Chapter Twelve
“Hi,” Evie said. She smiled, and it was a combination of sadness, nervousness, and joy, and it annoyed Rowan that she still knew Evie’s expressions so well.
“Hey.” Rowan turned away—just looking at Evie’s face hurt right now—and made her way back to her couch, where she busied herself folding up the blanket and fluffing the pillows she’d flattened the night before.
“The house looks different.” Evie wandered in slowly, looking around, taking in the walls, the art, the furniture.
“It does?” Rowan did the same, not quite sure what she meant.
“Yeah, this room was a pale yellow before. Not gray.” She pointed to the painting on the wall of a woman on her back with her feet up, reading a book. “And that’s new.”
Rowan had a sudden flash of painting the wall. Just a quick flicker of an image, but not enough to grab on to.
“You made changes.” Evie met her gaze then.
“I guess?” Rowan shrugged.
“Inside the lost memory window, huh?” Evie’s smile was soft and a little sad.
“Maybe? I don’t really know. I’ll have to ask my mom.”
“How is your mom? Still smothering you?”
“Hey. I can say that about her. You can’t.” Rowan hadn’t meant to come off quite so snarky, but her words were hard.
Evie nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
There was a moment of quiet. They both stood there, shifting from foot to foot, the awkwardness in the air so thick, Rowan was sure if she reached out, she’d grab a handful of it. Finally, she sighed. “Why are you here, Evie? What do you want?”
Evie’s swallow was loud, and she wet her lips. She was so fucking pretty. Why? Why did she have to still be so attractive to Rowan? Why had she let Evie kiss her? Why had they had sex on the couch? All those things did was make everything worse. So, so much worse.
“I wanted to talk.” Evie’s voice was barely above a whisper, and she walked further into the room to take a seat on the chair across from the couch. “I thought we should talk.”
“You know when would’ve been a good time to talk? When you went to the doctor.” Rowan had given up trying to keep the snark out of her tone. Fuck it. Snark was called for here.
Evie nodded slowly. “I know. You’re absolutely right. I should’ve included you in all of that.”
Rowan pressed her lips together and shrugged.
“I don’t have a good excuse for why I didn’t,” Evie went on. “I just got…” She inhaled a big breath as she turned away, gazing off into the middle distance at nothing. “I got so scared.”
Rowan’s growl surprised her, rumbling up from her throat before she realized it.
She smacked her hands against the couch cushions and stood.
“See, that is the part I don’t get. When you’re scared, you tell your partner.
So they can help take some of the fright off your plate.
So they can help you through. So they can help. ”
Evie’s cheeks reddened. “I know. You’re right, I know.”
The wind came out of Rowan’s sails just as quickly as it had filled them up, and she sat back down. This time, there was no snark, only sadness in her voice. “I just don’t understand, Evie. Did you think I wouldn’t be able to handle it? Was I selfish? Did you think I’d be a terrible caregiver?”
“No.” Evie said the word with a conviction that shocked Rowan, made her sit up straight.
“No. That wasn’t it at all. But you were thirty-three years old.
Thirty-three! That’s not even middle-aged yet.
And I just could not imagine relegating you to what could be a life of feeding me and helping me walk and wiping my ass.
” She choked on the last words, tears springing into her dark eyes.
“Could be.” Rowan stressed the two words. “What could be that life. Or it might not be.” At Evie’s startled blink, Rowan nodded. “Yeah, I’ve spent the last several hours reading and researching. I don’t know which kind of MS you have, but—”
“RRMS,” Evie said, her voice low. “Relapsing-remitting.”
“That’s the most common type, if I understood my reading.”
“It is.”
“And it means you’ll have relapses and remissions. That you’ll feel good some days, and other days will suck.”
“Correct.”
“But in your head, you went straight to doom and gloom, to being bedridden and unable to do certain things.”
Another nod from Evie. “It seemed safer to expect the worst.”
“Like I said. Doom and gloom.” Rowan shook her head, and Evie smiled.
The living room was quiet, the only sound showing up in Kevin’s soft purr as he sauntered into the room and rubbed his side against Evie’s leg.
She reached down to stroke his fur. “Hi, buddy,” she whispered.
Kevin had always adored Evie. Rowan watched their interaction and waited until Evie looked up at her before she spoke again.
“You told me you didn’t love me anymore.”
Evie blinked at her and looked stricken.
“The memory came back at the lake house.”
Evie nodded like she knew, and Rowan wondered if Stevie had told her that. “I did. I know.”
“Was it—” Rowan could barely get the words out, had to clear her throat and try again. “Was it true?”
Evie’s gaze never left hers as she slowly shook her head.
A sob burst from Rowan’s lungs. “Goddamn it. Then why? Why would you do that to me? I don’t understand. I just…I can’t understand…”
Evie opened her mouth to speak at the same time the front door opened, revealing Rowan’s mother, whose face registered a quick succession of surprise, then worry, then when her eyes landed on Evie, concern and a zap of anger.
“Oh. Sorry, I…” Rowan’s mom held up the recyclable grocery bag that hung from her hand. “I picked up a few things and wanted to see if you were okay.” Her gaze moved from Rowan to Evie, then back and forth again before they stopped on Evie. “Evelyn.”
Evie gave one nod. “Mrs. Thomas.”
Returning her gaze to Rowan, she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I didn’t realize you had…company.”
Rowan pushed to her feet. “It’s okay. Evie was just leaving.” If her mom noticed Evie’s startled expression, she didn’t show it, but it took a few seconds for Evie to understand their conversation was over. Finally, she stood up and looped her bag over her shoulder.
“I’d really like to finish our conversation,” she said quietly, as if Rowan’s mom couldn’t hear her.
“Yeah, I need some time,” Rowan said, moving around her mother and reaching for the doorknob. She tried hard to ignore the crestfallen look on Evie’s face.
“Okay. I get that.” More nodding from Evie. It seemed like that was her go-to response now. She stepped over the threshold of the doorway but turned back to meet Rowan’s eyes. “I’ll reach out later.”
Rowan’s turn to nod, and then she shut the door, rested her forehead against it, and stood there.
And stood there.
She heard her mother moving before she felt her come up behind her. A warm hand slid across her shoulders. “Sweetie? You okay?”
Rowan shook her head because words were now lodged in her throat and refused to come out.
She turned to face her mother, still shaking her head, and then the dam broke, as if her body just couldn’t hold the emotion in any longer.
A sob burst up from her chest, and the tears didn’t even bother to well up first. They just spilled out and ran a race down her cheeks.
“Oh, honey,” her mother said softly as she opened her arms and wrapped up her daughter.
“I know.” She ran a hand down Rowan’s hair, her back, and just held her.
“I know, sweetie.” After a moment, her mom moved them to the couch so they could sit, but she kept Rowan wrapped in her arms and let her cry for as long as she needed to.
And it was a while. Rowan lost track of time, even while she was busy being amazed at how many tears she apparently had to shed about this situation.
Maybe she was making up for the lost memories of the first time she and Evie split?
Even though she didn’t technically remember the whole time, she had to have been devastated, right?
After a while, the sobbing did start to ease up. It changed to little hiccups and then to tears only, before she was able to hold a conversation with her mom.
“I just don’t understand,” she said finally, quietly, her head against her mother’s shoulder. She gave her mom the quick and dirty version to catch her up, and she took it surprisingly well, shaking her head and tsking and whispering, “Oh, no, poor Evie,” at various times during the story.
Rowan sat up and reached for a tissue from the box on an end table.
She wiped her face and blew her nose before flopping against the back of the couch with a hard sigh.
“I just don’t understand,” she said again.
“How could she think dumping me would be better than letting me help her?” Her mom was quiet for so long that Rowan wondered if she hadn’t heard her.
But when she turned to look at her, she had an odd look on her face. “Mom? You okay?”
“People do strange things when faced with their own mortality,” she said, her voice wistful.
“I mean, I get that, but—”
“No. No, you don’t. I thought I did, too, but you really can’t say you get it unless you’ve walked in those shoes. I haven’t, and neither have you.”
Rowan took a beat, then nodded. “That’s true.”
“Remember my friend Cindy?” Her mom smoothed her hands down her thighs. “I mean, you wouldn’t remember much about her, she passed away when you were just young.”
“I know who she is. You’ve talked about her.” Rowan watched her mother’s face. “She died of cancer, right?”
Her mom nodded slowly. “She did.”
“So young. That must’ve been awful.”
“It was. But you know what would’ve been worse?” Her mom turned to meet her gaze, and the emotion in her eyes was crackling. Fierce. “If I had listened to her when she told me to stay away.”
Rowan flinched, her surprise hitting her like a slap. “What?”