Chapter Twenty-Three
Eleven Years Ago - Evelyn
THIRTEEN ISN’T WHAT I thought it’d be. It was supposed to be glamorous, independent, and wild. I thought I’d have it all figured out by now. Studying wouldn’t be as hard because I’d be caught up, allowing my time to be spent on making friends, maybe even being surrounded by them. But as what we’re learning gets harder, the teachers seem to care less.
So, rather than going to the mall with friends (the ones I still don’t have), I’m slumped over this kitchen table, trying to memorize everything I can about electrical circuits. It just doesn’t feel real that there’s some invisible force strong enough to light a city.
In five short years, I’ll be expected to build up an entire life that doesn’t suck. Step one is getting a degree, which is wholly reliant on me not failing every important test along the way. Starting with the science part of the FCAT tomorrow.
Science has no doubt become my weakest subject. Math isn’t so bad anymore thanks to Ben’s tutoring, but I can’t rely on him for everything. Especially with Ryder glowering over my shoulder every time we need to have a study session. It’s not like he’d rather I fail, Ryder just can’t help it. Glowering is his factory default.
Sighing, I push my textbook away and plop my face in my hands, rubbing my eyes until my vision swims when I pull my hands away. My heart lurches, clearing away my drowsiness, as a shadow takes shape in the doorway.
A frame that’s haunted my nightmares, a posture I’d never forget.
He takes a lazy step forward, beat-up boots scuffing against the floor as the kitchen light illuminates one side of his face, casting the rest of his features in shadows. Even a small portion of his face would be enough to confirm who is in this house.
Horror seeps through the rest of me, locking up my muscles.
It can’t be.
The man’s smile isn’t the kind sort. “There you are. I knew you were hiding somewhere.”
Tears silently stream down my face. Despite the years and miles between us, he managed to find where I’ve been hiding. Eyes frozen and painfully focused on his wretched face, I don’t notice the quivering and shaking of the scene around us until my mom is lying there, unconscious, across the broken pieces of our dining table.
He’s the man who did this to her.
Mom once told me to never let a man know I was afraid, but as he takes another step toward me, my mouth drops into a scream. Nothing comes out, as if my fear has a grip around my throat, closing it off to air. The man only laughs, taking another lazy step toward us. I try to scream again, using every scrap of fear and anger buried inside, but only a whisper comes out.
Help. I have to get help.
Glancing at the front door I haven’t seen since I was seven years old, I form a plan. I’m small and quick. If I stay low and dart around him, he won’t catch me.
All I have to do is make it outside.
Without warning, I launch into a run and I make it. Nearly sobbing with relief, my hand only shakes a little as I reach for the lock, but then he’s grabbing my hair, dragging me back.
“Where are you going, little one?”
I know this pain. I remember this pain.
“Evie.” And then the painful grip on my hair is gone, replaced with a soothing stroke. “Evie, it’s me.”
I know that voice, it’s grown deeper over time, but I’d know it anywhere.
“You’re safe, okay?”
I have to make it back to that voice.
My eyes finally open, my surroundings blurring as I sort through the nightmare and what’s real.
A sigh of relief. “There she is.” Ryder has his hands on either side of my face, sweeping away the tears with his thumbs.
Real. He’s real.
“Has nobody told you that you can’t creep into girls’ rooms at night?” The joke falls flat, but Ryder gives me a charity chuckle before shoving me over to the other side of my bed and slipping in next to me, a comfortable distance away. We’re quiet for a moment.
“You haven’t had a nightmare like that in… a while.”
“More than a year.”
“You want to talk about it?”
Turning on my side, I bring my hand underneath my cheek and face him. There’s just enough moonlight creeping in through my blinds to see the outline of his face as he looks up toward the ceiling. Feeling my gaze, his lips twitch ever so slightly to the side before Ryder turns to face me. Butterflies take off in my stomach.
We’ve never laid like this before.
Something about it feels distinctly… different.
When he’s asked about my nightmares, I’ve always said no. They chased me enough when I was asleep, bringing them back to consciousness with me seemed like more than I could handle. But tonight, with Ryder looking at me like nothing exists outside of us, a sense of strength falls over me.
“It’s the science FCAT tomorrow and I’m worried I’ll fail. The nightmare started with me studying for that, but it turned into something much darker.”
“You can tell me.” Ryder brushes a strand of hair off my face.
“My mom had many different men over. Never at the same time, but often. Even though I should have been too young to understand, I did. My mom would do things for them, and they would give her drugs in return. Some were quiet, some were loud, and there was one man who was cruel. When he’d come over, my mom made me hide under my bed, lock the door, and promise not to come out, no matter what I heard.” I take a deep breath, my words threatening to get caught in my throat. “One night I heard a crash, worse than ever before. I knew in my bones that something was wrong and…I broke my promise.
“I left my room and found my mom thrown over our broken dining table, covered in bruises and small cuts. Our phone didn’t work when I tried to call for help, so I planned to find some.” The tears start streaming down my face, but Ryder’s hand is there, clearing them away. “I’d just made it to the front door, finally tall enough to reach the lock, when the man grabbed me by my hair and dragged me away. It hurt, it hurt so bad that I screamed loud enough to stir my mom.”
Ryder remains quiet, determined to let me get it all out, but I can feel the rage coming off him in waves. Boys his age don’t feel things the way Ryder does, but I know he feels it for me. For that little girl who showed up in dirty pink sneakers.
“My mom was too weak to get up at first, but I know she saw him hold me by my hair and drop me to the floor, hard enough that when my teeth clacked together, it cut open my lip and tongue. She begged for him to stop, but he kicked me anyway, over and over, calling me a brat for ruining his fun. Just as I was sure it would be the last thing I’d ever know, my mom hit him over the head with a piece of wood from the table.
“The man was in shock for a moment, long enough that I could look at my mom standing there, broken and battered, staring at me with a sort of emotion I’d never seen before. For the first time, she looked like a mother. She had said, ‘ Go. Hide. And this time, don’t come out until I come get you.’
“It was days before the police found me hiding under the bed, but I kept my promise that time. When they carried me out, the lady tried to shield my eyes, but I saw the pills laying on the floor around my mom. I still don’t know whether she accidentally took too many for the pain, or if the man was the one who killed her and made it look a certain way. Part of me wonders whether she did it on purpose.
“That night was the first time I realized that my mom loved me. Despite everything, she truly loved me. And even though that man was cruel, even though he hurt us in ways that can’t be undone, I was grateful. And I’ve spent my whole life wondering if that makes me just as evil as that man.”
Saying it out loud, sharing my deepest and darkest thoughts that have followed me around for so long, it’s as freeing as it is punishing. Ryder knows everything now. It’s no longer just my secret, my torment.
“Evie, nothing that happened that night—to you or your mother—was your fault. You were an innocent child.” Ryder pulls me closer, wrapping his arms around me so I’m tucked against his chest. It grounds me, brings me back to the present, away from the nightmare. “You never knowing that you were loved until that moment was your mom’s failure, not yours. That was her mistake.”
“When I use my brain to think about it, I know you’re right, but it doesn’t stop my heart from wondering.”
“Well, don’t let it. Don’t let your heart wonder. If someone can’t love you , then they’re not capable of it at all.”
My heart picks up at his words. It’s been more than a year since my last nightmare, and even longer before that since it woke Ryder, too. The bed feels smaller than it did then, his body taking up too much space. It distracts me from the leftover traces of the life I left behind, the one that’s haunted me all this time.
As the fear and dread begin to retreat, a charge takes their place. Rather than a soothing comfort, the feel of his arms starts to wake me up, rather than put me to sleep.
What is this strange feeling?
Ryder clears his throat. “I should go now.”
I can’t think of anything worse than him leaving. “Please stay.”
His hesitation is palpable, but eventually his body relaxes back into mine. “Only until you fall asleep.”
But my heart doesn’t slow down. I feel like a live wire, the kind I’m learning about in science. This current could light up more than just a city, it could light up the world.
Is this what electricity is? Suddenly it all makes perfect sense to me, how an energy you can’t see can hold so much power. But if I don’t sleep soon, I’ll fail my test anyway.
There’s only one way I know I’ll be able to fall asleep. “Sing for me?”
And because Ryder has never been able to deny me anything, he does.
Now I’m thinking there could be light, even in the dead of night
You’re my endless, bright blue sky
My sun that breaks the day
My sparkling, streak of light
And since I can’t keep my heart at bay
Here’s the promise I will make
When the sea is dark
When the waves are rough
When the darkness tries to swallow you whole
There I’ll be
I’ll be, I’ll be, I’ll be
I’ll beee-eee-eee
There I’ll be
I’ll be, I’ll be, I’ll be
I’ll beee-eee-eee
It must be another dream, but there’s something new to the lyrics. A subtle whisper right at the end, a prayer and a promise.
So please hold tight
I’m banking on forever with you
· · ·
There’s a knock at my door and not an ounce of pause before it opens.
“When someone knocks, they’re usually supposed to wait until they get an answer.” I cross my arms as Ryder steps through the doorway. “Barging right in defeats the purpose of knocking.”
I’m in a mood this morning. Even though Ryder stayed until I was asleep again, I knew the moment he left because what followed wasn’t a restful sleep. I woke up with my hair sticking up in ways that defy gravity, reminding me of exactly what awaits me today: the science FCAT.
“I got you something.” Ryder has one arm tucked behind his back, and I’m torn between feeling warm or worried. Then again, if he’s hiding an anaconda back there, maybe it can swallow me whole so I won’t have to take the test.
“What do you mean, you got me something?”
Ryder smirks, before revealing a black…ball.
“What’s that supposed to be?”
“A Magic 8 Ball. It’s the future in the palm of your hand.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s not possible.”
“It is. Ask it something you already know the answer to.”
I snatch it from him. “Does Ryder love sparkly pink stuff?”
Ryder ducks his face, hiding the smile I already know is there. “Now shake it and it’ll tell you the answer.”
Giving the ball a shake, I check for the answer. Not likely.
“See?”
My mood starts to crack, especially when I think about what he must have gone through to get this for me before school, because I know for certain this wasn’t laying around in his room. I’ve already snooped through everything he has in there.
The future in the palm of my hand.
It’s exactly what I needed today. Unable to help it, I look up at him and smile a little. This time he returns it and doesn’t bother hiding it.
Ryder really should smile more because it’s the kind that takes you hostage. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t. If he gave them away so easily to others, I’d have to claw my way through crowds of girls to get to him.
A flick of jealousy burns through my tummy at the thought, and I ask it another question, one I can’t say out loud. Will I marry Ryder one day?
I shake the ball and reveal its answer. It is decidedly so.
Curiosity cracks his voice. “What did you ask?”
“None of your business.” A flush spreads to my cheeks.
“You can’t use a gift I gave you against me.”
“Why not? It’s mine now. I can use it however I want.” I shrug, pretending that I’m not as red as a beet. “Besides, who said my question had anything to do with you?”
Ryder laughs. “Right. Let me see it.”
As I hand it back to him, Ryder’s hand brushes over mine, sending another douse of electricity through me, the kind of zap I want to feel again and again. His black eyes lock onto mine, shining bright, meaning he felt it too. My heart picks up its pace, leaving me a little dizzy and definitely warm.
Never dropping his eyes, Ryder asks the ball a silent question of his own and shakes it. Even though the answer is instant, he doesn’t drop his gaze. The minutes are measured by the pounding in my chest, as we stand in my room, trapped.
My mind drifts to the way it felt when his fingers touched mine, how he held me when I needed him, the way his voice melds into music when he wishes it to. And then I wonder what his lips would feel like on mine.
Without warning, Ryder’s eyes drop to the answer.
A victorious smile pulls against his mouth before he tosses the ball back to me, stuffs his hands in his pockets, and walks out of my room.
In my bones, I know that Ryder asked it the same question I did.