My jaw stung from clenching my teeth so tightly. My skin burned with anger. My pulse drummed out of control as I internally screamed, but only a whisper escaped from my trembling lips. “I hate you.”
Graham stood, resting his hands beside mine on the counter, trapping me in the cage of his body. His playful smile vanished, the lust in his eyes drowning in the black pool of his evil soul. I didn’t know if it was the money, power, or truly my unwillingness to see how much he wanted me sixteen years earlier, but the Graham Porter I used to love was no longer alive. “You don’t hate me, Evelyn. You hate that I own you. You hate that I do know what you taste like because you came in my mouth over and over again that night. You hate that you can’t block those memories from seeping into your head when Ronin fails to give you everything you need. You hate that your debt to me will never be paid. But more than anything … you hate that you will never stop needing me. Needing me to be the perfect husband to your best friend. Needing me to play the charade with Ronin so you don’t have to tell him the truth and watch your world fall apart. Needing me to rescue your sick family because we know your dad’s kidney won’t last forever. And there’s nothing…” he lowered his face closer to mine, his warm breath poisoning my skin “…and I mean nothing that gives me greater pleasure than knowing the woman I love needs me.”
He held me hostage, and it didn’t matter that his body was pressed to mine in the bathroom of a sushi restaurant because his hold on me reached everywhere, inches or miles. It was invisible and it felt inescapable.
“But the day will come, my sweet Evelyn,” he whispered while dragging his lips from my cheek to my ear, “that I will expect something in return.”
“W-what?” The stuttered word squeaked past the tiny airway in my throat.
Graham kissed my earlobe. “You.”
I blinked a new round of tears as Graham pushed off the counter and sauntered to the door. Before he opened it, he paused, keeping his back to me. “Let’s all do dinner soon. And Evelyn? I agree … we don’t need to discuss this again. Not with each other, not with anyone else. For everyone’s safety, this needs to stay between us.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ronin
The good news?
After a trip to visit my doctor, he agreed I was suffering from depression. Validation soothed my need to feel sane.
The bad news?
Antidepressants didn’t work because I wasn’t actually depressed. The chemical imbalance wasn’t actually mine. I was feeling Lila’s depression. Lila’s leukemia. Lila’s aches and pains. Lila’s nonexistent libido. Lila’s everything.
Opioids worked. They took away all the pain. But I knew I could have the opioids or I could have Evelyn and the kids, but I couldn’t have both. I chose my family.
However, I started to wonder if my depression (Lila’s depression) was contagious. Evelyn stopped pressuring me to tell her what was wrong with me. She stopped snuggling into my back at night, which had been a painful reminder that I’d become a terrible husband who had no desire to have sex. She even stopped stealing my job of singing in the shower, yet another painful reminder that our life revolved around work and the kids.
Nobody sang in the shower.
Nobody made love in our bed.
Nobody sent me flirty pictures during the day with a blowing-kiss emoji and a “Can’t wait to see you!”
I missed feeling good. I missed getting a hard-on just thinking about Evelyn. I missed busting my ass to get the kids in bed so I could have their mom all to myself. The list of things I missed became too long to remember. That was the worst part—I started to forget what it felt like to have a life with my own feelings, a sense of control over myself.
“Hey.” Lila answered her door, greeting me with a sad smile.
My desperation led me to her. When I called to see if she could see me, Lila agreed without question.
“Hey.” I looked around as I stepped into the foyer.
“It’s just us.” She shot me a reassuring smile. “I gave the staff the day off, and Graham is out of town.”
“Your face.” I grimaced.
She ghosted her fingertips along her jaw, along the yellowed brown bruise marks that were still visible.
“I’m taking a martial arts class. It was Graham’s idea. He said I can never be too safe. And we both agreed exercise is good. Unfortunately, I bruise easily. But so far, I’ve been able to cover it up with makeup when I’m in the public eye.”
“Swimming. Walking. Pilates. Yoga … not any sort of contact sport. What were you thinking? What was Graham thinking?” I pressed my finger under her chin to tip her head up a little more to see the extent of the bruising, but it was nearly gone.
What hadn’t disappeared, not even a little, was the instant physical transformation I felt the instant I touched her.
No more pain.
No more ringing in my ears.
No more depression.
I didn’t know what she felt when I touched her. It didn’t make sense for Lila to feel anything at all from me. But that didn’t stop her from leaning into my touch.
Dropping my hand from her chin, I waited for her to look up at me.
“You’re miserable,” she whispered.
It wasn’t my intention to make Lila feel guilty for anything. She didn’t make a deal with God … or whatever greater force cursed my life so many years earlier. The leukemia wasn’t her fault. Nothing was her fault.
“Are you?” I asked instead of admitting or denying my own misery.
“Yes.”
“Are you getting treatment?”
She nodded slowly.
“Chemo? Radiation?”
Tears filled her eyes as she relinquished another single nod. “I started last week.” She pivoted, wiping her eyes while heading up the stairs. “I want to show you something.”
Lila had lost weight. Her tailored light gray pants hung loosely on her, so did her white long-sleeved blouse that would’ve usually flowed perfectly over her curves. That day it looked two sizes too big, hiding all the parts of her that Evie used to envy—her breasts, the perfect curve of her hips, and the lines of her backside.
“How will you explain this to Evie?” I asked, following her down the long hallway. “The weight loss? The hair loss if you have it? Nausea? Lethargy? You won’t be able to hide from Evie. Or the public. You’re in front of cameras all the time.”
“I’m not worried about the cameras. They truly add ten pounds. And as I said, I can cover any bruising with makeup. As for Evie … well, as a teenager, I had some issues, mainly as a result of my parents dying, but also self-esteem issues. Evie knows I was anorexic for a time. If she needs to think that again, it’s easier to deal with that than cancer. And I’m going to shave my head soon, hopefully before it starts coming out in clumps. I’ve already contacted someone who will make me a wig, maybe using some of my own hair. She’s really good. I don’t think Evie will ever know.”
“If you die, she will know.”
Lila turned a few feet inside her bedroom. Her gaze slid to the plush white carpet between us. “I know. If that happens, she will grieve. She will get over it. She will go on being a wife and mother. If she finds out now, she will suffer. Evie doesn’t deserve to suffer anymore. Your kids deserve a happy mom. You deserve a happy wife.”
I wasn’t sure I had a happy wife at the moment, but I didn’t say that to Lila because I feared my issues (that stemmed from Lila) were the reason. Lila didn’t need to suffer anymore either.
“You’re not going to die.” I didn’t know that. I just hoped if I thought it and said it aloud enough that maybe she would believe it too. My knowledge of life, death, other lives, other universes … well, it wasn’t extensive. I knew nothing more than the belief that anything was possible. If Lila believed she would live, she would live.
When our gazes locked, her mouth curled into a familiar smile. “We’re all going to die, Ronin.” With a shrug, she released a tiny chuckle
. “But … hopefully not today.”
“Not today.” I matched her smile.
“I was going through these boxes the other day.” Lila disappeared into the closet, which was bigger than our master bedroom, and returned with two floral hat boxes stacked on top of each other. “Photos from homecoming and prom. And my best friend winning the science fair two years in a row.”
I chuckled. “Sounds about right.”
Lila set the hat boxes on the gray tufted bench at the end of the king bed adorned in thick white, silver, and baby blue bedding. I sat on the other side of the hat boxes as she opened the first box and thumbed through the messy stacks of photos.
“This is Maverick.” She handed me a photo of Evie and her date for one of the dances.
He looked like a sweaty mess. The dude’s disheveled brown hair stuck to his sweaty brow covered with pimples, only slightly deterring from his crooked black tie. Evie wore a simple pink strapless dress that fell just below her knees and shoes dyed to match it. Her hair was a bit longer and not quite as blond, and she had bangs curled and heavily cemented in place with hairspray.
“Maverick looks a bit nervous. How long did they date?”
“Oh …” she giggled.
She. Giggled.
It felt good. Lila felt good. I felt good.
“Maverick is the poodle photobombing right there.” She pointed to the caramel poodle poking its head into the shot. “I don’t remember the boy’s name. Evie was super pissed off at her ex-boyfriend, Brandon, so she said yes to the first guy who asked her to homecoming that year. I think his name was Todd? Tye? Travis? I don’t know. Something like that.”
She continued to go through the photos, handing some to me while discarding others back into the hat box. Lila not only made me feel good, she made me feel closer to Evie.
“Oh, you have to see all of these.” She hugged a stack of photos to her chest, blue eyes wide and filled with excitement like those of a child. “They’re from my eleventh birthday. My parents took me and Evie skiing.”
She crawled onto the bed and plopped onto her back with her head on one pillow.
I followed her, resting my head on the other pillow.
“I’m not sure we have any photos of her standing upright.” She giggled more, handing me photo after photo of Evelyn on her butt, her face, her side. One ski on and one ski off. Ski patrol helping her on and off the lifts.
Those photos made me miss my wife. They made me fall in love with her all over again.
“This … this was her favorite thing to do.” Lila handed me a photo of Evie with a hot chocolate mustache. “She endured the awfulness because she’s always been the very best friend a girl could ever have, and she loved hot chocolate and warm cookies in the lodge.”
Lila sighed. “My accident … it happened because Evie wanted to let us—you, me, and Graham do what we loved to do. Had she been selfish, not thinking of other people before herself, I never would have been on skis that day. Isn’t that crazy?”
I never thought of it that way.
“She should be more selfish.” I handed the photos back to Lila.
“She really should.” Rolling to her side, she set the photos on the nightstand. When she rolled back toward me, her smile faded.
We stared at each other in silence for a minute or so before she lifted her hand and rested it on my face. “You came here for this,” she whispered.
That one touch. When Lila touched me—when I touched her—it felt like the first time I touched Evie and she touched me. My eyes drifted shut, and I let her touch be Evelyn’s touch. I let the pain vanish. I embraced the silence. Each thought brought an image of my wife and all the perfect moments we’d shared in our nearly six years together.
Lila’s thumb traced my cheekbone the way Evie’s had done so many times before. I covered her hand with mine, keeping it pressed to my cheek. Every second we stayed connected gave me more time. More time to get home to Evelyn and feel good. More time to take my wife in my arms and feel only us, even if it didn’t last. I just …
Emotions burned my eyes, and without opening them or blinking, I felt a few tears slide down my face.
Lila said nothing, but her thumb chased each one, erasing it with her beautiful, magical touch.
I just … I just wanted her to be Evelyn. I wanted Evelyn’s touch to feel that way.
That warm.
That necessary.
That perfect.
There was no dignity in addiction. I stumbled and fell flat on my face when Evie called me out on my opioid addiction. I swallowed my pride (what little I had left) and got the help I needed.
Lila’s touch became my new addiction. More addictive than any pill I had ever popped. I needed her touch to survive, to keep from losing everything. Yet … it was so so so incredibly wrong.
“I love Evie,” I whispered.
Lila started to pull her hand away. I opened my eyes to her face wrinkled in regret. Easing my head side to side against the pillow, I swallowed my own regret. I needed to need my wife’s touch again, and only Lila could give me that chance.
“I miss Graham,” she said softly.
I wasn’t Graham. She wasn’t Evelyn. But we were … something. And sometimes something for a breath in time could be absolutely everything.
Ignoring what was left of my instinct to do what was right, to turn away from what was wrong, I slid my arm between Lila’s waist and the mattress, pulling her into my body. She rested her cheek on my chest and her arms encircled my neck.
Her thinner body, the familiar scent of Evie’s shop in her hair, the way she molded into my body like Evie always did so naturally, it felt like my wife in my arms, so I closed my eyes and let it be Evie. And I hoped that Lila closed her eyes and let it be Graham.
We fell asleep in each other’s arms. Three hours later, my phone vibrated in my pocket, waking us up. I reluctantly let go of Lila and the best sleep I’d had in many months. We sat up, Lila rubbing her eyes while I slid my phone from my pocket.
Evelyn: Tami just texted me. She wants to go out tonight. We’re meeting a few of her friends for dinner and drinks. Please make sure you’re home in time to relieve Sue and get dinner for our kiddos. Thanks xo
I had one hour to make it home in time, but I couldn’t get to Aspen from Denver in one hour. Evelyn didn’t know about my trip to Denver. I’d shut off my location on my phone. Half of the time we couldn’t locate each other because of poor signal in the mountains, so not locating me never raised suspicion.
“Everything okay?” Lila stood, straightening her blouse and running her fingers through her long blond hair.
Scratching the back of my own messy hair, I nodded, glancing back at the screen. “I need to be home in an hour.” I grunted a laugh.
“That’s not possible.”
“Yeah …” I brought up my contacts screen. “I know.”
Ronin: I need a huge favor. Can you be at my house in an hour and watch Franz and Anya for a couple of hours?
I pressed send and typed out a quick second message.
Ronin: And can you not tell Tami, Evelyn, or anyone for that matter? And can you bring them dinner? They love pizza.
Noah: Hey, buddy. Sure. Is everything okay?
Ronin: Yes.
I didn’t elaborate. What was I supposed to say? Noah owed me a few favors after he ran into an old girlfriend who was in town for a week skiing last year. She wanted to have dinner with him one night and drinks the next night, and more than that. He didn’t cheat on Tami, but he also didn’t tell her about the old girlfriend. When Tami called looking for him twice, I covered for him. I lied for him.
Next, I texted Sue to let her know that Noah would be there to relieve her and watch the kids while I grabbed some groceries. She wouldn’t know how long Noah was there, so the chances of her mentioning it to Evie were pretty slim.
I slipped my phone into my pocket and climbed off the bed. “I don’t know what to say.” I twisted my mouth, giv
ing Lila a slight cringe.
She latched her hands behind her back and shrugged. “There’s nothing you have to say.”
I felt so fucking good—so normal—the guilt didn’t stand a chance. It wasn’t like I did anything truly inappropriate with Lila. Over and over I reminded myself, convinced my conscience, that her touch wasn’t anything more intimate than getting a massage from a therapist.
It felt good.
I didn’t want it to end.
And I’d leave feeling like a whole new person … even though it wouldn’t last.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Frustrated that Evie won’t be home when I get there, but hopeful that this good feeling will hold on until she does get home.”
Three hours. I had three hours in Lila’s embrace. In the world of energy and unexplainable phenomena, that had to mean something. Right? Like charging a battery. I hoped I was leaving with a full charge of whatever the hell Lila gave me just by touching me.
“I hope so too.” Lila smiled and averted her gaze, like all of a sudden she felt shy around me.
“How do you feel? I don’t want you to feel bad or guilty or … anything negative about this … about us.”
She shook her head, keeping her gaze averted. “I don’t. I feel … strong.”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyes shifted to my face. “Graham makes me feel weak. Sick, broken, and weak.”
I frowned. “Have you told him that?”
She grunted. “No. I think he needs it to feel strong. You know? I think he likes to feel like I depend on him. He is the giver. I am the taker. But I feel like you need something from me, and it feels …” Lila drew in a shaky breath, the essence of tears glistening in her eyes for a few blinks. “It feels incredible to feel needed.”
I took the opportunity to hug her again because I thought she needed it, and she was right—I definitely needed her.
“Thank you,” I murmured. “You are needed.”
“Go.” She stepped back and took a deep breath, releasing it with a smile. “Go home to your family. Go love my best friend. I think she’s felt neglected.”
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