by Amy Faye
"You son of a bitch," he cried. He pulled back his fist.
"You need to understand," Colin said. He didn't put his hands up to stop Evan. It made him hesitate.
"Understand what? How fucking underhanded you are?"
"I know, I deserved that. But come on. You think you're the knight in shining armor here? You're such a good guy, and I'm such a bad guy?"
"If you were going to tell her, you could have waited."
"So, what? So you can get away with it?"
"It wasn't even my idea, you fucking idiot. But let me guess, you left that part out when you were fucking my girlfriend, huh?"
The last part hit Evan harder than it thought, even though the words were coming out of his own mouth. His fist moved forward. Caught Colin on the lips. They were caught between his teeth and Evan's knuckles; like most of the time, they split. Blood spilled down Colin's face.
"I'm done with you," Evan growled. "I never want to hear from you again, you piece of garbage."
"Go fuck yourself," Colin rasped. He spat blood on the ground. "You're not good enough for her."
"At least we can agree on one thing," Evan said grimly. He thought about kicking Colin while he was down. It would be easy. But then he decided against it. There was nothing down that road that would help anyone. Least of all himself.
And besides, he had another stop to make. One that would be damaged somewhat by having the cops called on him for assault.
He stormed back down the stairs, and watched Dana's car turn out of the lot. At two hundred yards, it was impossible to make out more than that about her. He tried not to think about how she was reacting to the whole situation, because the only thing that Evan knew for certain was that it couldn't have been very well.
He turned the key in his ignition. It would be easy to catch her. If that was what he wanted. It wasn't.
He pulled out of the apartment's parking lot moving slow. Like usual. The engine growled it's low growl and ultimately used a tiny part of its power to move him around. He stopped at a diner. Ate a meal. And then, when he'd given her a little time to calm down, he picked up his phone and dialed her number.
"Fuck off," she said, an instant after she picked up. Then she hung up. He opened his mouth to respond after the line had already gone dead.
Then he settled back into the car, and started driving. It was aimless at first, but it didn't take long to turn into going someplace specific. He'd only been to her apartment once. But he knew the place, and he knew the number. Somehow it was burned into his mind. And unlike Colin, she didn't have any lack of people coming through her doors.
Evan slipped in through the security door next to an attractive thirty-something woman carrying an armload of groceries. He took some of them to help out, dropped them off, and pretended that he couldn't have had her right there with a few well-chosen words and a decent attempt.
Then he made his way to the fourth floor. There was an elevator, but he didn't take it. He took the stairs, and didn't know why. All he knew was that he had to. So he did. He knocked at the door and stepped back to let her get a good look at him.
She opened the door a crack. The chain was still in place. He knew from the past week that there was no safety to be had in leaving the chain on. You could put your foot through the door as easy as you like, and the chain is little more than a suggestion to stop.
"I told you to leave me alone."
"I came to apologize."
"For what? Getting caught?"
"You have to understand this from my perspective."
"No, no, I get it. I'd slum it for a cool fifty grand, too."
"That's… do you even like him?"
She blinked. He knew the answer in his gut, in that moment, even if she had no intention of telling him. There was a long silence that stretched out. Then she closed the door. She didn't open it again, and after knocking again, and waiting five minutes, Evan started back down the stairs.
That was one consolation, at least. She didn't care for Colin one bit. And the fact that she didn't bothered her. He wished he could take some solace in it. But even the best things that he could have understood from it only made him feel worse.
Because she had liked him. And that only meant that he had really, honestly betrayed her, and there was nothing that he could do to change that.
Seventeen
Dana sat behind the counter, scanning books. It was the same thing that she did almost every day, and it was her least favorite part of every day. Completely mindless. It was the perfect time to spend time thinking about things. Sometimes that was beneficial. Sometimes it was even pleasant. More often than not, it was neither. She let out a long sigh. She looked over towards the door.
Nobody came in. Thursdays were never busy, but today had to be a uniquely slow day. There had been talk about the library closing down, or switching to a lighter schedule. Dana didn't like it, but then again, nobody had asked her what she thought on the matter. Officially, they hadn't even floated the idea.
But once talk like that starts to circulate, it's only a matter of time until someone tries to figure out how it would work out in reality. And once that happens, you're pretty much lost from the get-go.
She closed the cover of the book on the top of the stack, shifted it to the 'done' stack, and opened the next. Scanned it. Closed the cover. Shifted. Opened. Scanned. It was mind-numbing stuff.
There were a dozen projects she knew she should have been thinking about. She had a novel in the works. It was just a little dream now, and a few pages of outlining that she wasn't sure she wanted to keep working on. There were still questions that remained entirely un-answered, and she needed to think about how she was going to deal with that.
Instead, she was thinking about Evan. He was an asshole, she told herself. But that wasn't what she was thinking, no matter how many times she tried to bring herself back to heel. She was thinking about his face, and about how he was in bed. She was thinking about his taste in movies. She was thinking about books that she could have him read.
And she was thinking about the fact that no matter how much she might have wanted him to be interested in her, it wasn't going to happen.
Maybe he would change. Maybe she could fix him, or she could get him to straighten out his act. The reality was that it didn't matter, because she didn't want to put the work in. He didn't deserve her. That was what she told herself, and if she said it in her head a dozen more times, then eventually, she knew–eventually she'd actually believe it, too.
Evan drove aimlessly after class. He wasn't going anywhere. But even he wasn't stupid enough to think that was the truth after he passed her library the fifth time. His random circles seemed to be going to the same places over and over again, and no matter how much he tried to pretend that it wasn't intentional, he noticed the pattern.
There are only two ways to react to that sort of realization, and he knew what she would have wanted. So he turned the wheel and got onto the interstate. He drove until a name on the sign caught his interest, pulled off, and looked at the sign for the local attractions.
He'd lived in-state his entire life, but that didn't mean that he always had the urge to explore. He had only the vaguest idea where he was; as for what he could find around here, he knew nothing at all. They advertised a Motel Six and a McDonald's 2.2 miles to the east. He went west.
A mile down the road he saw a mall. That was the sort of thing he wanted. He pulled into the parking lot. The place was small, and it was more empty than it was full. He knew vaguely what that meant, in terms of the businesses inside. They were all dying a death in there, and the only people who went inside were people who weren't interested in buying anything they had to sell.
A trio of women in their sixties walked past in velour jumpsuits, holding pink two-pound weights in their hands like that kind of weight made a difference. He followed them through the doors, and then followed them until the mall split off in three different directions. They went left; he went
straight-on.
He looked at stores. Tried not to think about anything at all. It wasn't going to work, though, and he knew it. With nothing to do and a whole lot on his mind, all he was going to find was that he wanted to think; since he didn't, that wasn't going to work.
He let out a breath and stepped inside a media store with a name he didn't recognize. It was almost surprising to see, but it soon became easy to understand how they kept themselves open when he noticed the curtained-off section in the back.
He let out a breath, kept his attention off the back area, and browsed their selection. Pulled a Criterion Blu-ray off the rack, and thought for a moment. No reason not to, he supposed. It had been a while since he'd watched Seventh Seal, and there was no time like the present.
It wasn't like he had anything else to do, after all.
Eighteen
Evan's movie played; he wasn't really watching it. The fact that he didn't speak a word of Swedish didn't make it any easier. There were subtitles, and it was no problem at all to follow the plot.
The problem was that he was pacing the apartment. His eyes scanned the room. Evan felt like he had an itch he couldn't scratch. There was a voicemail on his phone from a number he didn't recognize. The voice in the message, though, was one that he did recognize.
As if he needed an introduction, Senator Burke had given his name, and not his title: Tom Burke calling, to speak to Evan Park. Get back to him at earliest convenience.
It was a surprise to hear from him. Evan had almost thought that after Colin tried to wreck his relationship with Dana, the terms of the bet were off. Apparently he'd thought wrong.
He turned and walked towards the patio door, and tried not to think too hard about it. He could call back, no problem. Just because he'd gotten the opportunity through less than wholesome means didn't mean that it was smart or fair to turn that opportunity down now. Two wrongs didn't make a right.
His eyes settled on the dinner table. He never ate at it, but he'd always had a dinner table before. There was a pile of books on it. He'd been meaning to return them, the way that everyone always means to return library books. Most people, though, didn't have a good reason to be avoiding the library.
He sucked in a breath. Three things he was avoiding now. It was like spinning plates. Eventually one of them was going to fall, and he knew that he needed to get them all moving as soon as he could. It didn't help, though, that he felt like he was having a stroke.
He picked up the books. He could sit down and watch the movie, but that was pointless. A way to avoid doing anything. He let it keep playing as he walked out the door with a bundle under his arm. He'd been sensitive to her feelings as long as he could. There was a limit to how much time he was willing to give her, and it was roughly eight dollars in late fees.
The car pulled easily into the library parking lot fifteen minutes later, as if it weren't passing any kind of barrier at all. The road turned off into a driveway and the tires drove up the concrete. Just like it was made to do.
He pulled into the first spot. There were two cars in the lot, but they were parked far enough away that it was easy to figure out that they belonged to the librarians, not to any patrons. For a moment Evan thought about pulling right back out of the spot and going home with his books. He could come back another time.
Instead, he grabbed the pile and tucked it under his arm, slid out of the seat, and started towards the door. The possibility that they were closed flashed through his head. Another excuse to walk away. He forced himself to keep moving. There was no harm in trying the door, and the outdoor book return was padlocked shut.
Evan tried the door. It came open easily. He stepped inside. All of the hemming and hawing fell away, and he moved to the desk. A pair of women stood behind the counter. The older one looked up at him. Looked over at Dana. Her lips pulled into a wide line, and then she turned to Dana and announced that she was going to use the lavatory.
Dana turned to her coworker first, to acknowledge that she'd heard it. If she'd noticed him come up, she didn't show it. If she'd noticed that he was the one who stood at the line, then she was better at hiding her surprise than he expected. Dana's eyes moved to the line, as the words 'I can help you' slipped out on reflex.
He smiled vaguely. "I came to return some books."
"What are you doing here?"
"I put it off as long as I could."
"You didn't…" Dana took a breath. Evan waited.
"If you want me to say I'm sorry, well, I'm sorry."
"I don't care."
"If you wanted me to say I moved on, well, I haven't. But I'll get over it. I won't bother you again if you don't want me to. But I don't need a debt collection agency calling me up because I never brought some library books back, all because I avoided the place for your feelings."
"I'm sure it's all very easy for you," Dana growled.
"Not really," Evan said. He shrugged.
She seemed to hear him for the first time. She blinked. Looked at him harder. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"I told you. I'll get over it."
She looked sorry. Which was a surprise.
"I'm going to go take a look around," Evan said. "Then I'll get out of your hair, okay?"
He did what he said. The shelves were tall and thick with books. He walked through them slowly. There was no reason to be here, he told himself. There was nothing here for him. He didn't care about cookbooks or bibles or biographies. He didn't care about westerns or fantasy or science fiction. He didn't care about the romance section, either, but he cared when Dana was standing in the aisle.
She was looking at him with a vague sense of curiosity, and was apparently not intending to shelve the books that she had in her arms. She set them on the shelf.
"You shouldn't have come here," she said. She stepped closer. She didn't look angry, which was a surprise.
"No?"
"No," she said. She was so close that he could feel his stomach threatening to do flips. The shelves were too close, getting into his head. He had made a mistake. He thought he could deal with being close to her, but he couldn't. He needed to leave before he said something he regretted.
Then she grabbed his face and pressed her lips against his, and all those thoughts ran out of his head.
Nineteen
Colin's voice echoed through the apartment. It wasn't immediately obvious who it was; someone being too loud, and too boisterous. Perhaps angry, but from the front door, it was impossible to be sure. Maybe they were just loud.
It was only ascending the stairs that details became clearer. The first thing you knew was that he was angry, after all. The words were still too indistinct to make out, but they weren't happy words. And there was no distinct background noise to suggest someone shouting to be heard over a crying baby or a stereo system cranked too loud.
Then coming up the stairs a little way more, identifying the voice became easier. On the platform of the second floor, anyone who knew Colin would have recognized his voice. And they would have recognized that it was coming from above.
On the third story, his voice still coming from above, someone who knew him would know where he was, and someone who didn't know him would know what he was saying. Because he was shouting to be heard, after all; just not over the sound of something making it difficult to hear.
On the fourth floor it became clear. His shouts were to be heard through the closed door of apartment number 402. Dana was inside somewhere, presumably ignoring those shouts, because he'd clearly been there for some time. He was so fixated on trying to get her to open the door that he didn't notice Evan coming.
"Is there a problem here?"
Colin heard the voice. Evan stood his ground. He didn't even shift the wine bottle he carried under his arm.
"What are you doing here?" He had stopped shouting, at least, Evan thought sourly.
"I could ask you the same question."
"This ain't about you, Evan," Colin said. "I paid you off. Now
get out of my hair."
"I'm not here for you," he said.
"Good," Colin answered. "Then get out of here. I was here first."
"That's not how this works," Evan said flatly. He had to work to keep his grip loose on the bottle, but he managed it in spite of himself.
"Get out of here."
"I heard you the first time. And I'm not going. I think you ought to recognize that Dana doesn't want to see you, Colin."
"I'm not letting you take another one from me," Colin said.
He turned, and for a moment Evan was worried he was going to pull a gun. Instead he came across with a baton. It clipped Evan hard on the cheek. He knew in an instant that it was broken, and knew at the same time that there was no way that was where it ended.
So as he fell he slipped the wine bottle into his hand, caught around the neck, and as his foot came under his hip to catch himself he brought it around in a windmill that brought the bottle clapping down on top of Colin's head.
At least, that was the plan. The younger man slipped right at the last second. It caught the corner of his head and rebounded down. The bottle hit hard on his shoulder, but bounced off the meat of it.
Neither took the time to recover. A question ran through the back of his mind. Why did Colin have the weapon? He didn't have time to consider it. The thought passed. The steel tube whistled past his face, coming the other way. This time, Evan was luckier. The bottle caught Colin in the jaw. It hit with a dull 'thud', and the rich boy's body slumped.
He tried to push himself up. Colin's legs moved like a newborn fawn, refusing to hold him up. Evan pressed the advantage, came around and twisted. Colin's head flew back, caught him on the nose. His grip, however, held.
"Someone call the cops," he shouted out. The speed at which the sirens arrived, only moments later, told him that someone already had. Probably a long time ago. He pretzeled his legs around Colin's hips, keeping him grounded as he started to gain better control of his legs again.
"Don't move," Evan growled. "It'll only make things worse."
