EVOL

by Cynthia A. Rodriguez

  When I glance at Efrain, he’s quietly driving.

  “Did you hear me?” he asks after a beat.

  “Sorry, no. I just remembered something.” I tuck my phone into my purse and face him as much as the seatbelt allows.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  I mentally go over the day’s plans.

  “I have work and then I’m supposed to have dinner with my . . . family.”

  Efrain’s face shows no reaction.

  And that, the difference there, is like a glaring light.

  Gavin would’ve known how ridiculous that word sounds coming out of my mouth. And while I’m sure if Efrain knew all there is to know about my sordid past, he’d have some sort of similar reaction, it doesn’t change how I feel.

  Because he doesn’t. And I can’t make him learn me at a fast enough pace to genuinely offer comfort. It’s unfair that it all comes down to timing.

  If I’d met Efrain before Gavin, this would likely be going so differently.

  And if Gavin had met me years prior or maybe after he got back from Pakistan . . .

  Still, I wasn’t going to focus on the things I couldn’t change anymore.

  Because at the end of the day, I was still sitting in a car with one man while in a constant battle over being in love with another man.

  Efrain hums his response and I rub my hands over my denim covered thighs.

  “How’re you feeling about everything?”

  The words fly from my lips before I can give them too much thought.

  “What? Your ex being back?”

  When he glances at me, I nod.

  “I think the more important question is how are you feeling.”

  Silence. The damn silence between us and the damn lights that only show every other emotion in my eyes.

  It’s impossible to shrug off.

  “I’m not sure,” I say, honestly. “Angry.”

  He chuckles.

  “Understandable. Anything else?”

  “Confused.”

  He taps his thumbs on the steering wheel, quiet, eyes on the road.

  I worry when he doesn’t say anything, picking at the thread on the holes at my knees.

  “I figured.” He pulls over in a fast food parking lot. There’s so much tension as he does so, his actions tight and measured.

  The irrational part of me wonders if he’s going to kill me.

  Where would he hide my body, I think as I look around.

  He unbuckles his seatbelt and faces me.

  “Denise, I’m not him. So, I’m not going to try to pretend I have any control or assume that you are going to choose me or even have to.”

  I stare at him and I guess he takes that as encouragement to continue.

  “I assume there’s a ton of history there and you’ve been through real shit with him. I’ve only ever wanted a chance. That’s it. I don’t want to be another stressful thing in your life. I just want a chance to make you happier than he did.”

  This is fucked.

  Because it sounds so beautiful.

  What do you do when you hear all the right things coming from the wrong mouth?

  Tell the truth, for once.

  I take a deep breath and sit back in the passenger seat.

  “I still love him,” I whisper, looking down at my hands. “It’s so stupid, but I do.”

  With every broken part of me.

  When I saw Gavin, I wanted to be angry. I wanted to shut him away and protect myself.

  Because when you love big, you never fully come back from it.

  Efrain could say whatever he’d like about Gavin reappearing in my life because Efrain didn’t know what that was like.

  Big love makes big mistakes and comes back even bigger.

  Gavin knew me well enough to know a simple apology wouldn’t suffice. He’d have to show me he was willing to work.

  He’d have to show me. Himself, his heart, his fear, his sadness.

  And maybe Efrain would find someone to bring these ideas out of him. Someone worth risking your own pride over.

  Or maybe he’d only ever know a peaceful love.

  All I knew, for absolute certainty, was that his love wouldn’t be with me.

  Whether I got back with Gavin or not, Efrain and I were not something that would work.

  Efrain sighs.

  “I don’t think anything I say will make that go away.”

  I laugh and shake my head as tears fall.

  “Right.” He turns his car back on. “I’ll take you home, then.”

  As we make our way back to my apartment, I want to tell Efrain not to hate me. To suggest being friends.

  But nothing in my head would sound right out loud. It would all sound like a waste.

  He and I would never be friends. For different reasons than Gavin and me, for sure.

  But he’d attempted for a certain position in my life. To offer him less would be an insult to his pride.

  So, I mourn another loss in my life. Only, for the first time, this one is my choice.

  I forgave you,

  Long before you asked for it.

  Because even as I tried to let go,

  Love wouldn’t let me.

  Day 386 Post-Gavin

  When I get home, there’s a small red box waiting for me on my doormat.

  I grab it and unlock my door, slipping inside and setting it on the counter before calling Sabrina.

  “Hey, did you leave anything at my place for me?”

  “No. What is it?”

  I frown as I examine it.

  “A small red box. What if it has anthrax?”

  “Is that still a thing?” I can hear her doing something on the other end of the phone. “Peter is anthrax still a thing?”

  I roll my eyes when she tells me that Peter says it’s no longer a “thing.”

  “Open it. Tell me what it is.” She’s munching on something in my ear and I put the phone on speaker, so the sound doesn’t bother me as much.

  I grab the box and lift the lid. What I see makes me gasp.

  “What?” she whines. “Tell me!”

  “It’s a watch.” A beautiful watch with a colorful face that looks like a painting and hands with hearts on them.

  I grab the note tucked on top of the box.

  Denise,

  So you can keep track of the time.

  Gavin

  Sabrina screams and it fills my entire apartment.

  “Call him. Right fucking now.”

  She hangs up the phone before I can tell her that I wouldn’t even know what to say to him. Which seems odd, considering we’ve been talking for hours every night.

  Still . . .

  I was still wrapping my mind around the idea that he was back and that he was regretful, after us being apart for so long.

  But . . .

  That was the thing about heartbreak. One person always felt it more when it happened.

  Time always caught up to us, whether we faced it or not.

  What I’d already felt and gone through, Gavin was just experiencing.

  Because, I learned, men tend to put matters of the heart on the backburner.

  Until the past caught up to them and lit their asses on fire.

  The heart will always get what it’s due. Whether you’re a willing tither or it has to come ’round like a debt collector.

  No one can ignore what is meant to be felt.

  Not even me.

  I message Gavin.

  Me: Thank you for the watch. I love it.

  I sit down on my stool and stare at it, knowing I’d never gotten a lovelier gift from anyone else.

  My phone chimes with an incoming text.

  Gavin: I hoped you would.

  What’s a woman to do when fate comes back around for the second time?

  I’d unconsciously spent our days apart leaving breadcrumbs in my wake, hoping that one day, he’d find his way back to me.

  Gavin: May I call you?


  My fingers rub over my bottom lip as I smile.

  Me: Of course.

  He’d found his way back to me.

  The phone hardly rings when I answer.

  “Come over,” I tell him.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I say, a little breathless.

  “Don’t freak out, but I’m already here.” He lets out a chuckle. “I had to make sure you got it.”

  I barely hear the rest of it, dropping my phone and flinging my front door open. When I see him at the end of the hall, I rush to him and jump. His arms are around me and his hands keep me against him as he kisses me.

  “God, I’ve missed you,” I whisper as we break away and he walks us inside.

  “Not more than I’ve missed you, love.”

  We try so hard to get our clothes off and under each other’s skin without having to let go of one another.

  I haven’t been touched by him in so long, it feels like the ashes of who I was are somehow kindling with fire again. I feel everything.

  I’m not numb for him. I could never be.

  What happens after this? The inner voice makes me pause and look in his eyes. Those beautiful brown eyes stare back at me with so much sincerity.

  “Tell me you forgive me. Tell me you still want me.”

  His words make me hold him closer to my body, until I feel like I’m crushing him.

  I let my worries go as he licks the skin at my neck.

  “I’m sorry.” Wet kisses filled with remorse climb up toward my jaw until he’s looking in my eyes. “I was such a scared piece of shit. I didn’t deserve you and I still don’t.”

  He presses his forehead into my chest and moves it from side to side.

  “I forgive you,” I tell him, lifting his face with my hands. Those magnetic brown eyes look back at me with so much grief, so much sadness that I close mine for a moment. When I open them, his jaw is set, his mouth, a line.

  “I love you. I loved you even when it was hard. I was just—”

  I press my forgiving lips to his confessing ones.

  “Make it unforgettable,” I whisper, a smile on my face. He glances up at me with a grin.

  “Challenge accepted.” He sets me down on the couch and starts peeling my clothes off, layer by layer.

  “You’re like, God’s gift to my body. You treat it too well.”

  His hand drops to my bare breast and he runs his thumb over my nipple. My breath catches in my throat and I run my teeth over my bottom lip.

  “It’s a beautiful body.”

  I look down and the contrast between his honey skin and my milky complexion dotted with freckles makes me smile. We’re so different but inside, we’re made of the same things. Not just scientifically . . . flesh and bones. I think that the essence of him, our spirits, they’re the same shade of beautiful.

  Gavin looks at me like I’m everything he’s been looking for; with eyes wide open and unflinching. He looks at me when I hurt, when I’m sad, when I don’t feel beautiful and those eyes are the antidote. How many people can fix you with just a glance?

  I’ve yet to meet another who can.

  He looks at how fucked-up I am and it’s almost like he knows it can get worse.

  But tonight, he looks at me like he’ll never leave again.

  EPILOGUE

  I took the hurt,

  And grew something beautiful from it.

  I am my own magician now.

  Day 650 Post-Gavin

  “I love you,” Gavin whispers in my ear.

  “I know you do,” I tell him, my champagne flute in my right hand, my left hand in his.

  “I’m so proud of you.”

  “I know that too.” I turn and press a kiss to the side of his face, just above his beard. “You beautiful man.”

  Somewhere in the crowd, I hear Sabrina trying to get everyone’s attention.

  “Shut the hell up!” Pregnant Sabrina is a lot less tactful. Second child in, and I’m still not used to it.

  Gavin’s arm snakes around my stomach and pulls me to stand in front of him.

  “Listen to the woman,” he announces, and everyone turns to face us. When Sabrina blows him a kiss, he tilts his champagne glass toward her.

  “Thank you, Gavin.” She clears her throat. “As you all know, my brilliant and beautiful sister has us all here to celebrate her new book, EVOL.”

  Peter, her newly minted fiancé, holds up a copy. Its cover makes me feel weepy every time I see it. My hand in Gavin’s. The world deserved to have at least a peek of the beauty behind the words.

  I glance up at him, loving seeing him in a suit and his beard freshly trimmed.

  “And I’d just like to say . . .” I turn back in time to see her lip tremble and Peter puts his arm around her. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”

  She sniffs and blinks a few times before trying again.

  “You all had better get a copy! To Denise.”

  Everyone holds their glasses up, Draya winking at me from across the room while Paige and Paula pause their shop talk to lift their champagne flutes.

  “To Denise,” everyone repeats.

  I laugh tearfully as Gavin kisses the top of my head.

  “Tell me something no one else in the world knows,” he whispers in my ear after sipping from his glass.

  I turn to face him and press a kiss to his lips.

  “You first.”

  He looks at the ceiling, his lips slightly parted and his tongue poking through, like he’s trying to figure out what would be best to share.

  He beckons me closer with his index finger.

  “I want you to be my wife,” he says into my ear, quiet enough so only I can hear it.

  I push my face into his chest and think to myself, nothing can beat this. Nothing at all.

  “I’d like that one day,” I tell him and turn to look over at my sister, who’s speaking rather animatedly to one of the caterer’s servers. Someone gasps behind me and it pulls my attention.

  To Gavin, on one knee.

  All of the breath leaves my body.

  “You’re the one, Denise,” he tells me, his voice determined, his eyes on mine.

  I let his words sink into my soul, where I promise to never forget them.

  I crouch down to wrap him in my arms and kiss him.

  “I haven’t finished,” he tells me with a laugh once I’ve stopped peppering his face with love.

  “I certainly hope not,” I say as he slips the ring on my finger. Hands on my shoulders make me look up.

  “He got my permission and everything,” Sabrina exclaims with a sob. Her little belly is at eye level and I feel such an overwhelming amount of gratitude and happiness.

  People used to tell me that everything happens for a reason in order to push me out of my grief.

  And until this very moment, I never took it to heart.

  But looking around at my life in this very moment, even on my knees, I finally believe.

  I am happy.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  If you know me well enough, you’ll know how hard this book was to write. How many tears were produced, how many times I had to go back and change things, how anxious I was at the thought of sharing this very familiar story with the world.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve published anything. I told myself that in 2018, I would not only reclaim myself, but I would go back to my first love, balls to the wall. I’d like to think I accomplished that here.

  Thank you to Jill. Girl. THANK YOU. I could go into detail about voice messages and times I wanted to just give up, only to hear that what I was sending you was great. I could mention you being the most supportive person when it came to this project and loving it as if it were your own story. But I’ll leave it at this: Get yourself a Jill.

  Thank you to Becca. You were the first person to make me feel like I could really do this. You’ll never know how much that meant to me.

  Thank you to Julia. You’re so sweet and support
ive and I look forward to working together again on my future works! Kiss the Deutschland soil for me! I’ll be back some day.

  Thank you to my mother and my sisters. While Sabrina was more my inner voice, the three of you lent to her character in ways you couldn’t imagine.

  Thank you to Sofie and Hart & Bailey Design Co. for this beautiful cover! It made me push harder to write something as extraordinarily beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside.

  Thank you to my Michelle. Booth Bitch, Friend, and Phenomenal Woman. I am lucky to know you and happy to love you.

  Marla at Proofing Style, thank you for being a true MVP and coming through in the fourth quarter . . . or whatever the hell because ya’ll know I don’t watch sports. Thank you for working with my schedule, you angel. We have to thank the universe for looking out, too!

  Thank you to Elaine at Allusion Graphics for the gorgeous work inside the novel. Your timely responses and professionalism are beyond in this indie world.

  Thank you to my readers and Sayers. Both my new ones and the ones who’ve been here since the beginning (ya’ll like that cameo? BLUE FOREVER). But, for those who aren’t part of the original crew and don’t know my Marvel love, I always end all of my novels with a bonus scene after the credits, much like my beloved Stan Lee. Continue forth and enjoy!

  I thank God that I am this healing woman. And that I found the strength to bring this story to light. Every day isn’t easy, but it’s a chance to make a change toward peace.

  Lastly, to the music. It can set you free.

  I never needed saving.

  I just needed to remember

  Where I last hung my cape.

  Day 932 Post-Gavin

  “Are you ready for this?” Sabrina yells at me.

  It smells God-awful in here and I’m sure my twisted expression reflects that. Still, it’s easy to answer that question.

  “Of course, asshole.”

  My niece, Penelope, grabs my hand and squeezes my fingers together. I smile at her brunette little head, loving that she looks a hell of a lot like my mother.

  There was no way Sabrina could escape that fate.