“It’s not white anymore,” he says. “You wanted your house pink. So Kendra helped me.”
“Thank you, Evan,” I murmur.
He holds it out to me, and as I take it, I glance behind him at my aunt. Her stare isn’t nearly as hard as I’d expected. Even she has to know how much this hurts me. Even she could appreciate that.
“Please come with me?” Evan whispers. I press my lips together to stop the quivering.
“I can’t,” I say, tilting my head. Not ever.
“Why?” His small voice shakes.
“I have some things to do.”
“But I want to stay with you.”
I brush his blond hair back from his brow. I love him so much. I love him so much this pain might kill me. “Aunt Kathy needs you to stay with her,” I say. “She’s a lonely old woman. She doesn’t have any of her own kids to love her.” Kathy straightens in the background, but I won’t regret my cruelty.
“But I want you,” Evan says, and his breaths are coming out in short spurts.
“I’ll come and see you.”
“Who’s going to make my dogs ’n’ cheese?” And Evan begins to cry, covering his face.
So I break. I break all in pieces right here.
I always promised myself that I would never do that in front of him. But I give in to the desperation, the misery, the grief. I fall to my knees and grab him, holding him to me as I sob. I cry so hard that I begin hyperventilating. I bury my face in his jacket.
I can’t let him go. I will die. I will die of this broken heart.
“Savannah,” my aunt’s voice calls softly.
But I don’t look up. I want to take Evan and run. He belongs with me.
Kathy says my name again.
It takes everything I have left to pull back, my face swollen with tears. I take his hands from over his face. When he looks at me, his bottom lip juts out. He wipes the tears off my cheeks.
“Please don’t cry, Savannah,” he says as he hitches in a breath. “You don’t cry.”
I laugh, wiping under my nose. “You’re right. I’m a tough bitch, huh?” He nods, but he’s miserable. “Now stop making me all sappy,” I tell him.
He uses both hands to clear my cheeks, erase my tears. “There,” he says.
“Thank you,” I whisper, knowing that I’ll cry again the minute he’s gone.
“We should go,” Aunt Kathy says to him, glancing at me.
“I’ll see you soon,” I say to Evan, holding him by the shoulder. Before he can leave, I bend down. “Can I have another hug?” I ask desperately.
Without hesitation he leaps at me and squeezes me tight. It hurts my bruised chest, but I don’t care. I close my eyes trying to memorize what he feels like. Come tomorrow, I’ll wake up with him gone, knowing that he’s no longer my responsibility. Knowing that he doesn’t belong to me anymore.
“I love you,” I whisper into his hair.
“I love you, too.”
Holding him back, I look him over one more time and then turn to Kathy. “Can I see him tomorrow?” I ask.
She chews on her lip. “Why don’t you call and we’ll see?”
