“Oh my god, Vangie,” Simon gasped, his eyes wide.
He hadn’t called me Vangie in forever. It must be really bad.
“I know, I know, I’m hideous. And dripping in crumbs.” Simon had managed to really embarrass me, and I began gesturing with my hands and couldn’t stop. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t notice. Or at least, have the decency not to say anything if you did.”
“No, not that. I’m mean you don’t look... hideous.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“No, I mean, you have scratches and marks all over your neck and an enormous bruise on your arm.” He reached out for me, but I flinched him away. “What did you….?” There was a glint of something in his tone. Anger? Disgust? Was he really going to start caring now, of all times, about my sex life?
The tone of the conversation stirred something in me—not in a good way—and I lashed out. “Oh, I hadn’t noticed,” said I, glancing casually at the sizeable black and green knot on my forearm. “Didn’t you hear I’m into this kind of thing? Can’t you tell how much I enjoy it?” I continued, again too sarcastically.
He clenched his jaw. “Look, I don’t care if you... slept... with... him... or not...” he seemed to choke on the words. “You’re right about everyone talking about that, but we’re your friends and we’re just worried about you. None of this is like you, I can tell. Whatever is making you act this way, we can help, we can...”
“No, you can’t. No one can. And why would anyone care if I did sleep with him—hasn’t everyone else? Does it really make any difference?”
Simon looked extremely pained and then sighed. “No, I guess it doesn’t matter. Whatever is going on, it’s okay, Evangeline. That’s all I’m trying to say.” He tilted his head to look in the house. “Can I come in for a minute?”
I looked around at the mess my house had become over the last several days or however long it’d been. Again, in a previous life, I might’ve been embarrassed to have pizza boxes and wineglasses all over the coffee table and whatever other mess was lying about, but again, I found, to my surprise, I didn’t care at all.
Wait. On second thought, maybe I wouldn’t have and was just being too hard on myself at the moment. My natural disposition is quite a Bohemian one. I often go through slovenly phases and am quite unapologetic about it, so no, I haven’t completely lost it yet. Apparently, my inner monologue is becoming something of a drama queen lately. At this revelation I was suddenly afraid to say anything to Simon. I shrugged instead and gestured for him to come in. Simon maneuvered himself awkwardly through the living room before moving books, a nightgown and blanket—and for some reason a sock—off the arm of a chair to clear a place to sit down.
“Would you, I dunno, like some tea or something?” I asked automatically, just because it seemed like the sort of thing one should say.
“Sure, I’ll take some of that.”
When I returned from putting the kettle on, Simon was wandering around looking at the things on my shelves.
“You’ve got some really interesting things here. Did you put all this together yourself?”
“No. This used to be my mom’s house.”
“Why do you keep all of this up, if you don’t mind me asking? Some of this stuff is a little… unusual. What is this, like a snake skeleton?” Simon was making a disapproving face and pointing to a delicate collection of bones on one of the shelves.
Lie. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life it’s this: Never disclose your true interests or tastes to anyone.
“These were my mother’s things. I keep them up to remind me of her. I don’t know, I guess they’ve never seemed weird to me.” Benign enough.
“Oh. Well, it’s interesting, in a… Tim Burton sort of way.” He forced a smile.
See? I adore Tim Burton. Simon would be repulsed if he knew how much I loved every single artifact in this house.
The kettle whistled. I pulled a face and gestured toward the kitchen. Simon nodded in comprehension.
After settling at the sofa with our tea, I felt a little better, a little more like myself. Hot tea always has that effect on me.
“You have to come back to work, Evangeline,” Simon finally said with absolutely no segue. He had apparently been dying to say this since I opened the door.
I just made a face and shook my head. I didn’t want to be mean to him anymore.
“Look, it’s obvious that’s something’s wrong... something, I mean, from before, not, you know, from, at Steve’s...” He paused and cleared his throat in apparent embarrassment for me.
“We all catch glimpses of it sometimes. I’m sorry to be bringing this up, and you can stop me at any time if I’m out of line, but normally you seem so detached and aloof. But then, occasionally, at lunch, when we’re all laughing and talking—or when you used to come with us to happy hours, after you’d had a drink or two—you just sort of lit up inside and came out of your shell. It was amazing. You’d be so funny and radiant and... alive. Gavin said you probably act the way you normally do as some sort of a defense mechanism, but that sometimes, you let your guard down when you’d had a drink or two or were really enjoying yourself. Anyway, that’s his theory.
“Something is wrong, Evangeline—we know it is. You have this wall around you, almost all the time and then there’s this… sadness. But we all thought it seemed to be getting better, that you’d eventually snap out of it when you learned to trust us, to let go of whatever you’re trying to protect yourself from. Instead, you sort of slipped away again. You rarely laugh anymore, Evangeline. I don’t know if you realize that.”
I bit my lip. I hadn’t realized my behavior was that obvious. Actually I hadn’t given it much thought at all. It wasn’t like I planned to act like a jerk. And it never occurred to me that anyone would be observant enough to realize any of those things, let alone find it interesting to merit conversation when I wasn’t around.
“I want you to take a look at this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something out. “These are two of the pictures Lyle took at the party.”
I took the pictures from him cautiously. Where was he going with this? I looked at the first picture, it was of me, Nicky, Simon, and some of our other co-workers at Steve’s party. I remembered Simon had just done one of his Andy Samberg impressions, and we were all laughing. Okay, I see the point now. Everyone looked really happy... except me. I looked a little sad. That moment was happier than I had been in forever, and even though I was laughing, there was sadness in my eyes. When was the last time I’d seen myself objectively like this?
Simon was watching me.
“Alright, so I look a little... off,” I said uncomfortably. “Thanks for pointing that out?”
“Look at the other one,” Simon replied quickly.
I slowly slid the second picture from behind the first, already afraid of what I would see. I drew in a sharp breath. The picture was of me shortly after I arrived at the party, before I’d found Lyle. The difference in my expression was unbelievable, unbearable. Clearly the picture had been taken the precise moment I felt the hair on my neck stand on end. I could barely look at it. It reminded me of the way my mother looked in the mental institution: soulless. The look was beyond sadness or anxiousness—no words can describe it.
I nodded my head and furrowed my brow nervously, not looking at Simon, though painfully aware that he was still watching me.
“What is it, Evangeline? Tell me. Whatever it is... whatever you’re running from... nothing can be this bad.”
I continued to stare at my cup of tea. What should I tell him? I hadn’t exactly developed a guideline for the current situation, a so you were almost raped and then humiliated in front of your co-workers and now one of them is on to you guideline. Finally, a price to pay for being overly broad.
“You realize you’re going to lose your job if you don’t come back to work? How are you going to live without a job?”
“I know,” I said finally. I was on
ly answering his first question, of course; I hadn’t come up with an answer to the second. No need to bring Simon into my own internal debate. Though, somehow it was easier for me to talk to him because he was being somewhat less than nice.
“It’s not just the job.” He sighed. “How do I say this? Um... Gavin... does not want you to... leave. There. I said it. He would kill me if he knew I was telling you this, but I think this all really has to stop.”
“What? Gavin? What do you...”
“Gavin is crazy about you, but you know how he doesn’t want to get mixed up with anyone at work,” he cut me off angrily. “I’m just not too happy about the idea, though. Because it’s obvious, to me at least, that... you can never be with him, can you?”
I blinked several times in rapid succession, shocked and trying in vain to process. Gavin? He’s a great guy and all, but I just never thought of him in that way. He never seemed interested in me in a romantic way, either; besides, he could literally have his pick of almost any woman he wanted. And that was it—I’d never known him to want just one. It didn’t feel right somehow, like finding out someone you long believed to be a godless heathen was actually a monk in secret. On the other hand, I never thought about anyone in that way because my heart was already spoken for. I gave it away a long time ago. It really never occurred to me that anyone else would want it.
Simon was still staring at me, waiting for an answer. I shook my head slowly. “No. I could never be with Gavin. I have zero interest in dating.”
Simon settled back into is seat and seemed to take the information in for a moment. “That’s what I’ve been telling him for years now, but he won’t listen. He’s like a brother to me, and it kills me to see him pining away for a girl that will never be his. I’ve tried and tried to tell him that there must be someone else. That’s it, isn’t it?”
I absently played with the delicate silver Coptic cross around my neck, my most precious possession—Jack’s final gift to me. I had never, ever talked to anyone about this. Not my father, not even the psychiatrist he once forced me to see. I didn’t feel ready, and it definitely violates every single one of my fake rules. But there didn’t seem to be any real escape this time. I was backed into a corner, still shaken, and absurdly covered in tortilla chip crumbs. Possibly for some strange reason this made me numb. No shaking, no attack. I seemed to have been granted temporary immunity following the extreme humiliation at the party. Trading one kind of pain for another—some consolation.
He was still staring at me. “Yes...” I added quickly, nodding my head, “I mean, there was someone else.”
“You guys broke up? Or...”
“Look, Simon. I’ve never told anyone about any of this. I really don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t like anyone... being to close to me. It wouldn’t be smart of me to tell you. But, like you said, I’m not really myself at the moment. So I’m feeling strange and I’m just going to tell you: bad things happen around me. My fiancé... Jack.” I involuntarily held my breath for a moment, but still no attack came. “He…died seven years ago.” My heart fluttered and beat rapidly, but it was easier than I thought it’d be to tell Simon. Possibly because he despises me for unintentionally hurting his friend with my thoughtless aloofness. His opinion of me couldn’t really sink any lower, I supposed.
Simon reached for my hand awkwardly. “I’m really sorry, Evangeline. I really, truly am, but that sounds like an awfully long time ago. I mean, sometimes bad things happen.” It was sweet that he was trying to be kind to me, but he apparently couldn’t even bear to touch me. His hand hovered over mine for a few brief seconds before he pulled it away again. “Wait, because of that ... are you saying you’re never going to be with anyone else?”
I clutched the intricately carved cross, the detail so ornate it was difficult to make out the intended shape. But I knew.
“I guess it does sound strange when you put it like that, but I can’t help it—just the thought of dating anyone else turns my stomach. He committed suicide because of… me.” My eyes welled up for a moment—I shook my head and choked it down. I would not cry in front of Simon. “He left a weird note that didn’t make much sense, the gist of it was that I’d driven him crazy with my obsession...” I put my hands under my legs, just in case.
“I was obsessed with...” Lie, I told myself quickly, “... helping my mother when I was younger. Anyway, I couldn’t believe he’d actually committed suicide. It just wasn’t in him. I went a bit crazy. I pleaded with the police, then the newspapers, anyone who would listen. I tried to make them understand. I was in denial, I guess. I believed that he would never have committed suicide. The police looked into it at first, but...”
“So you’re still trying to find out what happened...”
“Well, yes... and no.” I stared down at my tea. “After awhile, I had to leave New Mexico. I spent all of the money I had saved for law school trying to find out anything I could, $47,582, to be exact.” I glanced up at Simon, suddenly embarrassed by the admission, the first time I had admitted that to anyone. “Anyway,” I continued, trying to regain focus, “I hired private investigators, held séances—I tried anything, everything, but found nothing. Eventually there was just nothing left to do. Nothing had turned up. Nothing. No leads of any kind. That may not mean anything to you, but apparently, it’s unusual for there to be no leads of any kind, if there’s been an actual murder. It turned really ugly. Some people are superstitious. They were kind of... afraid of me. A well-meaning Hopi man on the street made a point of stopping me just to impart that he saw in me the shadow of Masauwu—the spirit of death.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense... why would they think...”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Because it wasn’t the first time.”
Simon stared back at me.
“My first boyfriend, Trent, he started having terrible nightmares—about me. He said he loved me, but that his nightmares were getting worse. A week later he left to work for a security company in the Middle East, said he needed to get as far away as possible. No one ever heard from him again. We had only been dating for a short time, though, so that one wasn’t quite as… painful. I never had any boyfriends in high school. It was like… younger kids could see something… something about me that wasn’t right.”
Simon was shaking his head, “I don’t believe any of that has anything to do with you.”
I sipped my tea to try and steady myself, and stared past Simon. “I could go on and on. People near me have had terrible accidents and bizarre things happen. Just recently a man right beside me was swept out to sea. My own mother is in a mental institution at this moment. Have you never noticed that I keep people away as much as I can? I drive people away....” There it was at last, the horrible implosion I had been expecting. Internal tremors rippled through me, like my soul was being ripped to shreds, tearing into the exact number of pieces as the number of lives I had ruined. I used to revel in this feeling as a sort of penance, punishment, in order to remind me of the ones I’d lost, or killed, depending on how you looked at it. It was just about all I had left in me.
“Evangeline? Just take a deep breath. I’m here, it’s alright.” Simon put his arm around me, seemingly getting over his aversion to touching me, though he still looked awkward.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this sooner? How could you have kept this to yourself all this time? This is too much for one person to carry around on their own. We could’ve helped you... when Gavin and Nicky find out...”
“No! Please, you can’t tell anyone about this!” I shouted at him. I knew I was being slightly hysterical but I had to make him understand. “I shouldn’t have even told you... I think maybe because we aren’t very close, you know.... anymore...” I glanced at him nervously. “I felt it was alright to tell you. I mean, I don’t think you’ll be in any danger. But anyone I have any sort of connection with—I’m terrified of what will happen. Nicky—I can’t live with myself if something happens
to her. Please, please. You can’t tell anyone... promise me.”
Simon had an odd look on his face; I read it as a kind of mixture of anger and pity. It was a look I’d seen before, just not on him. He doesn’t believe me. He thinks I’m crazy or psychotic, just like any sane person would.
Simon was looking down, and now, it was his turn to look sad. I’d finally done it, spilled my secrets and revealed what a freak show I really am.
Finally he furrowed his brow. “Anymore,” he repeated.
He was silent for several long moments before he looked up and said, “Alright, you got it. I promise.” He slammed his mug down on the coffee table so hard that I started, the clang hurting my ears. “But in return, you need to promise me something: you’ll come to work. You owe your friends an explanation, don’t you think? Besides, you can’t just sit around this stuffy old house forever. It’s certainly not doing you any good. You need to get out, get back into a normal routine. Or if you won’t do it for yourself, then at least think of Gavin. I don’t know how he’s going to survive if...” He stared off, seeing nothing.
Beloved Evangeline (A Dark Paranormal Urban Fantasy Trilogy for Grown-ups - Book 1) Page 7
