54. Evie
Evie
BELLA
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GORGEOUS!!! I hope you have the best day ever!
LAYLA
Can’t wait to celebrate your birthday tonight! Happy b-day xx
CINDY
LET’S GET ROWDY, WELCOME TO THE QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS CLUB! Happy birthday my favorite drinking buddy
GRAYSON CRAWFORD
Happy b-day little E! See you tonight
KIERAN ASHFORD
whoop whoop it’s your birthday!
ANGEL
happy birthday sexy, can’t wait for tonight x
TRISTAN
happy birthday! your present is me wrangling Angel tonight, you’re welcome
KALANI
so excited to see you! Happy birthday beautiful!
ASHER O’CONNOR
congratulations on aging!!!!
LOGAN JOHNSON
happy b-day
HUDSON MITCHEL
happy birthday mini E!!!!
JACK LEWIS
MINI ELLINGTON HAPPY BIRTHDAY
THEO IRVING
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! I dropped coffee and a cake off at the door
Due to the IceHawks’s schedule, Matteo’s birthday surprise for me will happen tomorrow—a lake day with a private charter with all my favorite people, jet skis, and paddleboarding. AKA, everything I love. It was beyond sweet, the perfect present.
Matteo had immense guilt around his training schedule, about how it took him away from me for most of my birthday. I, on the other hand, was immensely relieved that I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t sad for the whole day.
After Matteo left for practice, I couldn’t move off the couch. Despite the ideas my mind conjured up to distract myself, and no matter how much I wanted to do them, I was utterly paralyzed.
It’s the first birthday I’ve had with my memories…and I don’t think I can ever celebrate a birthday the same again or conjure up the same excitement. The parties I would throw, the shopping sprees—it’s all tainted now. All of it.
Because all I can think about is that for over thirteen birthdays, I was brutally raped.
No matter how much I tried to pull myself out of despair today, it wasn’t happening.
So here I am, rounding the corner of the boardwalk with Matteo’s hand in mine, using every ounce of energy I can muster to paste a smile on my face as we walk toward the restaurant.
He gives my hand a squeeze, smiling down at me. He knows me well, knows that I’m struggling, but I can’t tell him why. Can’t remind him of my eighth birthday. Not only would he be swallowed with guilt that he walked back up those stairs, he would know who hurt me.
And I can’t have that getting out.
Something loosens in my chest as he wraps his arm around my shoulder and tucks me into his warmth.
That is, until my body knows something I don’t.
My intuition screams at me to run, that voice that had been begging me not to go tonight rearing its head as the restaurant comes into view.
I’ve tried to shake the feeling off all afternoon, and yet as I walk closer, spotting Caleb reluctantly waiting for us so he can say hello and not be an ass for at least one night, I feel like I’m heading toward a sentencing.
My hand begins to shake in Matteo’s grasp, my two-piece set also quivering as my legs turn to jelly. I must not be hiding my anxiety as well as I had hoped because Caleb frowns, his gaze ping-ponging back and forth between Matteo and me.
“Dove?” Matteo asks, slowing his steps.
Peeking up at him, I swallow. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous.”
Not caring for my brother’s watchful gaze on us, he bends down and kisses the top of my head, pulling us to a complete stop. “We don’t have to go inside. We can take a lap around the building until you feel a little calmer or not go in at all. I’m sure they’d understand.”
Lifting my free hand to his waist, hoping his steadiness will ground me, I shake my head. “No, I can’t cancel when everyone’s all dressed up and waiting for me. That’s cruel.”
“Sometimes you have to put yourself first.”
“Not like this. I’d just feel more awful.”
Forcing myself to take a deep breath despite the buzzing of bees that have been nonstop swarming my chest, I tilt my head back and give him a strained smile before urging us to walk.
It does nothing to erase the worry on his face, but we start to head toward the restaurant again.
At Matteo’s curse, though, my head snaps up.
“What the fuck?” Matteo mutters.
Following his line of sight, my body turns as cold as ice.
Caleb takes one look at my horror-stricken face and turns, trying to find what caught my attention. But while I’m stuck, trapped within the terror running through my veins, my brother steps forward to welcome my parents.
Matteo is saying something beside me, but I can’t hear anything past the roaring in my ears, can’t see past the haze of red that covers my eyes, can’t feel anything other than the fear holding me hostage.
My mother’s smile falters as she sees me standing as still as a statue.
The only thing that seems to be working inside my body is my lungs, yet those cease to exist the moment she steps in my direction, the people behind her following her lead, their faces coming into crystal clarity.
She brought him.
To my birthday dinner.
She brought the man who raped me to my birthday dinner.
And she knows.
That cold numb feeling slithers over my body, and like I do in therapy when I have to relive the most horrific events of my life, I float away.
The little girl within me screams, trying to run for her life, begging me to turn on my heel and run as far away as I can from him, but I’m frozen. Utterly immobile as I watch the man who assaulted me walk toward me with a smile on his face.
He’s smiling.
He’s fucking smiling at me.
This is my worst nightmare.
Caleb’s brows are furrowed, his head cocked as he watches me, ignoring whatever my mother is saying. Matteo takes a step slightly in front of me. He tries to speak to me, tries to get me to move, but I can’t.
Nothing is working.
My mind has shut down, my body doing exactly what it did when that man forced himself on me. I stop living. I become as still as possible. I even stop breathing…all in the hopes that he will leave me alone.
Everything fucking stops but time, that cursed thing. If anything, it speeds up and suddenly I’m gasping for air, only for the scent of him to fill my nose and bile rushes for my throat.
Caleb’s worried now and my mother is clutching her necklace, no doubt worried that I’ll make a scene, but all I’m worried about is not vomiting all over my feet.
I have to go, I have to go, I have to go.
I need to leave before he—
His hand reaches out as he tries to hug me. The second his lips graze my ear, I snap.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” I scream at the top of my lungs as every ounce of anger I’ve ever felt toward this man rushes for me in a millisecond. As the little girl within me demands me to.
Shuddering, I shove him away with such a force it’s like I’m trying to make up for all the times I wasn’t physically able to push him off me when I was younger. He goes tumbling to the ground, my sudden outburst making everything and everyone around me fall silent.
You could hear a pin drop.
I can feel him on me. Can feel his hands on my body, the burning between my thighs, the tears that rolled down my cheeks, my aching throat as I screamed, the hand he smacked over my mouth to silence me.
I feel everything he put me through.
I feel the despair.
The terror.
The pain.
The shame.
The confusion.
The way I wished upon every star to die.
I feel fucking all of it.
“How fucking dare you come here!” I bellow. My entire body is shaking while everyone else blinks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Everyone except him. The one person who knows as much detail as me.
“Evie,” my mother reprimands.
My gaze snaps to her. Getting right in her face, it takes everything in me not to hit her. “How fucking dare you bring him here. How fucking dare you!”
“Evie, stop screaming! What the hell—” Caleb tries to calm me down but I tune him out as I stare at our mother.
Stare at the panic in her eyes as she takes in how feral I am at seeing him, at the anger that isn’t calming but reaching a boiling point that no one could ever contain.
She quickly recovers, steeling her spine. She lowers her voice to a whisper. “You’re making a scene.”
“Good, because clearly no one fucking listened to me when I said I never wanted to lay eyes on him again.”
“Evie.”
His voice sounds like a fucking snake.
I train my eyes on my traitorous mother, putting all my energy into focusing on her face because if I look at him and how he’s now standing up again, I’ll lose it. I’m trying so fucking hard right now to remain in control, to not let him see how much he’s fucked with my head to—
His hand reaches out once more. “Don’t be like this. Where’s my good girl gone?”
My eyes are as wide as saucers as I slowly turn toward him, taking a step back and out of his touch as those words meet my ears. I must look crazed, as if I’ve lost my sanity, because the look darkening my features makes him pale.
“What did you just say to me?” I ask, deadly quiet.
“Evie,” my mother pleads but I ignore her.
Matteo steps forward, trying to usher me back, but I swat his hands away and step closer to him.
“What did you just say?” I repeat, spitting the question again through gritted teeth.
He swallows, his complexion paling as his eyes dart around before landing back on me.
I hate that I look in the mirror and am reminded of him from my own reflection.
I hate that I look like the man who hurt me most in this world.
But not as much as I hate his next words.
“I want my good girl back.”
My hand whips out, striking his face so fast he doesn’t see it coming. His head flies to the side, the slap ringing out between us and making everyone around us gasp.
“You fucking broke her,” I spit, my entire frame burning, shaking with such unending rage that the slap wasn’t enough.
I keep pushing him, and every time he stumbles, I step toward him, wanting him to burn in hell.
“You ruined me! You fucking broke me! You took away my innocence and now you have the gall to show up here and ask for your good girl back?!”
I hear someone vomit behind me, can hear Caleb shouting and my mother crying and people pouring out of the restaurant now, but all I can focus on is him.
On the man who has haunted me my whole life.
“Evie, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do!” I shriek. “Stop fucking lying, you worthless piece of shit.”
Arms try to grab me, try to pull me back, but I rip them off. I’ve turned feral. I know I’ll look back at this and wonder what took over my body, what possibly possessed me, but right now I don’t care.
“I was three,” I croak out, tears pouring down my cheeks. “Three!” I add with a shrill cry.
“I don’t know—”
A fist suddenly collides with his head.
Blood sprays as a resounding crack fills the air, his nose breaking.
I blink through my red-filled haze to see Matteo standing beside me, veins protruding from his neck and tears streaming down his face.
His chest is moving so fast it takes just one look to know he’s panicking, that the thing I tried to protect him from is happening and I won’t ever be able to heal the guilt that’s tearing a hole in his heart and soul.
This monster has not only ruined me, but has ruined the man I love.
He’ll never forgive himself, especially not now.
Because the man he admired and looked up to his entire life was the one who destroyed me.
“Valenti!” my brother barks.
Matteo pauses, stilling for a heartbeat before launching himself at the monster again with a roar of pure agony.
Standing back, I do nothing but watch as Matteo beats my father into a bloody pulp.