by M. Leighton
“Oh no. She wouldn’t take a dime from you. Besides, she has enough to get the surgery. She just has to make an appointment.”
“I can make her happy, Cherelyn. I swear to God, if she’ll give me another chance, I can make her happy. I will make her happy.”
Evie’s best friend makes a growling noise and then says, “So help me God, if you hurt her, I will rip off your dick and make you eat it.”
I laugh for the first time since New Orleans. “Okay, okay. Point taken, but there’ll be no need for violence.”
“I’ll make you wish you’d never met either one of us if you so much as give her a splinter.”
“No gifts carved from wood. Got it.” A jest. For the first time in days, I feel like life isn’t a big, nasty, smelly shit show.
“I’m not laughing, pretty boy. I mean every word I say.”
I clear my throat. “I know. Sorry. I hear you.”
“Good. The best I can offer is to tell her what you’ve said and let her go from there.”
“That’s all I ask.”
There’s a pause before she speaks again. “You could’ve called, you know.”
“I broke my phone the night…that last night and I couldn’t get anybody to give me her number again. Not even the school. That’s one of the many reasons I showed up at her class. Thanks for not ratting me out by the way.”
“I didn’t have to. Some little girl did.”
I think for a second before I ask, “Was she a little blonde? No hands?”
“That’s the one.”
I chuckle. “Alana. That little firecracker. I should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to keep a secret. And, uh, what did Evie say when Alana told her?”
CHAPTER 26
EVIE
I SWIPE my hand across my throat in a cutting motion as I shake my head vigorously, signaling Cherelyn not to tell him how I reacted. I don’t want him to know that my limbs didn’t want to work, that I could hardly keep myself from crying, and that I nearly hyperventilated when I got home and realized that he’d been so close again and I’d missed him.
Even though I should’ve been happy that I didn’t know, happy that I didn’t have to talk to him and that I couldn’t smell his skin or hear his voice, I wasn’t. I just felt…robbed. Robbed of the chance to be near him one more time. And know it.
Experience it.
Feel it.
Cherelyn and I were sitting in the living room just now when her phone rang. She whispered and told me who it was. My brain was so scrambled, my heart so conflicted, I don’t know that I would’ve thought to ask her to put it on speakerphone. She just did it. Because she knows me. And because of that, I’m getting to hear everything Levi has to say. Every word. He just doesn’t know it.
“She didn’t say much. What was she going to say to a little girl? ‘You bitch! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’”
“Yeah, you’re right. I guess I just… I don’t know. But yeah, you’re right.”
I can’t help noting how disappointed he sounds. I’m sure he wanted me to be upset, wanted me to realize how much I miss him.
That’s why I can’t let Cherelyn tell him that he succeeded.
“I guess I was hoping she’d realize she misses me as much as I miss her,” he says dejectedly.
“Maybe you need to show her what she’s missing then,” Cherelyn suggests, flinching when I slap her arm for helping him.
“Ha.” He laughs, a bitter sound. “Got my work cut out for me then, don’t I?” When Cherelyn doesn’t respond, he sighs into the phone and continues. “Well, thanks for listening. And thanks for relaying this to Evie. I…I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem.”
“I, uh, I guess I’ll see ya.”
“See ya.”
I hear the muted beep of the line going dead when Cherelyn ends the call.
I flop back onto the sofa and cover my face with a pillow while I scream into it.
After a few seconds, Cherelyn pulls it off to ask, “Feel better?”
“No,” I reply miserably. “I don’t feel better at all.” I take a moment to take stock of the state of my heart. “I don’t feel worse, though.”
“As I suspected,” she says smugly, smacking me in the head with the pillow. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
I sit up and angle my body toward my best friend’s. “Duh, genius.”
She laughs. “That’s some messed up shit, Evie.”
“I know. It’s so messed up. But…”
“But?”
“But did you hear him?”
“I heard him.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What do you think?”
“Oh, Evie, I—”
“Don’t give me that I-don’t-want-to-get-involved crap. Tell me what you think. I can’t even think straight anymore.”
“Why does it matter what I think? Can you forgive him?”
I think about her question. Really think about it. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Then what I think doesn’t matter. This is something you have to come to terms with on your own, one way or the other.” She puts her hand on my leg. “No one would blame you if you held a grudge forever. This…what he did…it’s a big deal, Evie.”
“I know.”
Oh boy, do I know! My heart feels like a mangled ball of ripped and torn flesh that’s bleeding out within the confines of my chest wall, filling the cavity with sticky, crimson agony.
What Levi did was bad enough, in and of itself, but to keep it from me…and then to leave me with the doubts that he did—that he might’ve been flirting with me and charming me and wooing me out of guilt rather than anything real—it’s unbearably cruel.
Part of me feels like it’s unforgivably cruel. That’s how I’ve felt since he left. Beneath all the hurt and humiliation and disillusionment, I’ve felt bitter, like I could never forgive him.
But now…
After hearing that…
It makes me wonder if some day, some time down the road, I could. Like maybe I could take that step. And mean it.
Not that he’d wait for that. He’d have to truly be in love with me to wait that long. And I’m just not convinced that he is.
Rivers of sadness pour through me in seething rapids of sorrow. How many times will I have to lose him? To feel the loss of him so acutely?
I drag myself off the couch. “Thanks for letting me listen in,” I tell Cherelyn. “I’m going to lie down. My head hurts.”
I trudge through the living room, toward my room.
“Evie?”
“Yeah?”
“Make the appointment.”
I sigh.
The surgery.
“I will. I will.”
“Tomorrow. Call your doctor.”
“Tomorrow,” I confirm, closing my bedroom door behind me.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel more like living, like getting on with my life. Because I sure as hell don’t feel like it today.
********
I startle awake at the sound of the doorbell. I pull my pillow over my head and let my mind drift back to the sweet dream I was having. Levi had me spread out on a white sheet and was painting my body with edible paint, using all the colors he’d described the day he’d come here to find me painting. It was a wonderful dream and my skin is still alive with sensation, as if he was actually touching me.
The doorbell sounds again, and I roll over just enough to yell a muffled, “Cher, can you get that?”
I get no answer, and the doorbell rings a third time. With a growl, I lurch out of bed and make my way through the quiet rooms of our apartment. At the door, I put my mouth close to it and ask, “Who is it?”
We live in a gated community, so I don’t worry too much about who comes to the door. If visitors don’t have a code, they have to check in through the main office unless they buzz our door directly.
“Flowers by Desiree.”
My gut
s twist into a tight, writhing knot. I don’t need any more information than that to know it’s Levi who sent me flowers.
My fingers tremble over the first lock as I debate whether to even open the door and let the flowers—and, therefore a little piece of Levi—into my life.
But in the end, I do.
I can’t resist. My heart can’t resist. While yes it’s broken, it also still cries out for him, cries out for me to forgive him and move on. With Levi. Together. It’s the pragmatic side of me, the side that tells me he can’t be trusted, that keeps me from doing any such thing.
I swing open the door and hold out my hand for the clipboard. Obligingly, the delivery guy lays it over my palm. I wonder if he’s the same one.
“Where shall I sign?”
A finger nudges mine and leads me to the right spot. I scribble my name, and hand the pen and clipboard back with a smile.
“There are quite a few. Would you like me to bring them in?”
“Quite a few?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thirteen dozen to be exact.”
“Thirteen dozen?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thirteen dozen flowers.”
“Thirteen dozen flowers,” I say dazedly.
I feel like a parrot, but I’m shocked. I can’t help it.
“Yes, ma’am. The message says, ‘One for every day I’ve been without you.’”
As of today, it’s been thirteen days since Levi left my apartment. Thirteen long, miserable days.
It takes me a few seconds to recover. “Uh, okay. Come on in. You can set them wherever you see a spot, just not on the floor, please.”
I back up, holding the door open, listening to the delivery boy’s footsteps come and go, come and go. I’m guessing he has some sort of cart out there. That or he made a lot of trips to my door before he rang the bell.
Slowly, the scent of roses and rubrums surrounds me. The same combination that he sent me a lifetime ago. I close my eyes and inhale, dragging the aroma deep into my lungs and holding it there, as if I can hold a piece of the past, a piece of Levi, inside me.
In these few precious, aromatic seconds, something within me, something within the frozen hardness of my misery, wobbles. It loosens, like a bolt that’s worked its way free of the concrete holding it in place.
I exhale.
Slowly, I feel air and light and hope leaking in around it.
Can I do this? Can I forgive him? Can I let go of the hurt and the pain, the betrayal and the devastation, and find freedom again? Freedom from the scars of my past?
When the delivery boy is gone, I walk through the room. I use my nose to direct me to each arrangement. One by one, I visit each vase, bending to smell the blossoms, tears streaming down my face.
CHAPTER 27
EVIE
“WELL, I did it,” I tell Cherelyn when she answers the phone.
“Did what? Called Levi?”
Just his name is a slice to my heart, furthering an already bone-deep gash in it.
“No, not Levi. Dr. Chilton.”
She gasps. “You did?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“Six days. My surgery is in six days.” I’m surprised by the silence on the other end of the line. “You there, Cher?”
“I’m here. I just… I don’t really know what to say. You’ve waited so long. And that’s so soon. And if it works…”
“If.”
“It will.”
“We don’t know that.”
“It will.”
“Well,, I’m glad you know these things, Oh Mighty One.”
“I do. You just need to trust me.”
“And get my hopes up only for them to be crushed? You can see why I don’t. I’ve had enough crushing blows lately to last a lifetime.”
“I know, but I have a really good feeling about this, Evie.”
“That makes one of us.”
I don’t know what kind of feeling I have about it. Excitement. Optimism. Trepidation. Dread. Fear. Horrific anxiety. Or maybe some chaotic amalgamation of them all.
Just thinking about it, thinking about how much I feel on the subject, quickly makes me feel as though I might suffocate. My breathing picks up, and my chest gets tight.
But then, out of nowhere, four little words break through the madness to give me oxygen, to settle me and steady me. To encourage me.
You can do this.
It’s what Levi said to me when I was having second thoughts about the bayou, when I was telling myself that sometimes courage is the hardest thing in the world. When I was inadvertently convincing myself that I couldn’t do it.
But Levi changed all that.
With those four little words, he turned the tides. Picked me up. Got me in the boat. Even now, I feel his calming presence as if he were right beside me.
The problem is, can I trust it? Can I trust him?
“Do you know all of the details yet?”
Forcing myself back to the conversation, I take a deep breath, my head aching again. “Well, my optic nerves were damaged as a result of the head injury and all the swelling after I got hit. The nerves responded by creating scar tissue, and Dr. Chilton said this experimental procedure, which places engineered cellular implants that provide physical support to neuronal fibers and—”
“Lord have mercy, woman! What in the world made you think I’d want to hear that gibberish? Was that even English? I meant details about your hospital stay. When you go in, when you come out, can you have visitors. Shit like that.”
“Oh,” I say with a laugh. “Yeah, I’ll only be there overnight, just so they can monitor pressures and that sort of thing. I’ll be in bandages for a couple of days and then…hopefully I’ll notice some increase in visual acuity.”
“God, you talk just like a doctor.”
I laugh. “Well, I’ve seen enough of them over the last decade or so. I guess it’s bound to rub off eventually.”
“It has. Trust me. It has.”
Neither of us says anything for a few seconds until I blurt, “I’m scared.”
She doesn’t reply immediately, which only adds to my anxiety. “I know. I mean, I can imagine. This is…this is huge. And it could change everything. Your whole life will be different. That alone is scary. But going through it if it doesn’t work… I get it, babe. I really do. But no one is making you do it.”
“I know. But I want to do it. I really do. It’s just that…” I trail off, unable to articulate the strange mix of emotions swirling through me.
“Evie, you’ll make it no matter what. You’re gonna be fine. You’re the type of person who gets knocked down, but then gets back up and beats the hell out of whatever knocked her down.”
I laugh. “You think I’m violent?”
She huffs. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m a great maker of lemonade,” I say, using an analogy that I’ve clung to for years.
“Exactly. And you always will be. This surgery, however it turns out, will be no different. You’ll go in a winner, and you’ll come out a winner, either way.”
I inhale slowly and exhale just as slowly, feeling a little bit better. “Go in a winner, come out a winner. Got it.”
“Good. Now, if you need another pep talk, call me. Don’t sit alone with your own thoughts. I know how dangerous you two are when you get together.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
I shake my head. I’m sure she does like to hear that.
********
The doorbell wakes me again. I bolt upright, startled from another dream. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I complain, flopping back.
This time, however, I hear the clonking and scurrying of Cherelyn making her way to answer it. I grin when a loud thump is followed by a muttered, “Shit!”
The end table beside the sofa sticks out just a litttttle bit too much.
Although I’d like to go back to sleep, after yes
terday’s early delivery, I find that I’m wide awake now, anxiously awaiting whatever is at the door.
It might not be for me. It could be a delivery for Cherelyn. Maybe she ordered something. That’s entirely possible. But my gut tells me it’s for me. And that it’s from Levi.
Less than five minutes later, I hear the sock feet of my roommate shuffling down the hall toward my room. She opens my door, stifling her yawn with her hand, I assume, and tosses something solid onto my bed. “It’s for you.”
With that, she closes the door again and shuffles back the way she came.
I crawl to the end of the bed and feel for what she tossed. I pick up a cool, smooth object and roll it in my hands, examining it with my fingers. It’s shaped sort of like a banana and its center is hollow. Frowning, I feel again, more carefully this time, taking in every tiny detail. I finally realize what it is.
A kayak.
Up until yesterday, I felt as hollow as this kayak, but today…today I feel a little less empty. There are no tears this time. Just a little smile as I remember Levi rowing me down a café au lait river in New Orleans.
********
Day three begins in the exact same way the previous two have—with an early morning visitor. This time, when I hear the bell, I leap from bed and make my way as carefully as I can to the door. I don’t even wait to see if Cherelyn is here and if she’ll answer it.
“Who is it?”
“Delivery,” comes the short answer in a deep voice.
I snap open the locks and smile. “Good morning.”
There is no response.
“Hello?”
Still no response.
That’s when a delicious scent wafts up to tickle my nose. I bend and feel around in front of the door. Just to the right of me is a big, square box. I lift it carefully, noting its not-too-heavy weight, and I bring it to my nose.
I inhale.
I smile.
I’d recognize that smell anywhere.
Beignets.
“Hello?” I call again.
Still there is no answer.
I back into my apartment, moving slowly as I think about that one word—delivery—and the voice that said it. I pause before closing the door, inhaling again. I can’t help wondering if I really do smell the subtle musky scent of the woods over the beignets or if it’s just my imagination.