Chapter 18 #4
Already before halftime, she wanted to go home where it was quiet, calm, peaceful, and easy. She was having a good time in a way, but she had been so depressed and ridden with her manic episodes that she didn’t know how to function in a situation like that anymore.
She reached for her phone to have some sort of an escape from the noise and chaos of the stadium with people stomping, smoking, whistling, screaming, yelling, spilling popcorn.
It was all nuts to her. Over the last six years, her tolerance for football games vanished.
As she looked at her phone, she was desperate for someone to text with to take her mind out of it.
And it hit her how alone she was. Even with Caleb, she felt alone all over again.
Evie rubbed her face in frustration at herself. Was that not enough for her?
No. She needed something quiet then. A friend that she could tell how stressful that situation was. How badly she wanted to go home but felt awful about it. As she scrolled through her contacts, she had no one.
Being with Caleb, Evie was going to have to become a part of a life that wasn’t hers and meet new people she didn’t know and build new friendships.
She didn’t have a problem making new friends, but it all was just too much to handle that she was truly alone.
Who would she have to gush to about Caleb?
They were dating, and she didn’t have anyone at all to giggle about it to.
No girlfriend, no family member, nothing.
Not even a coworker. She got to talk to Myla about it, but Myla and her hadn’t grown that close yet.
Telling Caleb she needed to use the bathroom, she went out somewhere quieter and composed herself near the concessions.
She hated herself. When was her mind going to finally be satisfied with something and not find something new to be upset about?
She hated the women in town. They were so loud, conniving, untrustworthy, and bitchy.
Sarah was nice, but Sarah and Evie weren’t really that close.
They’d only known each other for two years, and they only met about a handful of times.
Not to mention, Sarah could be a little bit conservative, even more so than Evie.
How she wished she and Missy didn’t go their separate ways.
If Missy were to have ever straightened up or grown up, it wouldn’t’ve been a problem.
The Chiefs won, and the drive back home was as loud as it was on the way there. Yes, it was great on the way there, but on the way back, Olivia had started to get fussy, Zack started to get moody with wanting to eat somewhere when Caleb wanted to wait until they got home, and Evie…
She wanted to go home.
The din of the stadium had exhausted her mental threshold, and fatigue seeped into her body, marinating her bones with a toxic sludge. All she wanted to do was go home and be warm and quiet in her bed with a good book, and it broke her apart.
Caleb never took her home. He took a different exit to Highway 42 and Evie didn’t even want to dare ask him to take her home.
You can do this, Evie. Fight through it. You’re new to this. It’s like the first day on the job. You’ll be okay. Take the trail one step at a time.
As the truck rode up the long gravel driveway however, Evie slowly pulled herself forward and looked. She saw the horses.
Coming up a hill where pastures were wet and dead, the beautiful sunset cast a fiery halo behind a large and beautiful home.
Wood fencing trailed all over, and to the right she saw the small herd of horses grazing.
Trees of glimmering wet bark birthed their wiry branches high into the sky in several random areas, and a dog rose to its paws on the front porch.
Evie’s breath left her body as she gasped, “Caleb…”
“Do you like it?”
“This is,” she stammered looking at the horses again, “your house?”
“Yep! It’s beautiful at night. Wait till you see the big pond in the back!”
“You have a pond, too? It’s beautiful!”
“Sure do!”
Olivia chirped, “Daddy, when we come home from school tomorrow, can I go riding with Evie?”
Evie smiled. She sat back and relaxed. It was her paradise. And to hear that little girl wanting to spend time with her? Double paradise.
Caleb looked in his review mirror to his little girl. “Absolutely!”
Then it all hit her so hard that it heightened her senses, and she could’ve screamed. Inside, she screamed as hard as she could.
Evie realized how much she had been stuck in the past. She never healed from her parents’ death, her pawpaw’s, in a way losing her brothers, and moving all over the place trying to find where she belonged.
Maybe she could belong there.
She wanted change but was afraid of it. Afraid of a new norm because she longed for things in her life to be the way they were before her family fell apart.
But perhaps God had sent her a new family.
A new home. A new place to belong. It obviously wasn’t going to be easy to adapt, but she had to try. She wanted to try.
Throughout the time of making dinner with Caleb for all of them, Evie had been welcomed into a house that was clean, comfortable, open, and quiet.
The only real sound was the sound of company.
Perhaps, she had thought to herself, that the only reason she had wanted to go back home earlier was because that was what she had been used to for all those years.
But it wasn’t what she had wanted.
After the kids were put to bed, Caleb and Evie went to sleep in separate rooms out of respect for his kids, but he didn’t go to sleep with a clear mind.
The next morning, before the kids woke up, he took her hand and led her outside to the front pasture.
The fields were small patches of white snow and dark earth from the wakening of dawn, and the trees had lost their brilliant sparkles, but the tall grasses swayed in their blond tones.
The snow had melted enough for them to sprout and grow.
And the horses nickered at each other while they grazed. She knew it was something serious.
He stood on the hill with her and wrapped his arms around her. Their embrace was tight and full of intent, and she grazed her loving hands along his side to his back. Caleb’s face snuggled down into her hair.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I gotta tell you what you’ve been waiting for for over a year, and I’m worried you’re going to leave me after this.”
“I won’t,” she urged. “I can’t. I’m in love with you. People don’t leave people they love.”
Evie’s eyes soared into his, her beautiful dark jewels glittering as the pinks of the sky washed her cheeks. It was easy to see that Caleb was hurting. She held his cheek. He had shaved that morning.
“What is it? I’m here. Lay it all on me, please.”
He began lowly, “I’ve not had a good past. And because I don’t talk about it, it makes people angry at me.”
She listened, bracing for something devastating. She ignored the nipping cold of the early hour.
“I’m in the Navy, as you know.”
Here it is. Be patient. Be calm. “I do, but I never knew what you did.”
“I’m an SWCC. Please don’t ask what that means. It’s too much to explain right now.”
She let him gather his breath. Her eyes never left him even though he was now looking down. Their arms hung down between them and they held their hands with each other.
He hesitated and breathed rapidly. He almost gripped her hands too tight.
He began, “I’ve seen things I can’t forget, but I want to.
It doesn’t matter what I do. It’s been hard.
Everyone always sees me, and they think I just shoot guns because of the marksmen awards I’ve gotten, or that I kill people.
But they don’t know what kind of rescue and humanitarian things I’ve done, too. ”
Evie felt her blood go cold. Yet it wasn’t for the reason one would believe.
She already knew it was a hard thing to talk about, but her blood went cold because she couldn’t imagine holding something that fucking heavy.
With a tilt of her head, the center of her brows rose upwards in compassion, listening deeper.
She had no clue what an SWCC was, but apparently, they did both risky things and also helped people.
He was getting uneasy, and she rubbed the top of his hands with her thumbs.
He shook his head. “All I want to say is that when the War on Terror started, things went from bad to worse. There was an accident with a friend of mine, and that’s really all I wanna say.
” Caleb clenched his jaw and licked his lips.
The memory was ripping his heart out, and he felt the tragedy was all his fault.
But he would never disclose that to her.
Evie saw his shoulders rise and tense. She yearned to touch him and soothe his nerves, but she refrained, knowing it wasn’t the best thing to do at the moment. She started to lose feeling in her fingers from how hard he held her hands. She didn’t care.
Once more, he aggressively licked his lips and forced a smile. “Please don’t ask me any further details. It is what it is.”
“I won’t,” she cooed affectionately.
And Evelyn Morgan grew up in that moment. Two years ago, that response wouldn’t’ve satisfied her. Now, it did. Because he was there with her, trying to open up.
She grew up. And she felt she grew up with him.
The winds came gliding across their faces. He managed to conjure the strength to continue, “When I came back, people in town thought everything was a joke. They made horrible jokes about how proud they were that I served but then others hated me for it, and all sorts of fucked up shit.”