“Funny.” He laughed harshly. Jack had a dark side that had taken me a while to see. The sad part was that he never took it out on anyone, never really showed it except when he referenced himself, or opened up a little to me.
I still didn’t know Jack’s secrets.
As close as we’d become, which is saying a lot since neither of us were exactly emotionally available, we still hadn’t discussed why we were relegated to Camp. He didn’t know about Phil, he didn’t even know about Gideon. And I didn’t know why Jack had been here so long or why he was still here.
Leila was useless.
“If you want to know so badly, just go ask Loverboy,” she’d taunt. I still didn’t even know why Leila was here.
We lived a very strange life. It was highly intimate in that we spent all of our time together, to the point of sleeping side by side, yet we were all very guarded when it came to our secrets and truths. But since we all were, it wasn’t strange. It was just the way people rolled at camp. We knew each other because we knew what mattered: the day to day, personalities, senses of humor (if we had them), the things that in the outside world are brushed aside as impersonal. Here, the big things that people placed so much importance upon out there didn’t define us.
Maybe they did. I still wasn’t sure.
Ask Greg.
Regardless, as strange as it sounds, Jack’s and my relationship was oddly traditional for a very non-traditional relationship.
Just the word relationship made me shudder but that’s what we had.
He ate most meals with me, and when we had free time we liked to escape and hang out, just Jack and Eve. I still didn’t take him to my tree, that was for Me time, but we’d slip off grounds occasionally and go to the meadow by the woods that Jack favored.
And every night, we slept side-by-side, holding hands.
At least when Jack was around.
TWENTY-FOUR
I intentionally took nothing from my room before I torched it. No mementos, no souvenirs, no sweet snapshots of myself with friends. I had nothing left that I wanted. The day that Gideon left and I realized I was truly alone, I knew that on some level, I always had been.
I blamed no one but myself.
I’d allowed it all.
I’d let the girls pick on me in their poorly veiled attempt to mask their envy. I’d let Gideon take care of me, be my rock, without ever allowing him to lean on me. I’d somehow grown into a good looking girl who’d set her stepfather off, allowing him into my room night after night. And I’d let my mother ignore everything, even after I’d exploded in jail and informed her of the truth. She didn’t seem to even hear me, only saw her life unraveling as Phil claimed he couldn’t stay with her when her daughter had done such embarrassing and life altering things to the life that they’d built together. Yeah. Ok.
All she saw was the daughter who had forced her to stay at the trailer park when she’d been “meant for greater and better things”, who’d single-handedly run off the best thing that had ever happened to her: Phil.
This was why I needed to break things off with Jack. He needed to work on himself, work on not becoming a lifer as Leila had called him, so affectionately. He needed to focus on Jack, not get dragged down by me.
And as it turned out, I needed to work on myself.
Greg was getting increasingly frustrated with me, especially as my 18th birthday was approaching. Maxing out was not a good thing when you were mandated to state care. Even if Irma and Richard had been accepting enough to stipulate that I could stay on as long as my term demanded, the reality was that you lost a lot of protection when you changed teams, from minor to major.
So, I cracked. My birthday was a month away, and although Jack and I were still going strong, he didn’t realize that I had already sort of made a decision. I sat down at my tree and cried. I actually cried. Shameful. Then I got my shit together and pulled out the stupid little journal Greg had given me in our first session, the one I’d vowed to never use, and wrote. I wrote and wrote and drew, for the first time in a long time, and wrote.
“Here,” I said. It was an offering but it came out as a command. It kind of was. Greg wanted me to open up? Fine. Take it all. It was growing heavy.
Greg accepted the journal and then excused me from our session even though I’d just walked in.
The next day, I walked into Greg’s office and all he said was, “That’s a start.” Huh? I’d poured out my heart, told him things that no one, possibly not even Gideon knew, and it was a start? I wanted to slap him.
Instead, I looked him square in the eye while narrowing mine, as I said, “Do you want your house burned down?” Uncalled for and totally inappropriate and immature, but I was pissed.
Then I got even more pissed because Greg just laughed.
“Eve, I’ve always known you were stubborn and a tough cookie. And some of what you wrote was already in your file.” It was? Of course. My one-sided shouting match with my mother when I was in jail. Stupid. “But I wanted you to tell me yourself. You need to be able to acknowledge your past, to talk about it, before you’ll ever be able to overcome it. So while yes, you wrote it down, and that’s a HUGE step in the right direction, you need to be able to talk about it. With me, or with someone else.” Hmm. Not gonna happen, buddy.
Then he made it worse.
“I’d hoped that your connection with Jack was the key, and I know it has led to a lot of positive changes, for the both of you, but you still aren’t there yet.” What the…?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Jack and I are just friends.”
“That is exactly what I’m talking about. We’re not blind, you know. And if you can’t even acknowledge something like a 6 month relationship with someone you are close with, then we are miles from the success I’d hoped we’d reach.”
I wasn’t sure who was more annoying: Excited and Enthusiastic Greg or Disappointed Greg.
“Fuck this.” With that, I left therapy.
I wasn’t exactly sure what the consequences were for leaving one-on-one without permission but at the moment, I didn’t really care. I was suddenly in the mindset I’d been in before I’d come to camp. The I’ll-burn-the-whole-world-down-and-not-give-a-shit-because-no-one-has-ever-given-a-shit-about-me mindset. Back then I probably should have realized that ‘burning the world down’ was not a literal reference. Live and Learn?
I’d opened up, allowed myself to remember and feel and think and it still didn’t matter. For some god awful reason, I’d trusted Greg with my secrets. And right at that moment, as I was storming off to who knows where, something worse happened.
“Eve! Wait.” Ice trickled down my backbone.
“Not. Now. Jack.” I was being cruel and I knew it.
“Snuggs, what’s up? Don’t you have therapy right now?”
“Yeah. Clearly,” I said as I rolled my eyes.
“Are you ok?” Jack sounded genuinely concerned and I wanted to punch him and hug him simultaneously. Then I shattered.
And so did my heart.
“You know what? No. I’m definitely Not Ok. I’ve told you that again and again. Not Ok. I’m…look, just leave me alone.” Jack had gone unnaturally still during my tirade. I’d never talked to him like that, not even before we were together.
“I can do that.” He sounded stiff.
“Good. Alone. Get it?” Then I turned and walked away.
“As in, indefinitely?” he called from behind me, as I tried to ignore the slight quiver in his voice.
“As in, Forever.” I didn’t even turn around to say it, I couldn’t bear to see his beautiful face.
I was still me. I was still the Eve who poisoned the people around her, who did awful things and said awful things. I’d just said an awful thing and I realized that moment that I’d said it to someone that I loved. My Jack. My…the only person I’d ever been so close to since Gideon…and if I wasn’t lying to myself, the only person I’d ever felt like this about. Sure, I’d l
oved Gideon, but I’m pretty sure we’d not been in love.
Jack. Jack, who had as many dark secrets as I did. Who still stood by me and shielded me and let me curl up against him before he even knew me. Jack. I was not worthy of him, he who was so gorgeous and had a body that would have knocked out an entire cheerleading squad; who’d chosen me.
No one had ever chosen me.
Sure Gideon had sort of, but he hadn’t had much of a choice in the beginning since he and I were the only outcasts. Jack had chosen me before I’d proven myself worthy, before I’d even ever been civil to him. My Jack, who was no longer mine. I died a little right then as the adrenaline wore off and the reality set it.
As I collapsed at the base of the tree, I pulled my knees up and hugged them to me. Placing my cheek against them, I proceeded to sob. Here I hadn’t cried in forever, and I was doing it all the time now. Embarrassing. I needed to get a grip on my runaway emotions, which had been bottled up for so long that they were all flooding out at once.
I already missed Jack. Stupid mouth, stupid no filter, stupid emotions that make me say things that I regret. Damn. Jack!
But I knew that fantasies don’t come true, that Jack wouldn’t see through my hatefulness and come back to me anyway, pulling me into his embrace and whispering understanding words in my ear. No, instead I was going to lose the one person who had stood by me after I’d lost it, who had let me draw from his energy and warmth because on some basic level, he’d known I needed it.
“He’s left, you know.”
“Thanks, Lei. Just keep piling it on.”
“Who, me?” She asked with mock innocence, her eyes getting large as she dramatically shrugged. “Honey, you’re the one who dug this grave.” I could only bury my face back in my hands.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, but it came out muffled and more like “Ya a doe”.
“I warned you.” Freaking Leila, always there for you, yet not. Looking up at her, I didn’t have the energy to fight.
“Look Lei. I don’t want to hear it. He’s gone. I get it. He’s gone and even if he wasn’t, he’s gone from me so just shut it.” I was trying to channel my emotion into anger. Seemed to have worked in the past. Not.
“Whatever. I was just trying to be there for you.” Sure. “But that was a pretty bitch move to pull…letting him trust you, letting him get attached to you, then thwap.” She made a slicing motion with her hand, imitating a guillotine.
“Yeah. I cut him loose. What’s done is done.”
For once Leila was speechless. Then she seemed to find her tongue.
“You know what, Eve? I thought you were hilarious and ridiculous and utterly entertaining. I thought you were nuts and deeply depraved and completely left side of the middle.” All things I already knew. “But you know what I never thought you were?”
“What?” I asked hoarsely.
“Heartless.” With that, Leila cast me a look of disgust and got up and left. Because, everyone leaves.
Except those who stay. Like Phil.
And Jack was gone. He was gone and day after day, night after night, just gone.
My 18th birthday came and went, with little fanfare besides Greg’s shadowed expression and Leila’s production in the Caf where she took a chunk of cornbread and shoved it at me. She climbed on top of the table and conducted a loud and off-key rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. Then she jumped down and asked, “Are you going to eat that?”
Clearly not, since I immediately handed the corn bread back to her and she ate it in two bites. Where she stuffed the food was still a mystery to me.
And Jack was still gone.
A month. A whole month had gone by and yet No Jack. I tried to tell myself I didn’t care, but I knew I did. I pined for him. I yearned for him. We hadn’t done all of that much, physically, but we’d come to be very intimate, emotionally. At least for me, and I suspected, for him. Oh to see those sapphire eyes and that almost black hair, his morning scruff and the way he looked when he was sleeping. Like nothing could take his innocence away; like I was receiving a gift every night of which I was unworthy, just by being able to observe his beautiful face in the moonlight, the shadows of his bone structure softened by the angelic light of his expression.
Damn me and my stupid mouth.
And still, Greg pushed.
I wasn’t having it. I knew on some level that Greg was right, but I couldn’t stand it and at this point, without Jack, I couldn’t stand him. I refused to give him the satisfaction of caving and telling him everything…from my very own lips. I could barely voice my truths in my head. Telling Gideon just a tiny portion had been emotional hell. Where did Greg get off expecting me to just crack open my head and my heart, and allow him inside?
“Hey Eve.” The hairs on the back of my neck rose to attention. I knew that voice. I knew it and had prayed to hear it almost every night for the last month. But in my head, it hadn’t been “Eve,” it had been “Snuggs.”
As I turned around, I was scared. I was terrified that he’d be mean, or worse, indifferent. I knew I deserved it; I’d self-flagellated every night as I lay, awake, in bed. But to be here, at the moment I’d feared and hoped for with equal amounts, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. Should I apologize? Beg? Give up entirely and let Jack live an Eve-free existence like he deserved?
Taking a deep breath and turning around, I came face to face with the Jack I’d both dreamed of and the Jack I’d feared. He was disheveled, his clothes looking slightly unclean, and he had a beard. A beard! But what was most alarming was that his cap was missing.
“Where’s your hat, Jack?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
“I guess that’s no longer your concern, Eve.” Shit.
“Jack, please…just…” I didn’t know what to say. I thought about this moment so many times yet everything I’d considered saying was suddenly lost.
“No. Don’t do this.” With that he turned and strode away, turning his back on me. And this time? This time I knew that I deserved it.
TWENTY-FIVE
“You’re so pathetic.”
“I know. Try telling me something new, Lei.” She just grinned at me, as she flipped her red striped hair.
“Well, I mean, he is obviously heartbroken. And I’ve been cursed with your presence since the day you ran him off. I thought I liked depressed and insolent Eve, but you’ve just become boring. Where’s your freaky defiance? Your utter fuck-all attitude? It’s like you’ve given up.”
“I’m sad, Lei. Look it up.” With that, I stared at her, challenge in my eyes. “You know what? Screw you. Just because you are “bored” by my behavior does not mean I need to change to entertain you. I’m dealing with shit, I’ve found myself in a screwed up situation where I allowed myself to do things I vowed to never do, and it’s all biting me in the ass. So I’m sorry my misery is not what gets you off, but I’m not exactly in the mood to care.”
“See? I knew you were in there somewhere.” I almost growled. “Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and go apologize to Jack. He’s pissing me off even more than you, with his snarly attitude and his refusal to shave.” She rolled her eyes and then punched me in the arm.
“Ow.” Even I wasn’t convinced that she’d actually hurt me. “Yeah, what’s up with the beard?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s in mourning.” I rolled my eyes right back at her.
But Leila was right. I did need to stop feeling sorry for myself and my first stop was not going to be Jack.
“Eve, our session isn’t due to start for twenty minutes.” Greg didn’t seem especially busy so I was curious as to what his point was.
“Good point. But since we missed two sessions in a row a while back, I think you owe me.” This got his attention.
“And what exactly is it that I owe you, Ms. Harris?” Greg looked genuinely interested, his head bobbing as his wispy ponytail swung behind him.
“You owe it to me to listen. Since you’ve made my life miserable for the la
st few months.” Take that, Greg.
“Eve, I can’t listen to you if you insist on placing blame where it doesn’t belong.” Greg sighed, a long suffering sigh that made me want to run out of his office. But he was right, it was not his fault that I was so messed up.
“Fine. Where should we place the blame, then?” I was curious about his thoughts, annoyed that I was genuinely interested in his opinion. Was I to blame?
“Sit down Eve and stop looking at me like that. I’ve told you a million times that I’m on your team.” I exhaled loudly, my attempt to be difficult, but sat down nonetheless.
“Fine.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at Greg. “Is it my doorstep we’re laying this at? You’ve really given me no feedback about what I wrote in that journal…I’m not sure where to start.”
“Why don’t we start with Gideon.” I froze. Of all of the things I thought he’d say, I did not think he’d say that. “Are you angry with him that he left you behind to deal with everything alone?” Wow. Not, ‘Phil shouldn’t have molested and sexually assaulted you’, not ‘your mom was neglectful and self serving’, not ‘Eve you’re a spoiled brat who has brought only negativity into your life’… “Are you angry with Gideon?”
Huh.
I sputtered. I literally started to talk and then sputtered. Maybe Greg was better at this than I’d given him credit for.
Sitting there in silence for a good ten minutes as Greg pinned his unwavering stare on me, I honestly couldn’t come up with what to say. Finally I figured enough was enough and just opened my mouth, praying that what tumbled out wasn’t going to get me kicked out of camp.
“Yes.” Wait, what? I had definitely not planned on saying that. Greg nodded, for once not pulling on his cheerleading uniform. “Yes,” I said louder, “I’m angry. I freaking pissed off at Gideon for leaving me. He left me to deal with all of this shit by myself, and we see how well that worked out…” This time I was rolling my eyes at myself. “He knew I needed him, he knew what he was leaving me with, and he just checked out. I miss him so much, but I’m also still so mad at him.”
Forgiving Eve: A Novel Page 10