“Of her,” she throws back.
“Of the pain. Surviving it actually.”
She flops over onto her back, dropping her arm over her forehead.
“C’mon, Ever? What is this? I thought we talked to each other.” I’m sitting up now facing her and she’s pulling for the blanket to cover herself, sitting up too.What the fuck happened to my girl?I feel panicky. My fingers itch to rub my chest and the tattoo. I curl my fingers into a fist instead, not wanting to draw attention to it since it’s currently an issue.
“Okay, let’s talk. What does it mean that she’s back? That she’s not dead? You love me. But you love her, too, right? I mean you loved her up until she ‘died,’ right?” She uses quotes around the word died. “Well, she . . . undied. So, now what?” She throws the blanket off her and stalks to the foot of the bed where she grabs her clothes and yanks them on. My girl is looking for a reason. Any reason. How the fuck did she go from screaming my name to squaring up?
“Now nothing. I was lied to. By her dad. We both were.” I brush my fingers through my hair, swiping it off my forehead, only for it to tumble back down where it was. I stand up and retrieve my sweats, not bothering with my shirt. “We’ve moved on. We’re different people now. It’s too late.” We’re standing in the middle of our bedroom like it’s a face-off. I don’t know how to get her to take this down a notch. To talk to me. She’s ready to fight.
“But what if it’s not? She’s back. She’s here.”
“Not here. In South Point.”
“Technicality,” she half shouts.
“What are you doing, Ever? Trying to blow this up?”
“No,” she cries. “I don’t know. I . . . just need to think. I couldn’t do it at Lilly’s. I don’t want to go to Via’s and have to explain. I . . . I’m going to the apartment.”
“You’re what?”
She turns to take some things out of her dresser. Pajamas, underwear. She picks up her clothes she wore home and bundles them with her clean clothes—which is weird.
I blow a heated breath through puffed cheeks. I don’t know how to reach her. That she is here in front of me is only marginally better than her being gone and not being able to reach her. She might as well not be here for all I can get through to her. “Stop. Ever, please stop.”
But she doesn’t. She shoves the items in her arms into a small backpack and drops it on the floor to pull on some socks. Snatching it up again, she’s moving into the hall and walking toward the stairs, then the front door.
“Why won’t you just stop and talk to me? Help me understand.” I pull at my hair as I follow her. I clench my fists and shove them into my pockets. The urge to hit something, break something, sends adrenaline coursing through my veins. I know without a conscious thought there’s a speed bag session in my future. One of those things my therapist refers to as a healthy addiction. “God damn it, Ever, just fucking stop. I can’t lose you.” I press my fists to my eye sockets.
“Same, okay?” She spins and hurls at me. “This is why I don’t need people. So they don’t go away.” She’s clutching the backpack in a death grip.
I drop my hands as the dots start to connect. “I’m not going anywhere.” I close the gap between us and rub my palms up and down her biceps, but I don’t pull her into my embrace, as much as I want to.
“You can’t promise that. You can’t know that.” She drops her forehead to my chest, and the smell of her freshly washed hair floods my nose.
My sunshine girl.I wrap my arms around her now. “Okay, fair. But we’re here right now.” I rest my chin on her head and smile, relieved that this is what she’s spiraling about. It’s going to be okay. I inhale and exhale. Then I kiss the top of her sunshine-scented head, my dimples pinching my cheeks with the first genuine smile I’ve felt since before she left. My delight is short-lived.
“I can’t need you like this.” Her arms move from behind my back to my hips and she’s pushing me away.
I keep my grip for as long as I can before stepping back, dropping my hands.
She’s staring at my chin.
Why won’t she look at me?Nodding slowly, resolved, I say the only thing I can. “What can I do? Tell me what to do.”
“Let me go.” She’s looking at her hands, fidgeting with the strap of her backpack. Her knuckles are white, shaking. Tear after tear slips unchecked down her cheeks. Her body language tells me she doesn’t want this.
Dropping my chin to my chest, defeated, I shake my head side to side as if in slow motion, contradicting my words. “Okay.” I raise my eyes to her face the same time she raises hers to mine. “Okay, Ever.” I hold my hands out to my sides at my waist, palms up. “You win.”
On that, she takes a small step backwards, toward the door. One heel bumps her shoes in the entryway. She looks down at them and her sock-clad feet and bends to pick up the shoes. Then she’s turning toward the door.
I can’t feel my legs. Or my arms. Just a stabbing pain in my chest. Like something is pressing down on it, stealing my oxygen.
“I’ll . . . I’ll just be at the apartment. Okay?” She doesn’t face me when she says it. Her hand is on the door handle.
“Okay? Like I have a choice in this? Do I? Because I choose no. I choose that you stay here and talk to me.”
