing it to get up and run away. It doesn’t.
Why
? Why won’t it get up and just leave? The answer to the problem seems so obvious. But the dog is staying and deep inside, I rebel at the abuse, the violence. I feel so sick at it that I want to throw up. In fact, I
do
retch just a little bit in the back of my throat. It’s so real, so live, right in front of me.

But what can I do? I’m only a little girl. How can I go and confront a full grown man? And the dog is
his
, after all.

He kicks the dog again and it yelps, trying to hide more fully under the table. I jerk involuntarily at the sound and then the dog spots me. It looks at me with big, soulful eyes.

Oh, how well I know that look. I used to see it every day in the mirror. Confusion and defeat at what was happening.

Trapped. The dog stayed. It stayed out of love, because it knew nothing else. It wasn’t actually trapped. It could run away at any time but it stayed out of love. It didn’t even bite or growl.

Do it,
I beg, trembling.
Please, do it. Run away. You can! You can do it.

The dog stays and I realize I’m only begging because I don’t want to go do it myself. Once a coward, always a coward. Just like Zeke said.

Being a coward, can or can’t change?

Still, the thoughts are all coalescing in my mind, forming a clear and ugly picture. The dog
let
it happen. It stayed out of love—a shitty reason, all told, for abuse and screaming—and took what it got soundlessly. It could resist or flee so easily, and yet it stayed and
let
it happen.

That strikes a chord deep inside me, resonating. Before I realize it, I’m striding forward up the driveway and onto the lawn. The man pulls back his leg for another kick and I quick my pace.

“Hey!” I shout, surprised to find my voice roughened by anger. All of the sudden I am
furious.
“Do that again and I’m going to call animal control!”

The man whirls around, his swaying balance telling me instantly that he’s been drinking. I’ve seen Clarissa do that often enough lately to recognize it.

“Get the hell out of here, girl,” he growls.

I step up, far too close to him for my own peace of mind but it has to be done. I draw on Zeke, think of him and how he’s always defended me. I stand between the man and the dog, fists planted firmly on my hips.

“Stop,” I command, surprised at the steel in my own voice.

“Not your business!” the man insists.

I cast a quick look behind me. The dog looks up at me balefully and I can’t back down. For once,
I’ll
do the rescuing. If I couldn’t save myself, the least I can do is rescue someone else.

I turn back to the man. “How much do you want for him?”

The man sways and blinks at me, startled. I sigh and unzip my running pocket, taking out my wallet.

“I’ll give you three hundred dollars,” I offer, hoping it will be enough to forestall any argument on his side.

He blinks and gapes. “Three hundred? For a dirty mutt?”

I don’t have much cash, but I do have my check book. I take it out and brandish it at him. “Four hundred if you shut up,” I snap. “I’ll need a pen. And a leash. Assuming you’ve ever walked the poor thing.”