Now
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
Evangeline
“So, how was your session with the therapist?” Jackson asks.
I prick a green bean with my fork, bring it to my lips, and answer, “It was fine.”
“Do you feel like you’re getting better?”
I chew for the longest time, reducing the bean to fine mush before swallowing. “I don’t know. The antidepressants make me numb.”
“At least they kicked in.”
I nod, then eat another one, this time with a small piece of rotisserie chicken.
It’s been two months since that tragic night.
Two months since Ophelia died. I’ve been trying so hard to forgive Jackson for abandoning us, but I just can’t.
He knew what I was going through. He knew the risks.
And he decided that leaving for a week, to go race on the other side of the world, was acceptable.
I’m not sure if it’s guilt or genuine care, but he’s made an effort to be here now.
He only goes to the Altron facility in the mornings, then returns to spend the afternoons at home.
And he’s skipped two races to stay with me instead.
The only things that force him away are his sponsor’s engagements.
He could get into serious trouble otherwise and owe a lot of money.
But that’s not enough. I want him gone, out of this house. Just for a few days. I’m going mad having him here every single day, watching over me like a hawk, judging what’s left on my plate, asking me questions I don’t want to answer.
He’s almost done with his dinner when his phone rings. Swallowing his mouthful, he looks at the caller ID. “I have to take this, sorry,” he says, getting up from the stool. “Hey, Rosie,” he greets as he walks away. “Yeah, I’m good. You?”
I push my food around, vaguely listening to his side of the conversation.
When his mindless wandering leads him farther into the living space, I see an opportunity I can’t pass up.
I grab my plate, slide down my stool, and walk to the garbage can.
It opens on its own when I pass a hand over it, and I dump what’s left on my plate.
I’m not hungry, but Jackson always forces me to finish my food. For my sake, apparently. Before he can notice, I return to my seat. I wait for him to come back, dismissing the twinge of culpability in my chest. The deception feels wrong, but I just can’t eat right now.
His gaze lands on my empty plate, and his small, proud smile does nothing to alleviate my guilt. He rewards me with a peck on the temple, then sits back on his stool.
“What was that about?” I ask as he resumes eating.
“The team principal. She wanted to talk about Monaco.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I’m not going.”
Frustration has my lips tightly pinched together. I take my plate and walk to the sink. “You should go,” I say.
“What?”
“Monaco. You should go. It’s an important race.”
“It’s alright, I can skip it.”
“You don’t have to. I’m fine.”
“I want to be here for you.”
I slam the plate in the sink a little too hard, accidentally causing it to break.
“Evie, what the hell!” he blurts out.
“I wanted you to be here before,” I remind him with a glare. “I all but got on my knees, begging you to be here for me. But you wouldn’t because you had to race. And now, it’s too late, Jackson.”
He looks disheartened at my words, grief twisting his face. “Evie, you know how sorry I am for—”
“Go to Monaco,” I harshly interrupt him. “You’re not needed here anymore.”
Dismissing his dinner, he walks up to me, his uneven gaze hard. “You think I don’t live with that guilt every day? I know I have a responsibility in this, Evangeline. But you can’t put it all on me. It’s not fair.”
It becomes hard to breathe. “What are you implying?”
He thinks for a while about his words. Not which ones to say, but if he should say them.
When they come out, I know he’s been thinking them over and over for two months.
“Four days,” he says. “She was in distress for four days. Suffocating, dying. You could have noticed. You could have gone to the hospital and saved her.”
His accusation is like a stab through my heart. I can’t believe he’d say that.
Those things I’ve been telling myself every day since it happened, the ones my therapist tries to rip out of my head twice a week, sound infinitely worse coming from him.
It’s not just in my head. It’s true. I killed our baby because I wasn’t paying enough attention, too busy worrying he’d die on a racetrack to notice she was the one dying.
Realizing just how terribly harsh his words were, he tries to backpedal. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that, princess,” he tries. “My head’s all messed up.”
I don’t believe him. It sounded too true. Almost rehearsed. I know he’s been thinking of it as much as I have. My voice is broken, as if I’m being torn apart from within, when I whisper, “You think I killed our baby …”
“I don’t. Evie, I’m so sorry. I should never have said that.”
“You hate me for it, don’t you?”
“I could never hate you, Evie.” When he tries to take me into his arms, I don’t let him. I swerve away from his touch, wrapping myself in my own embrace instead.
“Go to Monaco,” I say again, almost begging this time.
“Princess, I can’t abandon you like this.”
“I’ll be okay. I promise, Jax. Just … go. It’s important. There’s no need for both of us to stay here. It’s not like we want to be near each other, anyway.”
He doesn’t deny it. No matter how much I need him to, he doesn’t correct my statement. I didn’t think my heart could break more than it already has. But I was clearly wrong.
“I’ll tell Rosie I’m going,” he eventually decides. “But only if my mom can make the flight and spend those few days with you. I don’t want you alone, Evie.”
“I’ll be fine on my own. I’m not a ticking bomb.”
“It’s for my peace of mind, then, okay?”
Part of me wants to argue, but I can tell it’s either him or his mother. I don’t have much of a choice. “Okay,” I reluctantly agree.
“I’ll give her a call right now.”
I nod, then watch him take his phone out and leave the room. He probably doesn’t want me to hear what he’ll tell her, how worried he is about me, how she needs to come and make sure I won’t do something stupid while he’s gone.
It’s not like I can even blame him. I’ve had those thoughts. Too many of them. It seemed easier to make it all stop than to keep going. But they have mostly vanished thanks to the antidepressants. Now, it’s like I barely get any thoughts at all. And when I do, they don’t stick.
Turning around, I face the sink and the broken plate in it.
This is how I feel. Torn apart, shattered.
And every sharp edge of me is a danger to others.
To Jax especially. Those fractured pieces might slice through him at any time.
And I think his broken pieces are doing the same to me.
I’m not sure we can fix ourselves back the way we used to be.
Let alone make sure we still fit together by the end.
As if drawn to it, I grab a piece of the plate. My thumb comes to the sharpened rim, barely grazing, testing out just how cutting it is. And then I push the pad against it. Like I can’t help myself.
I press and press, welcoming the pain that pierces through the haze of the antidepressants. Until glass breaks skin and crimson appears between them. It’s the same blood that pooled within me two months ago, insidiously lethal.
Jackson is right. I should have noticed she was moving less. I should have gone to the hospital when the light spotting returned, instead of dismissing it. I could have saved her. It’s my fault more than his.
Blood slides along the broken edge, then drops into the sink.
I watch it, remembering how so much of it poured out of me that night, soaking my silk pajama shorts and the floor below me.
It should have killed me, not Ophelia. I deserved to die for not noticing, not her.
She was innocent. Pure. She should have lived.
I sense Jackson’s presence behind me before his hands come on each side of me, gripping the edge of the sink.
Immediately, I let go of the broken piece and ball my hand, hiding my bleeding thumb in it.
He remains right behind me, not touching me, but close enough that I can feel the heat of his body in the space between us.
I stay perfectly still, closing my eyes to fight the tears his closeness brings.
When he rests his forehead on the back of mine, I swallow down a strangled sob.
“I want to be near you, Evie,” he breathes out. “I just don’t know how to, because you won’t let me.”
I tighten my fist and bring it to my chest, where my heart seems to have awakened from its slumber. My voice is stuck in my throat, and the words I want to say feel jammed in it.
I want to be near him, too. But I don’t know how to either. It doesn’t feel right. Nothing feels right anymore.
When I haven’t answered for a moment, he gives up with a sigh. His forehead moves away from me. He lays a kiss where it just was, and whispers, “I love you, princess.”
Still unable to form words, I let him leave without answering. Once again, my sharp edges hurt him. Another deep cut that’ll never fully heal.
We need to stop hurting one another like this. We have to. Hand in hand, we can walk out of this dark and cold tunnel.
The problem is, I’m not sure there’s light at the end of it.
“Perfect, Mrs. Carter. I’m glad we finally figured out the main bedroom’s layout. Now, if you’ll look at these new floor plans for the kitchen. I’ve also made a few renders, so you can envision it better.”
She takes the printed plans from my hands as I open the proper files on my laptop and angle it toward her. She looks at the plan, then the renders, and sighs. “No, it still isn’t right. It’s lacking a certain … je ne sais quoi. It feels wrong and not well-arranged.”
I have to fight my hardest not to let my frustration show. At this point, I’m pretty sure we’ve gone through every kitchen arrangement possible. It’s the eleventh plan I’ve made for her, and it’s getting harder and harder to find new ideas.