Chapter 51
Chapter Fifty-One
Eva
Noah swallows hard a few times before glancing away. When he looks back, he sadly says, “Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll explain.”
“No, I think I will keep standing, thanks.”
Worry takes hold as Noah stares into my eyes for a few moments before glancing at the floor and beginning to pace the room.
With his head held low, he shoves his hands in his pockets.
He doesn’t speak as he walks back and forth in front of me.
Finally, he stops and faces the back wall of the room.
He rubs his hand over the stubble gracing his lower chin and takes a deep breath before speaking.
“I met Becky in high school,” he begins.
My stomach instantly grows sick. “We didn’t go to the same school.
I went to the county and she came from money.
Her parents had her placed in an all-girls, upper-class school in Louisville.
I met her one night at a party one of my friends was having.
I fell for her first thing. She didn’t like me much at first, always tried dodging me, but led me on just enough to keep me coming back for more. I was 17, she was 16.”
He turns and looks at me. Concern fills his eyes.
“After a few months, she agreed to go out with me. Lost in her, I didn’t even catch on to how she kept me hidden from the rest of her life. I never met her parents, and hardly ever hung out with her friends.”
Shaking his head as the memories flood back, I will myself to become numb. To become desensitized to all that I am being told.
“After a year or so, I started wondering why she never let me into her world, and started pushing the issue. One summer afternoon, I met her parents. Her parents were not very happy that Becky chose me. All the time we had spent together, Becky had made up lies about where she was going, and who she was spending time with. Becky’s father comes from a long line of old southern money.
To say he was hell-bent on Becky marrying someone like him is an understatement. ”
The nine-to-five world. Suddenly the pieces that I have been trying to put together for the last few months make a little more sense. He takes a deep breath, glances sorrowfully my way, and I nod for him to continue.
Noah shrugs defeated. “Momma pushed me to keep my scholarship at Ol’Miss, and I did for a few years, until the distance was too hard and I almost lost Becky. So, I changed my whole world, and tried to become the man her father wanted her to marry.”
“Ole Miss,” I ask. “That is when you met Rex?”
It’s more of a statement than a question.
“That’s right.” Noah smiles. “That’s where my road eventually led to you, even though I didn’t know it yet.” Noah’s face softens for about two seconds before darkness fills his eyes. “You see, everyone told me it wouldn’t work with Becky. Everyone told me I was in way over my head.”
His words sting. The shame his statement provokes makes me look to the floor briefly.
“I tried everything and every way to fit into her world.” He tells me, saddened by the memory.
“I put off my family, took online courses, and went to work for her father. I thought it was working. I thought we were okay. I was traveling a lot between work and checking in at school, but I was making something of myself. I was going somewhere, and I knew soon her father had to take notice. Soon, I was going to be good enough.”
“Noah, you should never change yourself for someone else,” I say. “You were always good enough and…”
“But one night,” he cuts me off. “She showed up at my door in tears. Told me she was pregnant.” He laughs sinisterly.
Shaking his head a few times, he continues.
“I was so happy. The tears she cried did nothing to quiet the joy I was feeling. A baby? God, I know maybe most men aren’t sappy shits about that sort of thing, but honest Eva, I was excited.
I saw a future in her that I didn’t have to work for anymore.
I saw a child, that was both me and her.
An end to the constant struggle to ‘be enough.’”
I’m stunned to silence. I remind myself to breathe as he says, “I proposed.” My heart aches knowing another woman had a chance with him that I may never have. “She said yes, and with a marriage and a baby on the way I left on another work trip and felt higher than I had in a long time.”
Quietly, I manage to ask, “So, then what happened?”
“I came home early,” he hisses. He steps forward.
The intensity of his stare makes me nervous.
His fierce posture scares me. “Imagine, my whole world, baby and fiancé at home. I couldn’t wait to get back to them.
To start the life I had been fighting for.
” Violence floods his eyes. “You ever walk in on something so horrifying it rips your heart out, slaps you back in your place, and makes you so sick you’d do anything to kill the pain?
Even if that means wanting to end the person right in front of you? ”
I shake my head.
“I did. I came home to find Eddie’s car in my driveway.
No big deal, I thought, must have brought something over for Becky from her father.
Eddie was Mr. Brown’s right-hand man, after all.
But no, do you know what he came over for?
To fuck my fiancé. To fuck with my life.
To end the horrible fight that I was stupid to care about for over seven fucking years. ”
My eyes well over with tears. But Noah doesn’t stop. “Do you know how that feels? Do you know what that does to a man? To walk in and see your world, baby and soon-to-be wife, being taken, tainted, ruined by a man you could never amount to be?”
I shake my head furiously, not wanting to hear any more.
“When I was leaving town, I got the call,” he says quietly.
“I wasn’t planning on being gone long. I needed to clear my damn head.
After all, that was still my child. Or so I thought.
That is until Becky told me it was Eddie’s.
I hung up that phone and drove for hours.
I didn’t know where I was going. Just that I was not staying here.
By the time I reached Texas, I knew I couldn’t go back.
I called Rex, and he said he had a place for me to stay.
I called my momma and Jolene, they said they understood and to take all the time I needed.
Jolene promised to not let Becky find out where I went.
I changed my number as soon as I found myself in Northern California a few days later. ”
“Why are you just now telling me this?” I ask.
Noah shrugs. “I wasn’t trying to keep it hidden. Or maybe I was, damn it, I don’t know. I just…,” he trails off. “Fuck, I just need some time, Eva.”
Shocked, I blink a few times trying to let what he just said sink in. What did I just hear? He needs some time? What kind of time, and for what?
He looks behind me and swallows once before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. When he opens them again, he looks so lost.
“Can you give me that?” he asks.
For a minute, I think about fighting him. For a brief second, I think about screaming, kicking, clawing my way out of this mess.
After everything that’s happened, I don’t know.
Can I?
Time stops as I hold Noah’s stare. I nod once, smile sadly, and turn to leave.
He doesn’t stop me.
I’m halfway down the steps in front of the house before I hear the door open behind me. I keep walking, needing the open space and fresh air to wipe away everything I just heard. Everything I’ve been needing to know, and yet everything I wish I never did.
“Where ya going, blondie?” Rex asks. “Mind if I tag along?”
I swing around quickly. Needing to hurt something, I figure Rex is the perfect target since he knew about this all along and said nothing.
“Where am I going?” I mimic, furiously. I start charging toward him the second his feet hit the gravel.
“Where do you think I’m going, Rex? What do you think I can even begin to think after…
” my breathing quickens. Suddenly, I find myself gasping for air that can’t come fast enough.
My head feels light, my vision blurs. As I reach Rex, I start pounding his chest. The bastard doesn’t stop me.
“How could you? How could I? What did he… Who….” I can’t breathe.
My world starts spinning. My legs feel weak. My knees start to buckle.
“Woah,” Rex catches me. Swinging me up in his arms, he looks behind him at the house. Quickly, he walks a few steps to the right and places me down steadily next to my car. I lean against it for balance.
“Breathe Eva,” he says sternly, like an older brother. I comply a little at first, and eventually start taking deeper breaths. The deeper the breath, the more I gain strength. Strength that gives way to tears which fall slowly at first and then faster as my deep breathing succumbs to heavy sobs.
Rex pulls me in tight for a hug, and although I want nothing more than to kick his ass for not telling me everything I just had to find out the hard way, I hold on to him.
I claw at his back, pulling his shirt, wanting to rip it the way my life just got ripped apart. He doesn’t budge. He lets me fall apart and holds me tight. He doesn’t speak a word, only understands my need to let it all out, even if that means taking it out on him.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says.
“No,” I mumble into his chest. “No, it’s not.”
Footsteps sound behind us. I open my eyes to see Gwen standing in the shadows. Rex pulls back from me slightly. Grabbing both my shoulders, he bends down a little to look me in the eyes. “Want to get out of here?”
I nod through my tears. He pulls me in for a hug. “Alright, blondie,” he says. A few moments pass before he speaks again. “But I’m driving because your track record isn’t so great when you’re mad at the world.”
I pull away from him and laugh, swatting at him a little which earns me a smile. Pulling my keys out of my purse. I hand them to him and he opens the doors. Gwen walks over, pulls me close, and wraps one arm around me as we walk around to the passenger side.
“You know, I’ll kick his ass. Just say the word,” she teases. “But there is only one problem,” she says nudging me. “I think you kind of love the guy, and you know what?” We stop and look at one another before she continues. “I think he kind of loves you, too.”
Tears stream down my face as she pulls me in for a hug before we climb into the back seat. Rex starts the engine and I watch Noah’s house get smaller as we drive down the gravel road away from a perfect love now left shattered for a second time.