I squeeze his shoulder and he trails off. “Thank you, but I can take it from here.”
I get out of the car, and when I get closer, I see Evan’s got his hand on something. Closer still, I recognize it as his dad’s blue toolbox. We used to play in it as kids. Used to watch his dad fixing things around the house and pretend to be him. His dad let him draw on it with crayons. A sharpie.
I crouch down beside him. If he’s crying, he’s doing it quietly.
“Ev?”
His shoulders shake a little. I put my hand between his shoulder-blades and spread my fingers. He’s cold.
“How long have you been out here?”
He doesn’t answer.
I press my forehead to the side of his head and hear him sniffle while I rub his back. “I’m here.”
He starts crying, his shoulders shaking. The sound destroys me. I would do anything to never hear Evan cry again. Anything to take his pain away.
When he pulls his arm away, his face is covered in tears, his eyes red and his cheeks blotchy.
His voice is raw when he says, “I miss my dad.”
It’s like a gut punch. I can hear the pure emotion in it. The pain.
“I know. I miss him, too.” My stomach swoops uncomfortably. I’ve been pushing out how much I miss Joe, the grief I haven’t felt the right to feel. But seeing Evan curled up and in pain like that, I realize more than ever that I understand. Years may have passed, but we’re still connected by so many things. There were threads between us that were always going to be impossible to break.
He looks at me. At first, it’s like he can’t see me. Like he’s lost in his own world of grief. But then his eyes focus and he sees me, really sees me.
“I know you do. I’m sorry, Nate.”
He rests his head against mine and I put my arms around him, letting him cry. Soothing him as best I can.
“I was a coward.”
“What? No, you weren’t.”
He nods. “I was scared to see him like that in the end, I stayed away. He probably thought I didn’t care.”
“No way. Your dad knew how much youloved him.”
He sniffles and wipes his face with the back of a grimy arm.
“I never said goodbye, you know?” He looks at me with such pain in his eyes, every instinct tells me to look away, but I force myself to hold his gaze. “I knew he was dying, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“He understood, Ev.”
“I know. That makes it worse. I should have said goodbye. I wish.…”
He trails off. I rub his back.
“I should have said goodbye to my dad.”
I don’t even know what to say to that. I don’t think there’s anything Icansay that would make the slightest bit of difference. So I just say what I do know.
“I’m not gonna tell you it’ll get better, because I don’t know that. But I am here. And so is your mom, and Stacie, and your dad was loved, and that’s all that matters.”
He puts his forehead on mine and I keep looking in his eyes while I wipe his tears away with my thumb.
I hear a car pull up. Evan must hear it too, but he doesn’t move, so neither do I.
