Unimaginable

by Sophia Kenzie

  But at the same time, Evan could feel the spirit inside him dying. He longed to be free from the pain and the guilt. He longed for it all to be taken away.

  Darren felt for his brother. He couldn’t understand the torment that he must have been going through since the day he took their uncle’s life. He must have been so tortured. He hid it so well. He seemed only to care about Megan and the fact that she didn’t deserve to pay for the crime he committed. But, Darren realized as he stared at his little brother, huddled in the middle of the rug, there was something deeper, and he had never forgiven himself.

  He joined him on the floor.

  “I never asked you what happened. Will you tell me?”

  Evan tilted his head to the side. “I threatened to tell what really happened.”

  “Between him and Megan?”

  “Yeah.” Evan wet his lips as he stared ahead.

  “And Uncle Billy couldn’t have that happen.”

  “He pulled the gun on me.”

  “But he never would have shot you.” Darren jumped in.

  “That’s exactly what I said. But then he cocked it, and then he said that whole thing you heard on the recording. I just lost it.”

  “You grabbed the gun and shot him?”

  Evan let his hands drop to the ground. “God, no. I just tried to get it away from him. Somehow, in the tussle, the gun went off. I still don’t know who pulled the trigger.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” Darren wrapped his hand around the back of his brother’s neck, pulling him closer.

  “It doesn’t matter. I still have to live with it.”

  Evan suddenly felt a small weight lift off of his chest. He had never told anyone what had happened that night. He had kept it all bottled within him, a secret he shared only with his nightmares.

  “Where did you get the recording?” Darren scooted closer to his brother, knowing that he needed to continue talking.

  “When Dad died…I found it among his things. It was in his desk at work.”

  “Just that last bit?”

  “No, actually the entire evening was recorded, even the poker game. It was from an actual video recording. Uncle Billy must have just kept video on the room for when he saw patients.”

  “And you recorded the sound and turned it in?”

  “It was the only way I could think to get Megan released without implicating me.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I should have just turned myself in after Dad died. Then none of this would be happening.”

  Darren shook his head. “You have to stop with this ‘turning yourself in’ nonsense. It was a mistake. You have to let it go.”

  “But holding it in means that I can never be with her. I can’t see the worth.”

  “Evan, what did she do to you? What hold does she have over you? You were supposed to fuck her, get it out of your system, and get out. You were supposed to not allow yourself to get close to her. What happened?”

  What use was there in hiding any longer? He had nothing left, and secrets had brought him nothing but pain. Evan decided to open up to his brother. He told him of their first night together, of their dinner, of the secret she kept hidden under her bracelets, and of when she brought his hand to her throat and told him to squeeze. He told him of the rush he got from watching his power consume her. He sped through each and every game in his mind, pinpointing the exact times, the exact instances, where being with her started to become an obsession.

  “She told me she couldn’t feel. She was numb. I realized I was numb too. But she had figured out a way to have it all, to be human. And for that, she needed my help. She needed me to be her person. Darren,” he looked up to him from below his eyelashes, “it was like I had never felt anything before in my life. I was just a body, a casing for a lost soul. But with her, I found myself. I found the person I was meant to be. And it was fun, and we trusted each other, and I felt like I was part of something real. My entire life before that was all a lie. My friends weren’t real friends, my family wasn’t a real family, and my job wasn’t a real job. The only thing that was real was Megan because only with Megan did I feel. She made me a man. She gave me that power.”

  Evan searched his brother’s face for a hint of understanding, but the only thing he saw was concern.

  “You think I’m crazy.”

  “No, Evan. I don’t think you’re crazy. I think…” He cleared his throat. “I think you got mixed up in something that you weren’t prepared to handle.”

  There was a moment of silence between them as they both searched the room for air.

  “I hurt her.” Evan whispered, almost inaudibly.

  “What?”

  “Tonight. I went too far. I hurt her.”

  Darren didn’t understand. “She wanted you to hurt her.”

  “Not like this. She asked me to stop, and I didn’t. I didn’t want to.”

  “Is she okay?” Darren wasn’t quite sure where his brother would turn the story next.

  “She’s fine. She’ll be fine. Physically. But I broke her trust. I ruined it.”

  “She asked too much of you.”

  “I agree.” He stood up and began pacing. “It was too much, and I should have stopped it sooner. But…” Evan crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I just wanted to be the person she needed me to be.”

  Darren rose to his feet as well, but instead of pacing, leaned up against the desk.

  “You can’t make up all those years, Evan. You can’t expect that of yourself.”

  “I hate who I became tonight, but now I don’t know how to turn it off. I wasn’t in control anymore, Darren. I wasn’t. It wasn’t me. It was like I was thrown from my body and I watched it happen. I watched her call the safe word. I watched her eyes roll back. I watched her pass out and I watched as I made the decision to squeeze my hands one more time around her neck. I did that.”

  He kicked the armchair in the corner of the room. “And I’m pretty sure I’d do it again.”

  “But you’re aware now.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She told me she was leaving and I wanted to throw her against the wall.” Evan looked to the ceiling, hurt by his own admission.

  “Did you?”

  “No. But I wanted to. Darren, I wanted to. Before…before all of this, I never would have thought about that. I couldn’t have fathomed hurting her. She was too perfect.”

  “She’s not perfect. She’s scarred. You see that now, right?”

  “I do, and yet, for some reason, it makes her even more perfect in my mind.”

  Darren moved to his brother and stopped him from pacing. “No more. This is it with her. Let’s get out of here.”

  Evan tried to shake off his brother’s grip. “We can’t get out of here. We live here.”

  “Then we’ll go away. We’ll say we need to visit the plant in China. Come on, little bro. We haven’t been there in awhile. We should really do that anyway.” Darren half laughed.

  “I can’t leave her. I can’t leave her alone.”

  “She left you. She doesn’t want anything to do with you.”

  The words stung and Evan felt the fire return. He tried to shake it off, but it was too strong.

  “Don’t say that.” Evan deeply growled.

  “I’m just telling you the truth.”

  “You don’t know what the truth is.”

  “And you think you do? You’re living in this little fantasy world, Evan. You need help. Real help. Not the help of some revenge-seeking ex-girlfriend who finds pleasure in being beaten to a pulp.”

  Evan charged at his brother, pinning him up against the wall.

  “Take it back.”

  “I will not.” Darren angled his chin down, hoping to refrain Evan from chocking him.

  “You don’t know anything about Megan. You can’t talk about her like that.”

  “Look what she’s done to you, Evan.”

  “She’s allowed me to be me.”

  “And this is you? A crazed
lunatic?”

  Evan dropped his brother from his grip and moved to the other side of the room. He viciously rubbed his temples, trying to calm himself before he attacked his brother again.

  But Darren wasn’t backing down.

  “And if this is you, is she really allowing that? She left. She gave up on you. The first time you crossed the line, she booked it out of there. What does that say about her?”

  Evan stopped the motion at his temples. Darren was right. She left him. She had turned him into the power hungry monster he now saw in the mirror, and at the first sign of trouble, she was gone. How did she do that? Why had she done that? How, when he had freed her from his confinement, was she able to run away so easily? Why, when he finally became the person she had for months begged him to be, did she turn around and walk out.

  He was scared. He struggled. Did she forget that? Did she not realize what natural instincts he had to turn off to pleasure her the way she so needed to be pleasured? Did she not remember his initial desire to protect her?

  She didn’t remember, because she had changed. She now felt. Everything she once was had begun to fade. She changed without telling him. She changed without giving him permission, without giving him time to find his way back.

  It was all her fault.

  “I have to go.”

  “No, Evan. You are going to sleep this off.”

  “I am not. I am leaving. I must talk to her. I must make her see what she did to me.”

  “What good is that going to do?” Darren called after him.

  “If I don’t try, I’ll never know.”

  Ignoring his brother’s attempted restraints, Evan pushed out of his uncle’s study. He left the room where his own downward spiral began so many years ago.

  He left to find the woman who pushed him all the way down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Megan awoke with a start to a gush of wind on her face. She was instantly brought back to the night that Dr. Covington died, the night she could have sworn she felt another person in her room. Megan looked around, but saw no one.

  “Did I really leave that window open again?” She groaned to herself.

  “You actually didn’t.” A voice came from the shadows.

  Megan screamed, startled to find someone else in her room in the middle of the night. But she knew the voice; there was no mistaking that. “Evan, what are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk.” His voice was ominous.

  “You need to leave.” She urged as she curled herself up into a protected position and flicked on her bedside lamp.

  There, leaning up against the corner of the wall, Megan saw the tall, dark, alluring boy she fell in love with. He wasn’t the power hungry man she had found only hours earlier. Her heart sank for him.

  She knew just what he was going through; she had gone through the same thing. He was just trying to control the monster that was for so long hidden inside of him. And it was killing him.

  “Come here.” She softened as she patted on the edge of her bed.

  Evan nodded as he slowly stepped toward her. He didn’t want to frighten her. He just wanted to be near her.

  “I don’t know what is happening to me.” Evan croaked out, his voice struggling not to crack.

  Megan took his hands in hers and found his eyes in the dim light. “This isn’t your fault.”

  “Oh, it is.” Evan scoffed, but he was speaking more of the entire situation than he was the one incident in his bedroom.

  “No. Listen to me.” She tried to grab his attention, though she could tell he was far off into the distance. “Evan, listen to me.”

  Evan leaned in, needing her lips on his, but Megan pulled away. His mouth opened and his brow furrowed. “You pulled away from me.”

  “I can’t kiss you right now.”

  “You’re…you’re scared of me.” Evan began to rock back and forth.

  “That’s not it, Evan.”

  “It is it!” He dropped her hands and planted his feet on the floor. “I scare you.”

  Megan stood in front of him, trying to show him that she was right there with him. “It’s not you I’m scared of, Evan.”

  “It’s what I’ve become.” He finished her thought.

  “I just don’t think you have control. Which I understand. Believe me, I understand.” She was genuinely concerned.

  “You did this to me. You…” He threw his arms out to the sides. “This is because of you.”

  “I know that. I do.” She tried to bring his hands in.

  “And yet, you left me. You did this, and then you left me.”

  “I had to.”

  “No. No. You had to stay. You had to undo this.”

  “Evan. I can’t undo it. Only you can.”

  “But you gave up on me.” He grabbed her shoulders.

  Megan felt his grip tightening. “Evan,” her voice was soft, “that hurts.”

  Evan’s face relaxed, and he pulled his hands from her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

  “Exactly.” Megan jumped in. “You didn’t mean to. I know that.”

  “So come back to me.” Evan pleaded.

  Megan wiped the tears from her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Evan, sit down.”

  “No.” He quickly argued.

  But she pleaded, and he couldn’t turn her down.

  “I love you. You know that, right?” She searched his eyes for his honesty.

  “I do.”

  Megan could feel herself about to break down. “And I can admit that I did this to you. You weren’t like this before I came along. But I can’t fix it. I don’t know how.”

  “I’ll fix it, Meg. I’ll fix it.” He slid his fingers into hers, trying to comfort her.

  “But you can’t do that while I’m around. Don’t you see?”

  “No. No.” Evan shook his head. He didn’t want to listen to her logic.

  “Evan, you’re physically stronger than me. There’s a real possibility that you will hurt me.”

  “I don’t want to.” He whispered back to her.

  She jumped right on his admission. “I know that. Believe me, I do.”

  “Then why won’t you stay?” He asked as if he were an abandoned child. Megan wanted nothing more than to hold him in her arms and tell him it would all be all right, that she would make it all better.

  But she couldn’t.

  “If you hurt me, what would you do?”

  “I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.”

  “Exactly.” She rubbed her thumbs against his palms.

  “Exactly what?” He still didn’t see where she was taking the conversation.

  “And I can’t live with myself knowing that what I did to you might cause you even more pain when this gets out of hand.”

  “When this gets out of hand?” He questioned her delivery.

  Megan simply nodded. “It will, Evan. I’ve been there. I know this. It gets worse before it gets better.

  “So, what? You just expect me to leave you and not look back? After everything?”

  Megan hated it just as much as, if not more than he did. She didn’t want this to be their path. She wanted her life to have meaning, and she wanted him to be part of that meaning. She wanted their happily ever after.

  But they were in no position to make that work.

  Megan collapsed into sobs, unable to answer his question. Evan cautiously inched toward her, wrapping his arms around her and welcoming when she did the same back. They sat there, holding each other, both knowing that when they let go, that would be it. Everything between them would be over.

  Neither of them was in any position to combat that fact any longer. It was the only way.

  “I have something for you.” Evan whispered into her ear.

  “What?” She looked up through her tears.

  “I found this among my father’s things when he died. It’s from my uncle’s study.” Evan pulled a small videotape from his jacket po
cket. “I don’t want it. It’s yours.”

  Megan took the tape from his hands and flipped it over in her palm. “What is this?”

  Evan looked down, unable to stare into her eyes any longer. “Your answer.”

  Megan felt the room shrink and then expand around her. Between her fingers was the answer she had so longed for. It was the only thing she had cared about for the past ten years…and yet, holding the damning evidence in her hand, she realized she no longer wanted the answer.

  She began to laugh.

  “What…” Evan tilted his head toward her. “What’s so funny?”

  Still laughing, Megan blurted out, “I don’t care.” She set the tape on the bed in front of her. “I don’t care anymore.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I don’t want to know the truth.”

  “Why not?” Evan was so obviously confused.

  “It’s just not important to me anymore.”

  Megan took a second look at Evan. She couldn’t believe what she was saying, what she was thinking. Her entire purpose had been about one thing, finding one truth, but now that it was sitting in front of her, she couldn’t see it.

  She only saw him.