I couldn’t look at him. Jack was cracking me open and I’d vowed to never again allow that to happen. His fingers gently grasped my chin, turning my face towards his.
“So what do you think?” He asked gently.
“I don’t know…” His mouth was suddenly on mine and I forgot what we were even talking about. As I worked at learning everything there was to know about Jack’s mouth, I realized he’d pulled me up on my knees so I was facing him, snaking his arms around me and tugging me close. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d climbed onto his lap as we continued to devour each other.
I’d always thought I was attracted to Gideon, but I was swiftly learning what attraction really was. And my, oh my, I liked it.
My hands were in Jack’s hair, having tossed his cap aside, and I was vaguely aware that his hands had climbed up my back, underneath my shirt, searing handprints into my skin. I arched into them.
And the kiss went on.
Finally, I pulled away, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath, his hands continuing to hold me.
“Jack,” I gasped. He smiled smugly at me, his lips red and glistening, looking entirely too self-satisfied.
“Eve?” I was suddenly entirely too aware of the fact that I was straddling him, our bodies pressed tightly against each other. I tried to retreat but his hands held me in place.
“I…can’t.” I forced out the words, knowing they needed to be said.
“Yes, you can. And if you can kiss me like that, I already heard the answer I was hoping for. It may not be the words coming out of your mouth but your body is speaking to me loud and clear.” I froze.
“You have to listen to my words. It’s all I have.”
Jack lost his easygoing posture and allowed me to pull away from him. I jumped up and started to pace.
“Of course, Eve. Tell me how you feel.” Damn.
“Look. This isn’t going to work. My mind is all kinds of scrambled, I have a truckload of crap in my past, and Jack?”
“Yeah?” he answered softly before standing.
“You make me forget everything.”
“Is that so bad?” Yes. No. I don’t know.
“I don’t know. I need to remember. I need to know who I am and why. I can’t forget.” I knew I wasn’t making sense but I didn’t care.
“I know. Come.” He opened his arms and my body betrayed me by going to him and allowing him to engulf me in his powerful arms. “It will work. I just know it will,” he whispered into my hair as his hand rubbed soft circles into my back.
“I’m scared,” I whispered back. It was the most honest thing I’d said in years.
“Me too.” He placed a sweet kiss on my forehead before resting his cheek against my head.
“You left.” I hadn’t forgotten.
“Yeah. And I will again. But Eve, I’m not leaving you.”
TWENTY-ONE
It was the first night I’d crawled in with Jack that I discovered he wasn’t already asleep. He’d wrapped me up into his embrace and pulled me close, so that we were curled around each other. Everyone had gone to bed over an hour ago so I was fairly certain that they were all asleep, but I still couldn’t relax.
Things had changed and I was having a hard time keeping up.
“How old are you, Eve?” Jack asked quietly, his breath tickling my ear.
“17. I’ll be 18 in January.” I could do this, I could talk like this.
“Ok, jailbait,” Jack whispered. I could hear the grin in his voice.
“Ok hotshot, how old are you?” I only asked to challenge him.
“19.” Oh. Jack was still here, he was 19, and he wasn’t a ‘leader.’ What did that mean?
“Old man,” I teased. I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable. “I think you’re robbing the cradle.” He laughed.
“Cradle? Not quite. But I do seem to have an unintentional ability to rob the pallet.” Funny.
“Yeah, well your written invitation was more than enough of an incentive.” He laughed again.
“Eve, why did you come into my bed?” I stiffened. I couldn’t go there. Not yet. I was still trying to figure this out for myself. “Ok, go to sleep sweet girl.” I felt him press a kiss to the back of my neck and I relaxed. Slowly, I drifted off to sleep. I’d never slept better than I did with Jack.
✽✽✽
“Why do you even do this, Greg? Why care about crazy people?”
“Eve. You are not crazy and you know I’ve never termed you as such.” I rolled my eyes. “We don’t ever use words like that, nor do we refer to your campmates in that way.”
“Please. This is a freaking crazy farm and we’ve all been forcibly sent here to have our brains sorted out. So don’t start with the whole ‘difficulties’ speech.”
I was not in a good mood today.
“You are not crazy. And besides, that’s a pretty un-PC term you’re throwing around.” Greg looked at me disappointedly.
“Fine.” I threw up my hands. “Nuts. Loony. A few fill-in-the-blank short of a fill-in-the blank. Off our rocker. Insane. Batshit. Cray-Cray, if you hear what the kids are saying these days.”
“Enough.” I’d never heard Greg sound so forceful and, shockingly, I sat up straight in my chair at attention. “I’m getting a little sick of this routine, Eve. I’d like to be understanding. I’d like to care, but at this point I can’t and I don’t.” Jeez. “You’ve given me nothing to work with, other than your file and your less than sunny attitude.” True that.
“I’m going to be frank with you. I am your only chance out of here and so far, that is a long shot.” Ok, this was getting bad, fast. “It’s up to me to help you, to encourage your recovery. And if I didn’t think you were recoverable, I’d have given up the day I met you. But Eve, you are not crazy, nor are you any of those other adjectives you so callously threw out at me. Although, I did appreciate the ‘cray-cray’ one; I’ll add it to my ever-growing list. And frankly, it’s a little disrespectful to be so dismissive of the struggles that many people go through – that many of your campmates and friends go through. Many don’t get a choice. They don’t get to decide to be stable or choose stability, they don’t get to control the chemicals in their brains or their hereditary conditions. Look around you. You have no idea the things your friends and campmates struggle with and battle against. Any idea what it’s like to be your own worst enemy?” Actually, yes.
“And whoever decided you all needed to keep your thoughts and reasons for being here from one another should feel very ashamed of themselves, because you guys could be helping each other. You could be another set of understanding ears…or just ears period. We all need someone to talk to, to trust and rely upon, at some point.”
Dude, Greg was a lot more passionate than I gave him credit for. I supposed he was right, no one here was to blame for why they were here, except perhaps me, and I knew from my experience with Gideon that sometimes you really did just need someone to lean on or just to be there to listen.
“But I digress,” Greg pushed on. “The point is, I know you are someone who has probably gone through a lot of bullshit and messed up stuff. You’re young, have no history of mental illness, and aside from being a pain in my ass, seem to be on the ball. So when you decide to grow up and want to get out of here, come see me. Come talk to me.”
Holy Shit.
“Because Eve? It’s my signature that’s standing between you and life.” He looked at me long and hard. “And I’m not talking about sneaking out with Jack.”
With that, he left the room. I was the one who’d remained, sitting there long after my therapist had left. Left, like everyone else.
TWENTY-TWO
“You are such a bitch.”
I just rolled my eyes. This was a tired routine.
“Yeah, I’m a bitch. Got it,” I forced myself to respond.
“No, you are. You are freaking tall and thin, and have a great rack. And you are offering all of it to that loser Jack. I just can’t l
ook at you right now.”
“I’m not offering it to Jack. It’s not like that and you know it, Lei.”
“Well, yeah, but only because you guys have no privacy. Just imagine if we were normal…you’d have jumped his bones long ago.”
Would I have?
“Lei, cut it out. Let’s just finish our assignment and then we can go to bed.” I was bone tired. Jack had disappeared again and I hadn’t gotten any sleep for the past few days.
“You just want to go to bed…with Jack.” She smiled smugly at me.
She was right.
“Jack’s gone Lei, in case you haven’t noticed the current vacancy in the bunk.” I rolled my eyes.
“I’m back, baby.” I felt Jack’s arms encircle me from behind.
“Don’t call me that.” I didn’t even look at him. I was too annoyed and too exhausted to do this right now.
“Sorry.” He just held me tighter. “You guys are nerds. I can’t believe you’re still up doing homework.”
“Yeah, well some of us can’t get away with doing whatever we damn well please.” There was no fire behind what I said as I sank back against his body.
“I missed you,” I whispered.
“I know, me too,” he said quietly.
“You guys are disgusting.” Leila bolted off.
I couldn’t help but laugh. Jack spun me around and pulled me flush against him, his mouth seeking mine as soon as it was in the vicinity of his. Every time I kissed Jack it felt like the first time. It felt like the first time people had ever kissed, like we’d discovered this amazing thing called kissing and we had to perfect it with lots of practice before we introduced it to the general public. Practicing was good.
Jack always stole my breath. Pulling away, I was breathing heavily but trying to act like I was calm. “Jack,” I said, “where do you go?”
“One day I will tell you.” Then his mouth reconnected with mine and I forgot that he’d been gone.
As I curled my body around Jack’s that night, I knew I needed answers from him but I couldn’t bring myself to work for it. I just needed Jack and at the moment, it was ok.
In the morning I woke up to a surprise. Jack was already awake.
“Hi,” I smiled shyly at him.
“Hi baby girl,” Jack grinned back. I don’t think Jack had a shy bone in his body.
“Girl? Ok. Baby? Not so much.”
“Ok, I get it. You’ve told me that a few times.” I shuddered. I couldn’t ever be called ‘baby’ without cringing.
“Yeah, so…just, yeah.”
“You’re awfully cute in the morning.” I hid my face and pressed closer to Jack.
“So are you,” I whispered. I was still learning how to do this. I had no experience. Gideon and I had been best friends long before we tried to take things to a different level. I’d never met someone and become involved, learning as we went. This was hard. Jack just laughed.
I guess this wasn’t hard for him.
“Don’t tell me I’m just another of your many conquests,” I plunged forward. That would suck. Talk about one more let down.
“Ba- Eve, no. Truthfully, you’re the only girl from camp I’ve ever been interested in. You, and your beautiful silver eyes.” Wow. “I mean, you know I leave, so obviously there have been other girls, but at camp? Just you.” I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to make me feel more or less secure.
“And now?” Oh shit, without realizing, I was pushing for definitions.
“Now? It’s just you and me. Jack and Eve. If you’ll have me?” I wasn’t sure but I thought he sounded slightly uncertain.
“Jack, I don’t really do this kind of thing.”
“I know. You don’t do friends, I can imagine you certainly don’t do boyfriends.” Oh my god he said boyfriend. “But I’d like it, if you’d have me.” His blue eyes were burning through me like the sun.
“Yeah Jack. I’ll have you.” I smiled at him, wondering what in the world I was getting myself into. But it didn’t matter, because for some reason I felt like if I had Jack, I could handle anything.
“Talk to me. I wasn’t kidding that I’d like to know you better. Obviously I’m attracted to you, and what I know about you is awesome…but I want more.”
“There is no more.” There really wasn’t. Who was I? Who was I without the context of Gideon and my mom and…Phil.
“Right.” He pulled me closer against him, his arms tightening around me.
“You go first,” I said, barely over a whisper, burying my face in the crook of his neck. I was like awkward incarnate.
“Ok.” Jack always sounded so carefree, so easy going. It was one of things that drew me to him, that I envied.
That first morning, we talked about the easy stuff. Where we’d grown up, siblings (neither of us had them), how Jack had played baseball as a kid and loved it.
“I always saw you, Eve. But do you want to know when I really knew I needed you in my life?” Wow. All I could do was shake my head.
“The night of the drum circle. The way you played, which was really awesome, but more than that? The way you looked while you were playing. You were beautiful. You radiated like you were finally at peace. I decided right then that I needed to see you look like that again…see you be at peace. Even if I could never make you feel that way.”
Only Jack could say something so sweet, so honest and poignant that it made your heart hurt just a little bit, and act like it was nothing.
“You give me peace, Jack.” He did. The comfort of sleeping next to him had taken on an entirely new level.
Jack remained silent, getting a look on his face that, while I was still learning how to read him, seemed closed off. Like he thought I was just saying that, like he knew there was no way the statement could be true.
“I liked your hat. And the way you let Leila jump on you and gush all over you. You gave her what she wanted…you knew what she needed and let her take it. If I smiled, I would have.” I ducked my head because this was the first time I’d been so emotionally open in a long time. Gideon, my mind whispered.
“Yeah, Lei needs stuff like that.”
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Why do you wear your hat pulled so low on your face?”
“If I can’t stand to look at myself, why could anyone else?”
With that, Jack got up and walked out of the cabin without a backward glance. I guess our conversation was over.
TWENTY-THREE
So things continued status quo, much to my liking. The only part that gave me pause was the element of Jack. He still disappeared for periods of time, and I was realizing more and more that it wasn’t healthy to rely on his presence in order to be able to sleep at night. I needed to let it go, let go of Phil, let go of Gideon, and stand (or sleep as it may) on my own, while still holding onto Jack.
Because the truth of it was, the day I’d agreed to let him into my life was the day I’d subconsciously decided that maybe I wanted to have a life.
Typically, this meant Greg was making some headway…much to my irritation, and chagrin.
“So why did you think that you had no other options than to eliminate your stepfather, for good?” Ugh. Greg, just let it go!
“Well, one can always hope.” I was running out of ways to avoid this question and its true answer. I had known Phil was leaving.
The night before, as he lay next to me, always claiming we needed quality time after and always ignoring my silence and stiff body, he’d slipped it into our ‘conversation’. Technically, I think both people need to be participating in order to constitute a conversation but that never stopped Phil.
“I’m going away for the night tomorrow, baby. My friend just separated from his wife so he invited us all out for a guy’s night. Probably leave around 4 since it’s a 2 hour drive to where he lives. But don’t worry. I’ll be back the next morning.”
Because I was really worried.
I’d known he wasn’t going
to be home and I’d specifically called my mom minutes before to ensure that she was out shopping. I just had to eliminate the house. I had to eliminate me, for good. Remove everything that represented all that had come to define me: dancing, art, Gideon, Phil and his little nighttime visits. If I could have burned down my memories of his hands and his body and his hot breath on my face, I would have. Instead I just decided to let it all go poof. Up in flames.
The Internet can be a very dangerous thing, especially when permanently damaged teens are looking for detailed instructions on how to successfully accomplish what they seek to do. Because what I intended to do, I needed to do successfully.
And I did.
By the time the fire department arrived, thanks to our friendly do-gooder neighbor, half the house had been destroyed. Shockingly, it was the bedrooms that were the first to go. Specifically, mine.
I couldn’t bear one more night in that room, especially without Gideon.
✽✽✽
“Jack?” I was whispering because it was long past lights out and the bunk was snoring collectively around us.
“Yeah?” he whispered back. I knew he was still awake.
“Why? Why do you like me?” I realized immediately how needy and pathetic I sounded, but it was too late. And I seriously wanted to know.
“Stop. You’re just fishing, Snuggs.” He’d taken to calling me Snuggs, short for Snuggles since I guess that was what we did, and since I adamantly demanded he not call me “baby” or “babe” or any variation on the word.
I kind of didn’t mind the Snuggs thing.
Truthfully, I didn’t mind at all.
And since he wasn’t getting much more than snuggles from me, I figured I could at least give him that.
“But why? I’m just going to ruin you.”
“I’m already ruined, Eve, but nice try.”
“Jack, you’re not ruined. You’re sweet and you care about me even when I’m a total bitch to everyone.” I caressed his face, smoothing the little furrow in his brows that I’d seen develop when I told him I’d ruin him.
Forgiving Eve: A Novel Page 9
