Everly After

by Rebecca Paula

  It’s hard to keep yourself together when you’re holed up in a tiny fucking room with a near stranger. She’s good for me, but she’s dangerous, too. The illusion is going to shatter soon, and then we’ll have to face what we’ve both been hiding from each other.

  I hear the click of the lighter, then smell the joint she scored from a group of backpackers from Australia. She hops down from the bunk and kicks a pile of clothes heaped over the floor toward the bottom of the door.

  I fight back a smile as she turns and climbs onto the bottom bunk with me. I try to focus on my screen, but I’m more focused on the way she crawls over me. She pulls the joint from her mouth and braces herself on her hands, then tips forward and kisses me slow.

  I forget what I’ve been doing all morning when she nips at my bottom lip. My head grows a bit foggy, my cock a bit hard, and I think maybe I’m falling in love with this girl.

  I reach for her hand with the joint and draw it up to my mouth, sucking in a deep inhale. I let go and relax against the back of the bed and close my eyes, hoping she’ll kiss me some more.

  “Funny thing,” Everly says. I open one eyelid, waiting. “You haven’t been in a hurry to get out of bed lately, but I woke up and you were on the top bunk this morning.”

  I take another hit. “It’s not funny. I don’t want to talk about it.” I want one more, but she springs back, shaking her head at me. “I don’t sleep…well,” I confess.

  The playfulness fades from her face, and her smile drops. She hands it back, and I haul her closer by her ankle, watching as she bumps over the tangled sheets to join my side.

  A motor backfires outside, and I wince, smacking my head against the wall. I bury my face against the top of her head, breathing in and out. I don’t want her to see this part of me.

  She twists and snuffs out the joint, then frames my face with her hands. I haven’t shaved in a few days, and I regret it now. I can’t feel the softness of her hands.

  “I’m the last person to judge you.” She kisses the tip of my nose, and I feel myself slip into that dangerous space between us where we’re closer to sharing the truth. “And I have all the time in the world. I’ll listen.”

  I hug her closer because what I want to say in this instant is the scarier option.

  “You know my brother died,” she says. “He drowned when I was sixteen.”

  I don’t want to do this—trade emotional scars. What am I supposed to say to that? That my father murdered my mother and liked to rough me up? That I found her bloody body when I came home from school? That I killed two soldiers back in Afghanistan because I was curious and had a question? That I watched a woman blow herself up because I thought she needed help? That I got kidnapped and nearly died when I was being rescued?

  No. I’m not forcing us into a game of who’s more fucked-up. We’ve both lost.

  “I’m sorry, pet.”

  Everly never tells me anything about herself. Once my heart slows down from racing in my chest, my mind catches up, and I realize I’m being an asshole. She’s trying to understand, and I’m only pushing her away.

  “I have bad nightmares. I didn’t want to hurt you, so I slept up top this morning.”

  Her fingers curl around my neck. “It hurt more that you didn’t tell me.”

  Fuck, she’s really set on gutting me.

  She slips her fingers around the chains at my neck and follows their length to the names of the two men who died because of me and my hero complex. They rest in her palm. I’m not ready to talk about this with her. It’s bad enough that I have to relive it every time I see the shrink. Survivor’s guilt or something—that’s what he says I need to confront and deal with.

  “Why do you only wear these some days and not others?”

  I exhale because that’s an easy answer. Penance.

  “Some days I take them off, thinking I can move on. Other days, I don’t bother because I can’t.”

  Everly drops them against my chest, meeting my gaze. I see it there in her eyes, how I’ve just said something that drags her a little further in. I don’t think we can stop it now that it’s started.

  “So you tell me something,” I say.

  She tries to pull back when I cup her chin. Too late, I want to yell. She acted too unaffected about her brother, and the cold weight in my stomach makes me think there’s something more behind her confession.

  “What made you so upset the other day when I came back?”

  She blinks at me, her body still as stone. I hear the soft exhale between her lips like I’ve stabbed her with my question. Maybe I have. Maybe I want things to be equal between us. I’ve been the boy with a sad past, but she’s still the girl with the sad eyes. I want to understand why.

  It’s awkward when she jerks away, like her body doesn’t understand what she’s trying to do. She takes off her tank top and tosses it onto the floor. As much as I like the view, I’m not falling for it right now.

  She leans forward to kiss me, but I lay my hands on her bare shoulders and gently hold her back. “What was it?”

  “I just remembered something about a boy last spring. A boy who said he loved me.” She raises her hand between us and fingers her red bracelet. “But I don’t believe in lies.”

  I let her kiss me, but I swear she whispers something like “Not anymore” against my lips.

  Everly

  We spent the day outside of our Shangri-La today. It was nice rejoining the rest of the human population after a very blissful exile. Beckett brought me around London, and I think he’s happy again. I caught him smiling a lot. My camera is full of pictures of us doing the usual touristy things—a normal day between two normal people functioning like adults in a very mixed-up world.

  But now we’re back in our room at the hostel and it’s late. We have the TV on, but I’m not sure we’re watching much of Sherlock. I’m not. Beckett is drawing the most amazing, distracting circles over my hipbone with his rough fingers.

  The light must flicker in a certain way because his fingers stiffen over my scars. “What’s this?”

  Goosebumps ripple over my arms, the chill chasing down my spine and sinking into my belly. “I was with Hudson.” I reach for Beckett’s hand and lace my fingers with his, tracing over the scars. “He wrapped his dad’s new Lamborghini around a tree.”

  I wish I could go back to that night. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have gotten in that car, but even now, I know I would’ve. I still might, and that’s the twisted part of me I hate.

  “How old were you?”

  I try to order the years together. It’s hard when my life feels like one, long bad decision. But that summer is a little easier to remember. I was staying with Hudson and Julia because my parents and I had just buried Nathan. They left for Greece after his funeral and wouldn’t bring me along. I didn’t want to stay in the city by myself, so I lived in the Hamptons for the summer.

  “Sixteen.”

  I deserved to die that night. We both didn’t belong in that car after partying all day. But we were young, senseless…thought we were making a point to the Man. We were lucky it was a tree and not a car filled with a family. I don’t think I could deal with having another’s blood on my hands.

  “It was stupid. Reckless. But I wanted to get in that car. I knew what was going to happen.”

  We’ve been trying to kill each other ever since. It’s as if that night at the beach bonfire we made a pact over a bottle of Jack that we were going to die young. Together.

  I wait for Beckett’s judgment. I deserve that now, too. But it never comes.

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  I pull my hand away and make a grab for the sheets. I’ve had enough of Beckett tracing the scars. I’m afraid if I tell him I have three bolts in my hip and a plate in my femur, he’ll pry even more. He’s kind like that, and it was easier when we were making out, pretending to watch Sherlock a few minutes ago.

  “When?”

  “In Paris. After we met.”r />
  Not for a lack of trying on Hudson’s part, but I don’t think we ever did. Never after I returned Beckett’s quilt. Not that I can remember anyway. I shake my head, biting my lip to keep the rest to myself.

  His eyes soften like I just told him he won the lottery, but his mouth is still pressed in a hard line.

  “He’s always been in my life, Beckett. He’s been there when everyone else goes away. He’s all I have most of the time.”

  I rub my forehead with my palm, panic edging up inside me. I did a shitty job of packing, thinking I could leave behind my Adderall and Xanax, my Percocet and the rest of my medicine cabinet.

  “I don’t want him when I have you.” My voice ends high, like I’m asking a question. Maybe I am.

  “Spend the summer with me,” he says. I laugh, not catching up with the jump in conversation. “I don’t have my job anymore, and I have to sort out my aunt’s place. Stay with me for the summer.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then…whatever. We don’t need to make plans. We have time.”

  Beckett wants me to stay? I guess I say this out loud because he chuckles and traces his hand down the side of my face.

  “Don’t be daft, pet. Of course I want you to stay with me.”

  I roll over onto my back and sigh, the weight of everything pressing against my chest. I’ve never had this before. Never had someone who wanted me to stick around, someone kind, someone I wanted to love me.

  I force myself to stay still, even though I want to grab my things and run out that door and never see Beckett again. The idea of him and what he’s come to mean to me is terrifying. I never thought I was worth keeping around. No one has ever wanted me much except for money or sex. I’m broke now, and while we’ve had sex, it’s different. That’s terrifying, too. To have sex and have it mean something, feel a real, honest connection for the first time. To not feel so alone for once.

  “You don’t have to answer me right now,” he says. He sits up, and I think maybe he’s leaving, disappointed by my non-answer. Instead, he levers himself over me. “Need me to plead my case to you? Why you need to spend the summer with an unemployed writer?”

  I brush past the heaviness of my confession about Hudson to Beckett. Of how I think I might be in love the man kissing me now. Of how it ended last spring when I believed the same.

  Beckett

  There’s an endless depth to Everly that I’m afraid of drowning in. I’ve known this since Paris. I knew it when we first met. She is addictive in her brilliance—in the way the day’s light clings to her even when she stumbles through the world, afraid of the dark, lost in her dreams of oblivion.

  “There’s a great beach in Étretat. Very famous. I think you’ll love it there.”

  “I was planning on going to Italy. Or Spain, maybe. They have beautiful beaches there, too.”

  I can’t tell if she’s being coy or if she really doesn’t want to come with me this summer. I’ve lost her to that place again because I had to press her for an answer when I should have kept my mouth shut. But answers are all we have left.

  “I’ll be there.” I flash a stupid grin, trying to hide my nerves. “Writers are great in bed.”

  A low laugh uncurls from her throat. “Is that so?”

  “We’re good at taking in the details. Like the soft skin at the crook of your elbow and the way you sigh when I kiss it.” I do just that, growing harder as I sweep my tongue over her soft skin. “The way I can see your pulse quicken here.” I circle my fingers over her wrist, her pale skin a window to the veins and flesh that mold her into existence. She flinches, but I continue. “The small freckle you have on the tip of your index finger.” I draw it into my mouth, my tongue swirling around her fingertip. “The beautiful curve of your palm.” I kiss that, too, so caught up in her small details that I want to keep going until I know them all, from head to feet, top to bottom. If I know where bottom is anymore.

  “That’s only my left arm.” She rolls over, sighing, as I draw my fingers up and down her arm. She shivers, and I do the same when I feel her reaction.

  “And you’d be making a mistake,” I whisper into her ear, drawing her closer, “if you think that’s all I see in you.”

  “A pretty face?” She tries for sarcasm, but her doubt muddies the attempt. “A sexy body?” She draws out the word sexy, and it is… Fuck, she really, truly is the definition of sexy.

  I shake my head, holding her hands in mine as I roll over to cover her body. “You are sexy. You know that, Everly. But there’s more to you, too. The way you twirl when you think no one is watching. How you have so many different types of smiles, but it’s only here in London that I’ve seen the real one. The way your shoulders relax when you talk about traveling the world…”

  She’s watching me, her features blank, but I won’t let her hide. She needs to know that I’m here with her, that I see her, that I am falling for her—all of her, her faults and flaws, every gorgeous messy detail. She could turn purple tomorrow, and there’d be no changing it.

  I kiss her deep, forgetting for a moment that I haven’t said what my body is trying to tell her. I pull back, breathless, my pulse racing. But I like this about her, too. That she scares me, shakes me up, makes me understand the world in a completely different way.

  She lifts her chin, her eyes shiny when our gazes meet. I curl my fingers into her hair and fight back the urge to say this against her lips. I need to see her when I say this. I need her to know that I mean it.

  “You hide from the rest of the world the fact that you’re extraordinary.” I rest my hand over her chest, her heart rattling inside. “That you’re a dreamer, that you’re lonely.”

  She shuts her eyes, blocking me out.

  I kiss her eyelids. “I won’t let you be alone anymore.”

  She nods, her body arching under me. She’s good at making me forget, at using her body to move past uncomfortable truths.

  “Look at me.”

  She kisses my neck and grips my hand tight, grinding her hips against me. I swallow back my groan. I lean her back against the pillow and lift my body from hers, pushing up onto my elbows. She opens her eyes, then, confusion swimming in her tears. In her sad, beautiful blue eyes.

  “I’m not letting you disappear. I’m not letting you go,” I repeat softly.

  She nods, wetting her lips. I bow closer, resting my forehead against hers. I close my eyes, wishing I could shut out the world half as well as she can. Maybe this wouldn’t hurt as much.

  “Me either.”

  Her lips are soft against my cheek, small pecks that are chiseling away what little control I had over this conversation.

  “I know you think I’m a mess,” she whispers. Her fingers press against my mouth as I try to counter. “It’s okay. Everyone does, even me. Can you promise me something, though?”

  I bend my head so I can see her, weariness seizing me up. It’s not a matter of trusting her—I do. It’s a matter of trusting myself. Of believing we can make whatever it is between us work. Tonight, it seems that we’re set on acknowledging what’s going on.

  I flip us over so Everly straddles my waist.

  “I’m a disaster at my best times. I know that. I’m working on fixing it.” She sighs, walking her fingertips up my chest. It’d be sexy if there still weren’t tears in her eyes. “Promise me you won’t treat me like I’m broken. Promise me you won’t keep everything to yourself.”

  I understand now why people say you fall in love—except, as with everything with Everly, I don’t fall. I plummet into the unknown with her. The consuming tide rushes over me, and I’m nerves and emotion and want. Everly makes the world seem possible again, makes me want to open up to her completely. And I want…

  “I was kidnapped in Afghanistan and held for ransom.” The words tumble out as everything slams to a stop. “I was nearly dead by the time I was rescued. I’d been beaten because I tried to escape.” I struggle to stay present, to stay here in this small roo
m with Everly. I hate the panic. I hate the rage that fills me. A heavy sigh bursts through my lips as she waits patiently, pushed up on her elbows, her hair curtaining around us. “Those dog tags are from two soldiers who died because I had to stop and ask a question.”

  It’s quiet, so terrifyingly quiet that I expect Everly to jump up from bed and head back to Paris.

  “It was a bad spot, and I shouldn’t have been there reporting. I knew something was wrong, I felt it, but I still went to ask this villager a question. When the two soldiers I was with came up to tell me it was time to go, I hesitated.”

  She cups the side of my face, her forehead against mine, her tears running over my cheeks. She’s crying for the both of us. “I’m listening, go on.”

  “A woman with a vest stepped out of the house—a suicide bomber. I blacked out after the blast, but when I came to, it was too late for the others. And then I was being dragged into a truck, being threatened. For two weeks, I thought I was going to die. And when I was finally rescued, I nearly was dead.”

  I’ve talked about this for weeks now. I’ve been forced to relive those two weeks over and over because apparently that’s the only way I can overcome them. I’d rather forget it. I’d rather remember when I wasn’t a coward. War isn’t anything new; death isn’t something foreign to me. I grew up with violence, and I thought I had nothing to lose by throwing myself into the dangerous spots of the world. Except I was wrong. I had everything to lose. Me to lose.

  Maybe I was lost when I first met Everly, but she’s drawn me out into the world again. Nothing’s easier, but it’s getting better and I guess that counts for something.

  “I never meant for it to happen. None of it.” I wrap my arms around her and pull her tight. “I never thought I’d come to hate what I love.”

  Her hands are strong as they brace the nape of my neck and draw me into her shoulder. “But you’re going to do it again, aren’t you?” she asks. I nod. “Is that what you want? To keep reporting?”