“He’s not coming here, is he?” Shep asked. The bedsprings creaked, and Simon imagined he’d just stood up from where he’d been sitting on the bed. “Simon’s not telling him where Evie is?”
There was a rush of footsteps toward the door. Frightened, Simon plastered himself against the wall. What would happen if he was discovered? The urgency in Shep’s voice wasn’t anything like he’d heard before, and he had no idea what to expect. It wasn’t like he could call Harlow back and tell him that the coordinates were fake, or that the voicemail he’d just left was an act. Simon had done what was responsible, but doing what was right had never earned Shep’s favor before. When Shep found out, would there be a fight? A yelling match? Silent, unforgiving brooding that would color his opinion of Simon for the rest of his life?
But Shep never made it to the door.
“Hey.” Shep grunted. “Jayne, what are you doing?”
“Keeping you in the room,” Jayne replied.
Simon blinked in surprise. Was Jayne really being proactive about the situation? Most times, Jayne wanted nothing to do with the more difficult aspects of teen-rearing.
“But Simon’s out there talking to Evie’s dad,” Shep stressed. “If he comes, he’s going to force Evie to leave. He’s going to drag her out of here and force her to go back to Hollywood, and that’s not where she wants to be anymore. He won’t care that she’s done with dealing with all that bullshit… he’ll make her go back, and she’ll never be happy again.”
“Okay, first of all, that’s a pretty sweeping assumption.” By the sound of it, Jayne stood near the doorway, likely blocking it. Simon breathed in a sigh of relief. “You and Simon both are pretty terrible about that. You know what they say about assumptions.”
Shep groaned.
“Right, so youdoknow.” Jayne’s voice, as usual, bordered on smugly victorious. “So I don’t have to say it. First of all, Evie, have you spoken to your dad about what you feel?”
There was a moment’s pause before Evie spoke. “Even if I had, he wouldn’t have listened.”
“Okay, and how do you know that?”
“He’s just…” Evie sighed. “He’s just not the kind of guy who understands me, you know? It’s not like he’s a bad dad—I love him so much for everything he’s done for me—but…”
“But?” Jayne pressed.
“But the things he does, he does out of fear. Not all the time, but often enough that I know he doesn’t always have my best interests at heart. For him, it’s… it’s like if it’s not safe, then it’s not worth investigating, even if it’s doable. If I approached him about retiring from Hollywood, I know he’d go on this huge rant about how I’ll never have a normal life—how I can’t just undo my fame or make people stop recognizing me on the streets. He’d tell me that we should stick where we are, because he knows how to keep me safe there, even though the whole reason I want to leave in the first place is because everyone I know is so fake. Everything there is so fake. And I just want… I want somethingreal.”
The back of Simon’s head gently met the wall. He closed his eyes and listened to what Evie had to say. The pain in her voice was genuine—it bore the same, mournful notes that resonated in Simon’s soul when he considered his own position in life. He knew all too well what it felt like to be stuck somewhere his heart didn’t want to be.
“But you haven’t tried to talk to him,” Jayne stressed. “So you’re not sure if he’d be inclined to listen to you or not.”
“Jayne, Evie knows her dad, and she knows what he’d do if she talked to him.” Shep sounded more confrontational than ever. “Stop making her feel worse. All you’re doing is making this harder than it has to be. She ran away for a reason, okay?”
If Simon had been in her shoes, would he have done the same? If he wasn’t bound by a sense of obligation to his brother, would he have already left?
Probably.
Guilt rose like bile inside of him, coating his tongue with its bitterness while it scorched his throat. The sickening, pulsing waves of it overwhelmed him. As head over heels as he was about Harlow, he understood Evie’s plight. Even if she was wrong, and Harlow would have listened, her feelings were valid. To feel trapped, helpless, bound by unsavory obligation… Simon understood her need to run. In her, he saw a reflection of himself. How could he make it better?
“She may have run away for a reason, but the fact remains that she’s still sixteen.” Jayne stood firm by his belief. “Her dad is still her dad, and until she’s a legal adult, he’s responsible for her care. I’m sorry, Shep, but the only way she’s going to get out of this is if she talks it through with him.”
“Jayne!” Shep argued. “That’s not—”
“Theonlyway,” Jayne continued, cutting Shep off. “But just because it’s the only way doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s without options. Evie?”
“Yeah?” Evie asked miserably.
“Youdohave options. Like it or not, you’re going to have to talk to your dad, but what you say is up to you. If you want to plead your case, then you’ve got us here to support you while you do it. If you don’t want to say anything, that’s your choice, too. But here’s the thing—if you feel like you’re independent enough to run away, then you’re independent enough to stand up to your dad, too, right? Because on your own, you’re going to have to confront guys just as big and strong who aren’t going to have any motive to respect you in the slightest, apart from simple human decency, and you’re going to have to be one hell of a strong individual to do it. Ask me how I know.”
Silence.
“You can be strong,” Jayne continued, his voice gentler than it had been before. “You can be your own person. You can stand up for what you feel is right for you. But running away? That’s only going to fix things temporarily. And one day, those problems that you ran from are going to catch up to you, and they’re going to have gotten bigger and stronger from the chase.”
The advice wasn’t meant for him, but it sank through Simon as an unwelcome truth all the same.
“You don’t know my dad,” Evie mumbled. “You don’t know what it’s like…”
