Chapter Seventeen #2
I sat across from him, picked up a piece of toast, and took a small bite before answering. “A little.”
“Do you have everything you need? If not, I can have it sent up.”
Looking anywhere but at him, I responded, “I’m all set and that was very considerate. Thank you.”
“It was no big deal.”
There was the sound of him pouring a cup of what I thought was coffee, but the liquid was dark, syrupy, and smelled intensely of herbs and menthol. He pushed the small crystal glass toward me.
“Drink this,” Evan said, his voice smooth and utterly certain. “It’s Fernet-Branca. It’s an Italian digestif made from about forty different herbs and spices—myrrh, rhubarb, chamomile, that sort of thing.”
I stared at the murky liquid, skeptical. “It looks like motor oil.”
“It tastes like a slap in the face,” he admitted with a faint, dry smile. “But it’ll settle your stomach and clear your head better than any aspirin. It’s an old trick for people who play as hard as they work. Trust me.”
I took a cautious, tiny sip. The taste was an immediate, aggressive shock of bitter herbs, black licorice, and a medicinal heat that made my eyes water. “God,” I wheezed, my throat tightening. “That’s . . . intense.”
“Don’t think about it,” Evan said, watching me with an amused tilt of his head. “Just finish it. The second half is easier than the first.”
I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me recoil again, so I held my breath and downed the rest in one go.
The liquid coated my tongue in a numbing menthol chill, and as it hit my stomach, a strange, spreading warmth began to bloom, dulling the sharp edges of my nausea almost instantly.
After a prolonged silence in which he might have been waiting to see if the liquid would return, he said, “Talk to me, Nora.”
“I keep trying to find the sunshine in this situation,” I admitted, my voice cracking. “But there is none, so I’ve been trying to make it myself and I can’t. I want to be the one who holds it all together, but I’m failing. I’m just . . . failing.”
Evan didn’t offer a platitude. He didn’t tell me it would be okay. He simply stood, walked over to me, lifted me, and carried me to the couch. He sat down, pulled me onto his lap, and wrapped his arms around me, creating a fortress of strength between me and the world.
“Sometimes you don’t need to find the sunshine,” he whispered into my hair. “Sometimes life just kicks the legs out from under you. You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t hurt to hit the ground.”
I buried my face in his neck and finally, truly, cried. I cried for my mother, for my father’s silence, and for the girl who had left when what she’d really wanted was more time with her mother.
He absorbed my tears, but also my guilt and anger. When the storm finally passed, I stayed tucked against him. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Let yourself grieve,” he said. “Don’t tell yourself what you should be, just let yourself work through this.”
“How?”
He didn’t answer at first and perhaps I shouldn’t have laid that question at his feet.
“I can’t answer that, Nora, but you can. Whatever you choose, be kind to yourself.” He brushed a stray hair from my face. “Stay in Boston. Or go back to the valley. Or travel. Do what you need to do to make it through.”
“I wish I knew what that was.” I sniffed wiped away tears. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe start with what you do know.”
I wanted to tell him that my feelings for him were one thing I was certain of, but that conversation didn’t fit in this one. I felt too raw, too vulnerable to survive if he didn’t feel the same. So, I sought something else to share. “My city friends are terrible people, Evan. They just left me.”
He tilted my chin up, his gaze serious. “They aren’t terrible. They’re just not yours. When it comes to who you let into your inner circle . . . Nora, don’t settle for people who don’t invest as much in you as you do in them.”
I let out a weak laugh. “Are you saying it’s my fault they left me at a bar?”
“No,” he said, pulling me closer. “I’m saying you deserve people who would never dream of leaving.”
We sat in the quiet for a long time. Eventually, I took a breath that didn’t feel like it was breaking my ribs. “I want to stay in school. But I’m moving out of the dorms. I need my own space.”
He smiled. “Need help moving?”
“No,” I said, because being with Evan was complicated.
On one hand, he made me feel safe and seen.
On the other hand, he was beyond reach and spending time with him left me with an ache.
I was already fighting to hold myself together.
I couldn’t risk letting myself believe he might stay then letting him go.
It was better to thank him and watch him go, than reduce myself to begging him to stay.
“I can do it on my own.” After a pause, I added, “Thank you, Evan. For coming. For keeping me safe. For everything.”
He set me on the couch beside him and stood, smoothing his shirt. “Hey.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t tell anyone I was here. My father’s not doing well lately, and this will only set him off.”
“Yeah, mine is the same.” I laughed without humor. “And who would I tell?”
Who would even believe me?
The feud. Our fathers. The absurdity of it all sat in the room with us.
His expression turned solemn. “I’ll be heading to Central America soon, but I’m always only ever a phone call away,” he told me, his voice low and firm. “If you need me, I’ll always come.”
Neither of us spoke as he gathered his things to leave.
I almost asked him to leave his shirt, but I couldn’t think of a way to not make that awkward.
When he stood at the door, yesterday’s clothing tucked beneath his arm, I forced a smile and thanked him again.
He hesitated.
I closed the distance and hugged him tightly.
For a moment more felt possible.
He kissed the top of my head and seemed to breathe me in.
But then, he pulled back, opened the door and walked out of my life and back into his.