by M. Leighton
“Sorry. I was in bed.”
“All day?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Are you sick?”
“No.” Not unless heartsick counted.
“Ahhhh, then you were in bed not sleeping,” she deduces with a devious smile in her voice.
“No, not that.” My tone is as glum and lifeless as I feel.
“Oh,” she says, deadpan. “What happened?”
The moment she asks, the moment she understands that things have gone completely wrong in every way possible, my throat constricts, throttling my vocal cords. I feel like I’m being strangled. Strangled by the truth.
“It was Levi, Cher,” I manage to croak.
“What was Levi?”
“He…he was in the SUV that hit me.”
Total silence greets me. I hear only the muted buzz of the open line as my friend digests what I’ve said. I know I don’t need to elaborate. She knows me, knows my history too well not to put those pieces together.
“Oh Jesus,” she finally whispers. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Was he driving?”
“No, he was a passenger.”
“Oh. Well, ma—”
“No, there is no ‘well.’ There is no excuse. There is no forgiveness. He wasn’t driving, but he’s the one who left me.” Agony fills me up and bubbles over, spilling out in my voice, in my tears, in the way I draw my legs in tighter, more protectively. “His father hit me, but it was Levi who…who… Levi saw me. He knew I was hurt. But he left me. He’s the one who left me.”
Saying the words out loud tear the wound wider, rip the gash deeper.
“Are you absolutely sure about this? How did you find out?”
Words collide, an interstate pile-up in the corridor of my throat. “The mail you left me, the stuff I told you not to open? It was a recordable card. From Julianne. She’s the one who told me.”
“That horrible bitch who came to the apartment? I wouldn’t believe a word she says.”
If only that’s all there was to it. If only it was as simple as her lying to keep Levi and me apart.
“Levi came by shortly after I got it. She must’ve told him what she did. He came to the door and asked if I knew. He confessed to everything, Cher. He did it. He really did do it.”
“Oh my sweet God, Evie. I…I…I don’t even know what to say.”
My laugh is bitter. Bitter and hateful. “There’s nothing to say. He was too good to be true. I should’ve known. I should’ve known a man like him wouldn’t be interested in me. Not like that. No man is.”
“Evie, you’ve got to stop thinking that way. I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I saw you with a gorgeous, charming man. You’re the most amazing, talented, funny chick I know. If anybody deserves a guy like that, it’s you.”
“I’m blind, Cher. I’m a burden. And while I can’t actually see, I should’ve seen right through him.”
“You are not a burden, Evie. And you can’t blame yourself for this. There is no way you could’ve known. No one would’ve seen this coming.”
“I should’ve. I should’ve known.”
“You can’t live your life expecting everyone to let you down just because a few have. There is a man out there who will love you for exactly who you are, and the ones who don’t are pieces of shit that don’t deserve you. You can’t let them poison you against all men. One will come along and realize what he’s found in you—something rare and wonderful. I have no doubt of that. None whatsoever.”
“You’re biased. And you don’t know what it’s like to try to date me.”
“No, but I know you. And that’s all I need to know. Plus, I’ve seen you in action. You’re obviously a very good kisser.”
I know she’s trying to lighten the mood a little. Cheer me up. And I should laugh.
But I can’t.
I don’t have any laughter left in me.
“This is what I get for letting my guard down. I was so flattered, so enthralled, so…charmed that I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see him for what he is.”
“You couldn’t have known, E. There’s no way in the world you could’ve known,” she reiterates.
There’s something else I have to tell her, something that’s haunted me as much, if not more than everything else that happened last night.
I sniffle, feeling hysteria build behind my ribs. “H-he…I think he started to tell me he was falling in love with me.”
Of everything that Levi has said and done, I think that hurt me worst. Before he came to my door last night, I was thinking that same thing about him. That I could love him. That it would be so easy to love him. And that I might already.
“Oh God!” she says again, a groan almost. “That asshole! To even consider saying that when he…”
She was going to fuel my anger, take my side, defend my honor, but she stops. My best friend trails off, leaving me alone in my misery.
When she begins to speak again, Cherelyn’s voice is hesitant.
“Before this,” she says quietly and carefully, “you’d moved on. You’d forgiven the people who did this to you. Nameless, faceless bastards who would leave a girl to die. I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, but does knowing who actually did it change that? Does it change the fact that you picked up the pieces of your life, took those lemons and made the best damn lemonade in the world?”
Everything in me clenches at her question. “What are you asking, Cher?”
“Well…I just remember you telling me that you’d had to move on, for your sake, not for theirs. And you did. You forgave them for your benefit. And that hasn’t changed, right? Knowing who did it, it’s still better for you to forgive them, right?”
I say nothing as I take in her words.
“An-and you thought you saw a face. A face of someone you thought was trying to help you. Maybe you did. And maybe he was.”
“Cher, what are you saying?”
She sighs. “Hell, I don’t know. I guess I was just thinking out loud.” After a moment of leaving me to stew in her queries, she poses another question softly, almost gently, like she’s trying not to break me. Break me further. “Evie, can I ask you something?”
“I don’t know.”
And I don’t. I’m so tied in knots right now, I don’t know that I’ll ever feel smooth and calm again.
Cherelyn asks anyway, “Do you want him to love you?”
I don’t say anything for a few seconds, my mouth hanging open in disbelief. “How can you even ask me that? After all this!”
“Well, I mean, I kinda thought you might be falling for him. And I’m not at all surprised to hear that he thinks he’s falling for you. I just got that feeling somehow.”
“Is there a point in here somewhere, or are you just trying to make this worse?”
“You know that’s not what I’m doing, E. I guess I’m just trying to be objective. For you. Help you see.”
“There’s nothing else to see, Cher. He did it. That’s pretty clear.”
“Yeah, but did he tell you why? Did he give you an explanation? A reason for leaving you that way? I mean, I’m not saying it would matter, but to do that for no good reason seems pretty damn cold, and he didn’t give me the impression that he was a soulless asshole.”
“Can anyone have a good reason for leaving a badly injured young girl alone on the streets of New York in the middle of the night?”
“Probably not. I just thought I’d ask. I thought maybe he’d at least tried to do the right thing.”
“He called 9-1-1,” I grudgingly admit, but then my sniffles become sobs when I further explain. It hurts to even admit this part. “But then he left me. He chose his girlfriend over me, and he left me.”
“His girlfriend?”
“She was in labor.”
“She was in labor?”
“Y-yeah,” I blubber.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. She was bleeding. She…they lost the bab
y.”
I hear her wispy gasp, one she probably tried to swallow to keep me from hearing it. “Oh my…that’s like… God! What a horrible situation! Jesus! You just can’t make this shit up.”
“Who would want to?”
“I know, babe. I know. I’m just…wow! I’m so sorry, Evie. I wish there was something I could do.”
“Wanna come home and smother me with a pillow?”
“No!”
“Hold me under water?”
“No!”
“Stick my head in the oven and turn it on?”
“No!”
“Push me into traffic?”
“Evie! Definitely not,” she cries before adding playfully, “Besides, that’s been done.”
I do snort at that. “Pretty much.”
“I’ll let you cry on my shoulder when I get there, though. And then we’ll plot awful things to do to him. Hold him down and wax his entire body. Introduce him to Ben Wa balls the hard way. Shave his head, break his teeth, smash his peen. You know, the usual.”
I feel a tiny bit of a smile creep across my face. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, beautiful. You’ll get through this.”
“I know.”
“And you’ll get over him.”
“I know,” I repeat, but in my head, I know it’s not true. And the sad thing is, I think Cherelyn knows it, too.
Levi Michaelson has wrecked me. He’s destroyed me in a way that no man has. That even no car has. That SUV took my sight. But Levi…he took what was left.
And the worst part is that, somewhere in the back of my heart, behind the pieces of me that hate him, I realize there’s a good chance that I love him. Still.
And that might truly be the one thing I can’t recover from.
CHAPTER 23
LEVI
IT REPLAYS over and over and over in my head. The look on Evie’s face. The disbelief. The betrayal. The hurt.
Her words, her eyes, her expression, the one that looks like I stabbed her in the chest again and again, and just kept on stabbing, is burned into my brain.
I roll out of bed, propping my elbows on my knees and dropping my head into my hands. Another night I won’t be able to sleep. I haven’t slept more than a couple of hours at a time since the night I spent with Evie curled against my side in a hotel room in New Orleans.
I get up and throw on some clothes, make my way downstairs to the street, to the wide open space. I feel like I’m suffocating in my apartment. Memories, regrets…they haunt me. Smother me when I try to sleep.
The cool New York night with its bustling sounds and glowing sky puts its arms around me as I start to jog. It only took me two days of being back home to realize that physical exhaustion is the only way I can get some rest, the only way I can escape visions of Evie.
Laughing.
Coming.
Crying.
Those images dance through my head as I run. Harder, faster, I push myself, reveling in the way my lungs ache. Takes my mind off the ache in my chest, the one that says I screwed up the best thing to ever happen to me and I don’t know how to make it right. Or even if I can.
I pound down the street, the muscles of my legs stinging as I force them to speed up. The lights that pass me are a blur, like the last ten days. A blur of this inescapable feeing of emptiness mixed with rage over what Julianne did. If only she’d waited, this might’ve gone differently. She genuinely thought that with Evie out of my life, I’d want her back.
She doesn’t know me at all.
I feel like no one really does. No one except Evie.
She brought out something in me. Something real. Around her, I’m the me I want to be.
She also made me feel things, things I’ve never felt before. This desire to make her smile and laugh, to make her happy, that overtook every other desire in my life. Everything else has taken a back seat to her because nothing feels right without her. I didn’t realize I wasn’t whole until I came home by myself, until I came home to a life I have no interest in.
It’s as plain as the nose on my face—my life is shit without her.
I let out a growl, pumping my arms and legs harder, harder, harder. I tried to find Julianne when I left Evie’s. For a reckoning. But she’s gone. She had enough sense to get the hell away from me, at least for the time being. She obviously thinks I’ll get over this.
Again, she doesn’t know me at all.
I went to see her father. Even he wouldn’t tell me where she is. I explained to him what she did, and why. He didn’t seem the least bit concerned that she’d targeted me or hurt Evie. His only advice to me was to let it lie or she’d likely go through with the rest of her threat, the one where she tells the world that Evie’s a fake. It didn’t matter to him that Evie isn’t a fake. Far from it. It didn’t matter to him that she’s innocent in all this. It didn’t matter to him that Julianne could ruin her life. All he did was shrug and give me a flippant, “Julianne doesn’t like rejection. None of the Pines do.”
That was his way of telling me that he wasn’t going to help me because I dumped his daughter. I’m guessing she told him I’d strung her along for the last decade and then up and decided to fall in love with someone else. No one gives a damn that I didn’t do it on purpose, that I didn’t plan it that way.
But that’s what happened.
I did fall in love with Evie.
I’m still in love with Evie.
I just have no idea what the hell to do about it.
She’d be much better off without me in her life, I’m sure. I’ve brought her nothing but pain and humiliation, even though that’s the last thing I wanted. If I was half the man I’d like to think I am, I’d stay away from her. Let it lie. Give Julianne no reason to come after her and give Evie no reason to hurt anymore.
I slow to a stop, heart thumping, lungs heaving and I walk across the street to Central Park. I stop just inside it. I close my eyes and suck in a breath through my nose, taking apart all that I smell, wondering what Evie would find in the air. I listen, too, noting the honking, the sirens, the voices. Then I open my eyes. I take in the trees at night, the color of the sky, the tall buildings and the hotels across the street. It’s a beautiful town in its own frenetic way. It’s been home for a long time. But tonight…now…since Evie, it’s just…empty. Everything is. My life, my home, my heart—they’re just hollow places I used to know. I don’t even want to be here anymore.
The only place I want to be is where Evie is.
And it’s the one place I’m not welcome.
I walk back to my apartment, the cold much colder than it was when I left, my legs, arms, and face numb. It would be nice if I could feel that numb everywhere, to get away from this damned ache for the woman who hates me. But I’m not that lucky.
It’s as I’m unlocking the door and stepping into my living room, greeted by the giant self-portrait of Evie, that I realize who I am. I’m a great businessman. I’m the son of a senator. I’m a New Yorker. What I’m not is strong enough to walk away. Not yet. Not like this.
I’m nowhere near the man I want to be. Not like this. Not without her.
But who I also am is determined. I have to find a way to make Evie see what she means to me, to help her understand that though I didn’t save her when she needed it, she saved me. And that I won’t rest until she knows that I love her and that all I want is to make her happy. And I know I can. I know if she’ll give me a chance, I can make her happy. I can’t change the past, but I can devote the rest of my life to making up for it.
If only she’ll give me a chance.
I throw some random shit into a bag and call the airlines. I’m going back to Shreveport.
I’m going back to Evie.
CHAPTER 24
EVIE
OVER THE course of the last two weeks, my life has changed quite a bit.
On the work front, my career has exploded. The sale of those seven paintings opened some sort of floodgate, and now I don’t ha
ve a single piece of art left from that showing or from my website. Somehow, overnight it seems, I’ve become somewhat of a local sensation. “The Haptic Painter” is what they call me, even though the majority of people probably have no idea what “haptic” even means. They just know I’m blind and I paint, and that’s enough to fuel the fire. I’ve gotten calls from newspapers, television stations, online magazines, gallery owners, all wanting a little piece of what they see as a rising star.
Or at least that’s what Cherelyn tells me. She’s been taking care of everything, including doling out excuses for why I won’t make appearances yet. She’s protecting me, giving me a safe place to lick my wounds, hoping I’ll heal.
I haven’t told her that I don’t think I ever will. She’d just worry more, and that wouldn’t do either of us any good.
Right now, I’m oblivious to most things that happen outside my studio, which has become my entire world, and I like it that way. I’ve thrown myself into my painting.
For the second time in my life, I’ve needed it, needed its healing power, its calming influence. When I’m not painting, I’m eating, showering, or sleeping. I don’t allow myself free time. Not anymore. I found out very quickly how dangerous and destructive that can be to me right now. I can’t afford to have time to think. To feel.
Today is the first time I’ve ventured out of the apartment, and it’s only to go to class. Healing Art has become my shelter, my painting as much a refuge for me as much as it has been for my students. I don’t want to let them down by missing another week. Plus, part of me is hoping that they can help me put the pieces back together as much as I have ever helped them.
Cherelyn insisted on coming with me. “I’m not crippled, Cher.”
“I know that. I’m just still in mama bear mode. Can’t you just let me have this?”
Grudgingly, I gave in. But I won’t let her come again. The last thing I need is to become a burden to my best friend, too.
When I walk into class, the greetings of my sweet students wash over me. Like a mystical salve, their support and adoration cling to my raw and bleeding heart, covering the holes in it and stemming the flow of blood. At least for a little while.