Wingless Book Series (book 1) (36 page)

My dad looked at me, his eyes
softening. “You know Evan, I believe you may be right. She’s my
wife, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about her all the
time. So I will. I’ll do it,” he said, slapping his hands down on
the table.

Gray nodded. “Me too. I just have
to see if Devan feels like flying, or if she can even,” Gray
said.

“
Oh, yeah, the baby. Congrats on
that. I don’t think I said that yet,” Evan said, extending his hand
across the table to Gray.

“
What are your
thoughts on kids Evan?” my dad
asked.

I almost choked on my water, nearly
falling out of my chair.

“
Dad, are you joking me?” I said,
half losing it. My face grew warm with embarrassment. Evan didn’t
seem to be as affected about it as me.

“
That’s not anything I think we
considered or will consider,” he said flatly.

I gave him a weird look at his
response.

“
You don’t want
any kids?” my dad
asked.

“
It’s not that. Just not something
I want to think about any time soon I guess you would say. It’s
complicated.” He shrugged it off.

I knew this meant that being who
Evan was, having a child was not something he wanted to do for some
sort of reason. I had never discussed children with him because I
was young and it wasn’t anything I wanted now, and I wasn’t even
sure ever. I figured, to Evan, it meant another person who had a
life that they were forced into. Or that he was afraid that he
would have to kill his own child one day. Each idea was
disturbing.

“
Well, I guess that isn’t a bad
thing. Right now Eve is young,” my dad agreed, looking at Evan with
a bit of confusion. He let it go and we all finished eating then
said our goodbyes, going home.

“
I can’t believe you are sending
us to Jamaica,” I said, taking the throw pillows off the
bed.

Evan helped me, tossing them
playfully at my head.

“
I thought it would be good,” he
said, getting in bed.

“
I don’t know how I feel about
leaving you for four nights and five days, but yeah it should be
nice.”

“
Don’t talk like that. I don’t
like when you say stuff like that,” he said, a sudden irritation
setting into him.

“
What do you mean?” I
asked.

“
You’re not leaving me. You are
coming back, so stop talking like we won’t see each other again.”
He pulled me closer and we kissed.

“
I know it will be the first time
in a long time I was away from you this long. It’s going to feel
strange,” I said, touching his face to get him to look at
me.

“
It will be fine. No other reason
would make me want to be away other than your family,” he said,
kissing my lips, looking at me funny.

“
I just get a little freaked
before I have to get on a plane,” I said. “It always gives you a
little anxiety.”

“
I don’t know why you think like
that, but it’s disturbing,” he said, sighing a loud, overly
dramatic sigh.

“
That’s just me, I guess,” I said,
not thinking twice.

I rested my head on his
chest, closing my eyes. Tomorrow would come so quickly, and then I
would be away from him. I didn’t know what to expect. I was
grateful to get the time with Gray and my dad,
and maybe even my sister.

Morning rolled in like a swift
train, it jostled me awake with bright light shooting in from the
windows. I yawned, looking over at the clock to see that I still
had an hour of sleep before the alarm would even go off.

It was five in the morning; I
couldn’t believe I was up. I rolled over to face Evan, kissing his
cheek, admiring his handsome face as he slept peacefully. He woke
up rather quickly, practically attacking me. This was a great way
for him to say goodbye, I thought to myself as we made our way out
of the bedroom finally.

“
You got all your stuff packed?”
Evan asked me, picking up my two duffel bags.

“
I think so,” I said.

My stomach was not feeling well at
all, and I knew it was nerves. That’s how it always went when I was
nervous. I swore I should have had an ulcer by now.

“
Well, let’s hit the road. Your
dad and Gray are going to meet us at the airport,” he said so
chirpy it was almost as if he was happy I had to leave.

I shrugged it off thinking it was
more the intimacy that we’d just engaged in, not that I was
leaving. Sometimes I wondered if I was nuts.

I stared out the window as we sped
down the highway to the airport. Evan kept his hand on my leg as he
drove, a small smile on his face. We didn’t say much. I think we
were just enjoying the last few minutes together.

“
You will be fine, you will have
fun and I’ll be here waiting for you when your plane lands in less
than a week,” he said, slapping my leg as if I was an old school
pal.

I punched him in the arm. “Come
on, say you’re going to miss me or something. You make it seem so
simple.”

“
That’s because it is. It’s a few
days, and we have the rest of our lives to be together,” he said,
coming to a stop in the airport parking lot.

“
You know, you really should watch
what you say, because certain things that come out of your mouth
shouldn’t be,” I said, getting out of the truck.

“
How is that offending you?” he
said, amused by my sensitivity.

“
Because think about it, Evan,” I
said, heading toward the airport doors.

“
Okay, I’m thinking, and I don’t
get it,” he said, both bags strung over his shoulder.

“
Never mind. I don’t see them yet.
Let’s just sit down,” I said, feeling weird and moody.

“
You’re not looking too happy,” he
said, sitting next to me.

“
Nerves,” I said, short and sweet,
looking at the tons of people walking by us.

“
It’s all in your head. Cheer up
and have fun or this will be the last time I send you anywhere. And
I know you don’t think it bothers me you’re leaving, but I will
miss you,” he said, poking my arm, trying to get some sort of smile
from me.

It wasn’t working.

I had this overwhelming fear this
wasn’t right. That something was wrong. Like I shouldn’t be going
anywhere without Evan there with me. I looked at Evan feeling more
nervous; he didn’t seem to catch on.

“
I don’t know if this is a good
idea,” I finally said.

“
What are you talking about?” he
questioned, looking through the crowd for my dad and
Gray.

“
I think it’s a bad idea,” I said,
ready to pass out.

“
Eve, relax!” he
exclaimed.

“
I don’t know, it’s just all
feeling odd,” I said. I couldn’t shake the feeling.

“
It’s probably odd because you
don’t have the whole family with you. It’s a big deal. You’re going
back to a place you last went to with your whole family, and you’re
coming back there with only part of them,” he assured
me.

My dad
and Gray seem to appear out of the huge mess of people, they
both looked rather amped. My dad
had on a
tropical shirt looking rather cheesy, like I already figured he
would look. He shook Evan’s hand, patting him on the back, then
embraced me.

“
Are we ready to do this?” he
asked me with a big smile.

Gray and Evan said their hello and
Evan sighed before he lifted me off the ground in one of the
tightest hugs I had felt from him yet. He kissed my cheek
repeatedly, and then put me down.

“
I love you,” he said, touching my
chin.

I was taken aback because that
wasn’t something either one of us had said before. “If I didn’t, I
wouldn’t be letting you go right now,” he said with a
smile.

“
I love you too,” I said, waving
goodbye to him.

Chapter 36

Silence is simple

“
Have you ever cliff dived?” my
brother asked me from across the aisle.

I was sitting next to no
one, Gray and my dad
together. The
airplane was filled up besides the seat next to me. I was starting
believe that was where my mother
would
have been.

“
No, I never tried it before,” I
said, pulling my sunglasses down so I could catch some
sleep.

I looked out my window rather
quickly, we weren’t off the ground yet but I still hated looking
out those tiny windows.

“
We should definitely try it, and
scuba diving,” Gray said all excited.

I nodded, smiling as they went on
chatting it up about how great the trip was going to be. All thanks
to Evan, I thought. I missed him already, and I missed him even
more now that he said he loved me. I knew he cared, but he was
finally ready to use those words and that meant a great deal. I
felt I loved him for some time, was just afraid to say it too soon.
I sighed, thinking about his face and his crooked grin, his amazing
eyes. His laidback nature, it was funny how fast you could miss
someone.

I decided to use the airplane
phone to call Ari; I knew she had a way to make me feel better. The
plane rumbled as we lifted off the ground, I wasn’t even sure if I
could be on the phone in flight, but I had to talk to
her.

I dialed Ari turning away from
Gray and my dad.

“
Hello?” Ari asked, her voice
sounding a little confused.

“
It’s me, hey,” I said, feeling
better already.

“
Eve?” she asked.

“
Yes, it’s me,” I said
again.

“
Where are you?” she
asked.

I was starting to get annoyed.
“I’m on the plane heading to Jamaica, remember? We told you I was
going with Gray and my dad?”

“
I totally forgot.
Eve?”

I looked at the phone thinking it
was not working. “I’m here. What?”

“
I’m just totally confused right
now. I don’t understand at all,” she said, her voice getting lower
and lower until I couldn’t make out much of what she
saying.

Maybe it was reception, I
thought.

“
Ari, what do you mean confused?”
I asked her. There was a long silence.

“
I…don’t…you….what…happens…
Eve…Please….sometimes…never….”

Bits and pieces came through the
phone. I tried to make sense of it, but got nothing. The phone was
dead; clearly, we were not in the right spot to be using phones
anymore.

“
No phones,
Eve,” my dad
said, putting a pillow behind
his head.

I barely looked at him, nodding,
setting the phone back. My heart was racing, trying to decipher
what Ari meant. I couldn’t figure out why she said she was
confused. This wasn’t making me feel any better, like I had planned
it.

I laid back and finally dozed
off.

When I awakened, things were the
same, Gray and my dad were asleep, and everything was
quiet.

“
Excuse me?” I said loudly to gain
the flight attendants attention.

The attendant looked at me with a
big smile, her red hair pulled tightly in a side bun.

“
Yeah?”

“
Can I use the phone?” I
asked.

She nodded. I grabbed the phone in
a flash, dialing Evan this time.

“
Hello?” he asked.

“
Evan!” I said, almost in
tears.

“
What’s wrong?”

“
I don’t know. I
just still feel really strange. I called Ari and I couldn’t really
hear what she said, but she freaked me out even more. She told me
she was confused,” I told him, looking at my Dad
as he slept.

“
Uh, I don’t know. If you heard
bits and pieces, maybe it was nothing. You know how Ari is. You
shouldn’t be on the phone, just relax. And remember,” he
said.

“
Remember what?”

“
Remember that you are everything
to me, and I meant what I said, I love you,” he said, sighing into
the phone.

“
I know you do, it’s not that.
It’s just, I feel so weird.” I twirled a piece of hair around my
finger in angst.

“
I want you to know. I hope you
do,” he said, sounding a bit off.

“
Evan, why do you sound so sad?
Were you lying to me when you said me leaving was no big deal?” I
asked. Now I was the one trying to make him laugh.

“
Stop it. I said don’t talk like
that. I got to go. I love you.” He hung up the phone in a
flash.

Now things were feeling even
weirder.

I took a deep breath trying to
will myself to believe that your thoughts weren’t always right. But
I truly believed intuition at that very moment. Everyone else on
the plane seemed to be content and fine, sleeping or reading. Some
of them were watching the movie.