Chapter 37
Kasey
The house is different without Evander in it.
He’d left for work a little after nine, pausing in the doorway like he wasn’t sure he should go. I’d told him I’d be fine. Twice. And he still hovered long enough to remind me that he’d be home before three.
But the moment the door clicked shut behind him, the silence settled over everything, like a heavy blanket.
I stood in the middle of the living room for a long time. The house wasn’t big, but without Evander’s footsteps or his voice or the soft hum of him just existing nearby, it felt…hollow.
I hated that it bothered me. I hated that I noticed.
Eventually, I moved. Not because I had to, but because I needed to.
I started in the kitchen, rinsing the couple of dishes left from breakfast and loading them into the dishwasher. It wasn’t much, but it gave my hands something to do. After that, I wiped down the counters. Then the table. Then the stove.
When the kitchen was spotless, I drifted down the short hall, where I straightened a blanket on the couch. Dusted off the table. Folded one throw blanket and set it on the arm of a chair. Picked up a pair of Evander’s socks he’d kicked off last night.
Little things. Easy things. Things that made the house feel like they were living instead of empty.
By the time I made it back to the bedroom the silence didn’t feel quite as sharp.
I took a slow breath and looked around the room. The bed was made. The floor was clean. The soft sunlight shined through the windows.
I had to keep my mind focused on small tasks, cleaning everything I saw, even though it was all clean already. No speck of dust coated at the top of the TV. No stray of dirt lay under the kitchen table.
Keeping busy kept my thoughts away. Keep the past from sneaking in.
By noon, I’d almost convinced myself that I was okay.
Almost.
I was in the living room, curled up on the corner of the couch, a notebook, and pencil I found under a stack of mail from a drawer in the kitchen.
The gray lines weren’t the best, mostly from being out of practice, but the shadows of the flower petals were dark enough to give the picture some depth.
Before I became what Lockswell wanted, before the hours of training to be perfect, I had spent time sitting on my bed or in the small lounge areas, drawing.
The one thing I missed was the art classes I got to take. I learned more out of those than I did in health and safety and protocol lessons.
I took to drawing like a fish took to water.
It was a part of me, and I wished it hadn’t been taken away.
I don’t remember when I stopped. Just one day came, and I didn’t pick up the paper and pencil again.
But here, with time to do something to keep my hands busy, I drew.
So lost in thought, in concentration, I didn’t hear any cars pull up. I didn’t hear any slamming car doors. I didn’t hear a single thing until the front door suddenly swung open, banging against the wall just enough to make me look up.
My entire body jolted. I froze where I sat, breath catching in my throat so fast it hurt. The pencil slipped from my fingers.
Footsteps.
“Van? You home?” a voice called out, bright and casual, completely unaware of the way my chest had collapsed in itself.
My vision tunneled.
Someone was in the house. Someone I didn’t know.
My hands started shaking before I could stop them. I wanted to run, to become invisible. But I couldn’t go anywhere.
A tall figure with dark hair entered the living room. His dark eyes took in the empty space before he froze.
“Oh. Uh…hi?” The stranger said, blinking. “You are not my brother.”
I couldn’t breathe.
My chest tightened, sharp and fast, panic clawing up my throat. The room felt too small even though this man didn’t take a step closer to me.
The stranger’s dark eyes widened. “Hey-hey, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just – “but the words didn’t reach me.
All I could hear was the door slamming open. All I could feel was the shock of something entering without warning. All I could think was not again, not again-
The stranger lifted their hands slowly, palms out. “I’m Evander’s brother. I swear I’m not – look, I’m sorry. I should have knocked. I didn’t know he had a friend.”
Brother.
The word finally cut through the panic.
I swallowed, trying to drag air into my lungs. My voice came out barely audible. “He…he’s at work.”
The sibling nodded quickly, still keeping his distance. “Right. Yeah. I know. I just came to grab something he borrowed. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
I pressed a shaking hand to my chest, trying to steadily breathe. “I…I didn’t hear you. I didn’t know…”
“I got it. I’ll go slow. No sudden moves, promise.”
I dipped my head, not taking my eyes off of him.
He stood frozen for a good minute; hands still lifted like he was trying to show he wasn’t a threat. His eyes flickered over me once, and something in his expression shifted.
No confusion. Not annoying. Recognition.
He saw it. He saw me.
“Hi.” He blinked, his eyes softening as he really looked at me. “I’m Rowan?”
I tilted my head. Was he asking me if that’s who he was?
“I am Rowan. Van’s brother.”
I blinked, trying to place that name with anyone I may remember from the past. But I drew up a blank.
“You….” I sighed, not able to form more words.
“Came to get something. Yes.” A pause as his eyes looked over the living room and part of the kitchen that he most likely could see from where he stood; shoulders a bit wider than Evander’s were.
“Uh…a tool kit. He borrowed it to fix a few little things last week. I need it to fix something my kid broke.”
“That’s….in the laundry room.” The place all the tools were kept. I remember seeing a few different sets in there, and I put them nicely in one of the cupboards above the washer.
“Yeah. It’s a blue one. It has a handle. And it may have a sticker on the side that’s a bit faded.”
I knew what he was talking about.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He repeated, slowly putting his hands down.
“Can I go get it? Or…. or you can. I’ll stay right here in this spot if you know where it’s at.”
He waited, actually waiting for me to nod before he even shifted a single leg.
“I…I can get it. I…. I cleaned up there. For Evy.”
As the name slipped out, Rowan’s eyes widened.
Before he could say anything, ask anything, I slipped from the couch, leaving the notebook on the couch cushions.
I went the long way around, all the way around the edge of the living room to keep enough space between this man and myself. I didn’t think he’d hurt me. If so, Evander wouldn’t be happy, but it was going to take some time for me to trust any male besides Evy for a long time.
In the laundry room, I found the exact tool case.
Moments later, I set the blue box on the coffee table, right on the edge close to Rowan, before retreating to my spot again and pulling my knees to my chest.
Rowan moves slowly. One step. Then another. Each one deliberate, measured, like he was approaching a skittish animal he didn’t want to spook. His eyes never left me, not in a staring way, but in a checking in sort of way. Making sure I was okay. Making sure he wasn’t pushing too far.
He didn’t reach for the kit until he was close enough that he didn’t have to lean or stretch. Even then, he paused, giving me a second to brace before he picked it up.
When he straightened, he hesitated. He shifted the tool kit with one hand and lifted the other slightly.
“Do I get to know who my brother is keeping in his home?”
The question wasn’t rude or demanding. Just a simple question. One that I didn’t have to answer, if I didn’t want to.
“K-Kasey.”
“Follow up question, more for my sanity than anything else. Did Evander tell you that was your name, or…” He rubbed the back of his neck like he already regretted asking.
He trailed off, giving me space to answer, or not to answer. His brows pulled together in worry.
“It’s my name.”
Rowan nodded slowly at my answer, like he was filing it away somewhere important. But then something flickered across his face.
His gaze dipped to the floor, then to the way I curled in on myself, then back to my face, studying me with a new kind of focus.
His breath caught just enough that I heard it. His eyes widened just a fraction before he forced them back to normal, smoothing his expression like he didn’t want me to notice.
“Kasey.” He repeated my name softer this time.
His jaw tightened for a second; a muscle jumped near his temp, and he looked away. Like he needed a breath before, he said something he couldn’t take back.
When he looked at me again, his voice was careful in a new way, edged with disbelief he was trying to hide.
“What did my dear ol’ brother do now?” He muttered under his breath. “Good gosh. Mom’s gonna have a heart attack.” Louder, “How long have you been here?”
I shrugged. “A little while.”
I couldn’t really answer, since days always seemed to blur together. There were good ones, then there were bad ones.
Rowan blinked. Once. Twice. His grip on the kit tightened, knuckles whitening for a second before he forced his hand to relax.
“A few days,” he repeated, almost hollow.
He looked at me again, really looked, and I saw the exact moment the dots connected in his head. Recognition. The disbelief. The no, that can’t be right warring within, but it is.
His eyes flickered to the side again before looking at me.
Rowans expression twisted. Shock, grief, hope, and fear. It was all tangled in a way that was like a tornado brewing.
He shook his head once, like he was trying to clear it. “No. No. that’s-Van wouldn’t – he wouldn’t just – “
But he stopped himself. And I was so tempted, the words right there on the tip of my tongue, to confess who I really was. I knew who I was; Evy knew. But it was our secret. And I wanted to keep it as that for just a little longer.
Rowan looked at me again. “You’ve been here a few days.” He repeated, like he was trying to get them to process. “And he didn’t tell anyone.”