by Len Webster
Evan must have taken it while he sat in the crowd with the rest of the students. Her chest tightened, and her lips formed a small smile. She couldn’t believe he still had this picture. Or that he had it displayed on his desk long after she had moved on.
Alex spun around, not wanting to discover what those aching sensations in her chest would do to her. Losing control of her emotions was not what she needed right now. She refused to look over at his bed. Afraid that the sight of where they had made love for the last time would break her.
When she reached the back of his closet, she bent down to the boxes where he stored his board games. She flipped the box flaps and pulled out several different games. She sighed, knowing she was terrible at every single one of them, and Evan would surely win. It was about her finally winning for once. And she knew he had no patience for a game like Monopoly. But as she searched through the box, she couldn’t find it. She moved over to the next book, opened it, and her brows furrowed at the sight.
It can’t be …
Reaching inside, she pulled out the magazine, and her heart came to a vicious stop when she flipped through the pages to find the article about her inside. The pictures didn’t lie. It was the current interview she had done at Duke. Alex couldn’t believe it. It must have been a one-off. But no one bought the University of Science magazine by accident. It was a magazine specifically ordered and not kept on the magazine stands. Alex reached back inside the box to find different newspapers that had mentioned her and articles about her representing Duke at the future scientist’s convention in her freshman year. There were so many of them. It appeared as if he hadn’t missed a single newspaper or magazine.
He supported her even when she wanted nothing to do with him. He continued to support her love of science. He appeared to encourage it and was proud of her since he kept them.
Tears welled.
And then fell.
Pain erupted in her chest.
Regret, misery, and longing soon followed, making it hard for her to breathe.
“Hey, what’s taking so—”
Evan’s voice had her lifting her chin up at him. “You … kept these?”
His lips parted as he got on his knees in front of her. “Yeah,” he whispered before he reached up and wiped her tears from her cheeks. “I kept them.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I wanted to support your dreams even though we weren’t speaking. I always believed there would be a time when we might be in each other’s lives again, and I wanted you to know that I have supported you every single day since I found you at Duke. I couldn’t get a subscription sent to Stanford, so I had your mother collect all the articles you were in.”
She shook her head in disbelief. Landon had always just glanced at the articles she was featured in. Sure, he had supported her by being there for some of her interviews, but he never kept any material about her the way Evan had. “Why would you do that?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Alexandra?”
“What is?”
Evan let out a breath of air as his thumb brushed away a lone tear. “I’m still in love with you.”
Oh, God.
Her lips parted, but words wouldn’t escape her.
Evan Gilmore was still in love with her.
For so long, it had been all she had wanted. But now his admission of love only left her with a heartbreak that had shown itself for the first time in over a year.
The same heartbreak he had inflicted on her on Christmas.
“Eight protons,” he whispered, leaning forward. His lips a breath away from hers. “Eight neutrons. I love you, AJ.”
AJ.
“I …” she breathed.
His lips pressed to hers.
He kissed her.
And this kiss …
It wasn’t like the one at Fenway.
It was deliberate.
It was Evan showing her that he loved her.
It felt so right that tears ran down her cheeks as she finally kissed him back.
This was what she had been truly missing.
Her soul mate.
Her best friend.
But as his tongue slipped past her lips and stroked hers, memories collided.
Painful memories.
Memories of him and Molly.
The moment he revealed to Landon that she had lost her virginity to him.
It was too much.
This kiss wasn’t enough.
Alex pulled away, clenching her eyes tight to stop the sob from escaping her.
“AJ,” Evan whispered.
She opened her eyes to the distraught in Evan’s. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. Alex raised her palms and pressed them to his jaw, watching his eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “I know you do, Evan. I felt it in your words and your kiss … but I’m still in love with Landon. I can’t give you my heart or my love when it’s his right now. There’s still too much pain between us. Please forgive me.”
Then she got to her feet and walked away.
It had been a long time since she walked away, but she had to in order to keep her promise to her father. If she stayed, she’d have fallen back in love with Evan, and she couldn’t do it one more time.
When Alex returned to her house, she said nothing to her parents as she made her way to her bedroom. She closed the door behind her and pressed her back to the door. The memory and feel of Evan’s love and kiss were on a repetitive loop in her mind. When her heart had finally calmed down, Alex walked over to her closet, picked up her small suitcase she had brought home from Duke, and set it on her bed.
Alex packed all her textbooks and clean clothes into her suitcase and zipped it up. She sat on her bed and stared at her phone. She wanted to change her mind. But she also wanted to leave. Go back to Duke and sort out the other mess she was in. She knew if she fixed one, she’d be able to fix the other. However, it was easier said than done since she didn’t know which mess to end and which to fix.
A knock on her door had her lifting her chin to find Evan stepping inside her room.
“Your mom let me in. I just wanted to see if you were okay,” he said as he glanced over at her suitcase.
She saw it in his eyes.
They both knew she was running.
“Are you flying or driving?” he asked once he looked back at her.
Alex’s fingers tightly curled around her phone. “Flying. I was just about to book my ticket back to North Carolina. I’ve been home for far too long. I have to go back.”
Evan’s shoulders fell, and he nodded. “Okay.”
“I had already planned to go back, Evan. What happened just before … I have to go back.”
“Then let me drive you back to Duke. One last time. You and me,” he begged.
She shook her head. “Evan …”
He closed the distance and got on his knees in front of her. He pried her phone from her hands and set it on the bed. Then Evan collected her hands with his, the desperation on his face was so heartbreaking. “Please, AJ. Please give me this. I had no right to kiss you, but I won’t apologize because it felt so right. It felt like I was coming home to you. I ruined so much of us, and I’m so sorry. For over a year, I’ve stayed away because I thought you were happy, but I can’t stay away anymore. I want to be in your life again in any way I can. So please, let me drive you back to Duke. No pit stops. I’ll drive straight there. A proper road trip without the storm.”
Alex let out a soft laugh at his reference to their last road trip together. But that laugh had been short as she pressed her lips into a tight line, pulling her hand free from his, and setting it on his cheek. Evan’s eyes widened at her touch.
“Okay,” she agreed in a small voice.
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “Okay. We’ll drive back to
Duke together.”
Evan grasped her wrist, pulled her hand from his cheek, and pressed a kiss in her palm before he whispered, “Thank you.”
It had been hard saying goodbye to her parents early this morning. Alex’s mother had whispered that everything would be okay before she said goodbye to Alex. As for her father, he reminded her that she had her credit cards and that anything she needed, she just had to use them. He also instructed her not to allow Landon to buy her back and that she deserved more than he had given her. She took his advice on board before she got into Evan’s car and he drove them in the direction of the city.
Ten minutes into the drive, Evan announced, “I have one pit stop I want to make.”
Alex glanced away from the windshield, Evan staring out at the road. “You promised no pit stops.”
He nodded. “I know, but I think we need this one.”
A few minutes later, Evan parked his BMW, and Alex peered out the window. She sighed at the sight, knowing that it could possibly be more painful than she had imagined. Alex had never imagined stepping foot back on the campus until she was a student. But Evan said they both needed to be here, and she trusted him. She got out of his car and then crossed the street. Alex quietly followed Evan into MIT and down the lawn until they were standing in the exact spot they had been over two years ago.
In front of her was the Great Dome.
MIT surrounded her.
Her heart raced, wanting and needing MIT to happen.
“This is AJ,” Evan said, causing her to turn her body to face him. “Your dreams of MIT are AJ.”
“Evan,” she murmured.
“You’re AJ. You’ve always been my AJ.” Evan reached behind his neck and pulled on a chain. Seconds later, she watched him remove her oxygen atom necklace from around his neck before he stepped forward. He didn’t take his eyes from her as he attached the necklace around her neck, returning it to her. “It only feels right that I give you back your dream here at MIT. I want to remind you that this is what’s next for you. I know I broke your heart when I didn’t come back for you and brought Molly home. I knew I couldn’t be with anyone but you, and I was just kidding myself. I thought about you every single day. I promised your father I would tell you before you went back to Duke. So I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why I broke your heart.”
It was the last unanswered question remaining.
Why did you choose Molly?
Why did you return to Stanford and never call me?
His chin dipped as shame consumed his brown eyes. “I chose Molly because she was dispensable.”
“Dispensable?” she asked in confusion.
He nodded. “See, I didn’t care if they ruined her image so long as yours was safe. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. That rape case ruined a lot of people. An innocent girl lost her belief in humanity when my teammate raped her. Players’ names were tarnished. Their girlfriends were hounded, and articles were written about how they loved and supported a rapist. That the whole team was full of rapists. Even when Erik was in jail, it didn’t stop. I was warned that it might happen by my coach, and he wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t do that to you, AJ. I couldn’t let them write more about you.
“You finally felt normal. You were having a normal college experience. They were going to take it away, and it would have been my fault. You had let your guard down for so long that when that waiter in Philly recognized you as Little Miss Red Sox, you were no longer comfortable in your own skin. I didn’t care what they wrote about me, but I didn’t want them to write all those things about you—not after that article about you and my brother. Instead, I let them write all those things about me and Molly. She understood what she was getting into. You were and are everything to me, and I couldn’t let them take away the normal life you worked so hard to have. The life and happiness you deserve to always have.”
Oh my God.
He did all of that for me.
He destroyed us to keep me safe.
He ruined me to let me keep my life as it was.
Anger fueled her. She couldn’t believe he had subjected them to so much torture to protect her. She didn’t care about her image. She couldn’t care less. And then it hit her. She would have sacrificed her image to support Evan. Alex had barely survived the last bad press, so she wasn’t sure her image could withstand a rape accusation.
“I did it out of love, even if you think I was selfish. I wanted to protect you. I didn’t care about my image or my spot on the team. I cared about protecting you. Just know that I loved you all that time. Not Molly. At Mr. Nebroski’s store … I was buying condoms to be with Molly. It would have been our first time together, but when I got home, I couldn’t do it. Being with Molly let me pretend and get lost, but seeing you was all I needed to know that I could never be with her. I could never be intimate with another woman after you. So I didn’t. I haven’t.”
Disbelief forced itself to lodge in her throat, making it hard for her to breathe. “You haven’t …?”
Evan shook his head. “I couldn’t. Seeing what I did to you, making you fall out of love with me … It’s the worst pain I have ever felt. A pain I deserve. When your mother told me you were happy, I knew I had hurt you for the last time. So I supported you from a distance. I hate that you’re lost, and maybe by giving you back your necklace, you’ll find a piece of yourself I’ve kept for so long.” He cradled her face in his palms, staring down at her. The swirl of desperation and need had her tensing. “For all my life, for the rest of my life, it’s you, AJ. Eight protons. Eight neutrons.”
I love you.
He told her he loved her, and she felt it. She believed it.
As she opened her mouth to speak, Evan grasped her hand and said, “Let’s get you to Duke.”
She felt right as Evan led her back toward his car. With her free hand, Alex reached up and pressed her fingertips to the cold silver necklace.
He didn’t allow her to respond to his love. To his truth. To his desire to let her live a normal life. But she didn’t know how.
All Alex knew was that for the first time in so long, her heart felt free.
The car was so full of silent tension it was almost suffocating. To relieve her anxiety, she read her notes from Mika over and over again as Evan drove. When she was finished, she lowered her phone to find that they were on an unfamiliar stretch of road.
She saw the sign that alerted her that they were heading toward Albany, New York.
“Evan?” she questioned with a layer of fear in her voice, unsure of what he was doing.
“Yeah, AJ?”
AJ.
She found it comforting that he continued to call her AJ. The only name she ever wanted him to call her by.
“Why are we going toward Albany? It’ll be faster if we go through Connecticut to get to Duke.”
He glanced over at her, and his lips made a fine line. “We’re going the long way back to Duke.”
The long way meant she had at least three more hours with Evan. And at least three more hours to sort out her undecided heart.
74 W
tungsten
AJ
Summer before sophomore year
Alex stared at her old best friend in shock.
She couldn’t believe he asked her not to chase after her boyfriend. She couldn’t believe that this was what it had all come down to.
Alex hadn’t been the one to walk away.
It had been Evan.
Enough time had passed where she could move on.
Months and not days.
As always, he wasn’t being fair to her.
“Please don’t,” Evan whispered.
She was offended that he even believed he had a right to ask her.
Alex straightened her spine and shook her head. “He’s my boyfriend. I’m going to stop hi
m.”
Evan’s chest heaved as if she had taken the air out of his lungs. “W-why?”
For a moment, she saw him at his most vulnerable. The fear in his eyes reminded her of the day his parents had left him and Kyle. Evan had been so scared, and he had been sure that they would come back. And like his parents, she wouldn’t be, and she needed Evan to understand she wasn’t coming back for him.
Not now.
Not ever again.
Because they had been done for over a year.
“Because he loves me,” she stated, knowing that for most people, it would be enough. But not for Evan. “Because I don’t have to hurt to love him. You had your chance, and you ruined not only it, but also us. Had you just told me you wanted to be with Molly, I’d have understood and still want you in my life. I’d find a way to live with just being your best friend. But now … I want a life without you, Evan. I want a life with Landon. I want nothing to do with you—especially after this. You knew he was behind me when you said all that. I can’t believe you would hurt me like this. After everything we’ve been through.”
“AJ …”
“No, Evan.” She built a wall around her heart and summoned her strength. “I moved on. Isn’t that what you wanted? You love her. Be with her. God, marry her. Have a future with her, but just stop hurting me. Why are you doing this? Why can’t you be happy for me? I don’t deserve this. After everything, I don’t. I was fair to you. I owned up to my mistakes, but you didn’t. All you had to do was tell me. All you had to say was that you found someone you really loved. That you confused missing me for loving me. You could have just told me the truth. That you never really felt more. I could have just been your best friend, but I can’t even be that anymore. I was fair to you when you were never fair to me. You couldn’t even let me be happy. Don’t I deserve that after having loved you for so many years?”
Refusing to watch him crumple, Alex spun around and made her way to her car. Once she yanked the door open, she slipped inside. She clipped her seat belt in place and started the ignition with a press of a button. Putting her car in reverse, she backed out of the driveway, pulled onto the road, and headed toward the airport.