Chapter 33 Evan
Ibounce Leo on my lap on the bench outside the stadium after a gruelling training session. My entire body hurts, and so does my mind.
Flo’s been gone a week. Seven whole days—that’s all.
But it feels like a lifetime already. The house is too quiet without her, the mornings drag, and the evenings are predictable.
I once thought that predictability I had in my life was calming, something I enjoyed, but I crave back the unpredictability that Flo brought.
I keep expecting to hear her giggle from the kitchen, or look out my window to see her working on a creation on the porch steps, but she’s gone.
My heart feels off-beat, and my coffee doesn’t taste the same. It’s bitter—which was its flavour all along—but now that the sweetness I didn’t know I needed in my life has come and gone, the taste is no longer something I enjoy.
The only thing holding me together is Leo, but guilt hits me square in the chest whenever I have to drag him out of the house to the stadium because I have practice, and I still haven’t settled on another nanny.
I’m trying, though. Flo isn’t Leo’s nanny anymore, so this is the only option I have.
Bennett joins us on the bench and pinches Leo’s cheeks, who’s busy playing around with my phone. He leans over my son’s shoulder, makes him laugh by pretending to press some buttons on the device at the same time he makes ‘beep, boop’ noises, and then turns to me.
“How are you, man?”
“I’m fine.”
Bennett makes a loud "ergg" sound, like a buzzer. “Wrong answer. Try again. How are you, really?”
I scrub a hand down my face. “I… don’t know, Bennett.
” My eyes slice to Leo, who’s now off my lap and entertaining himself with a few bugs on a bush beside us—his mission this week has been to try to catch a butterfly—still clutching onto my phone.
“I knew Flo was going to leave. We both did, and I knew it was going to suck. But… I didn’t realise I could miss somebody this much. ”
“She was one in a million,” Bennett sighs lowly, and I shoot him daggers, which makes him hold his hands up in defence and say, “For you, Evan. Calm down.”
“I know she’s probably having a great time, and it makes me feel like a complete asswipe for wanting her to be missing me as much as I am her, and come back. It’s selfish. I need to try to get used to life without her.”
Evan West doesn’t open up like this. He’s straight-faced and shrugs things off like nothing can touch him, but I’m a new version of myself now.
Flo McKenna brought it out of me, and even though these newfound emotions are irritating, I don’t want to change.
I don’t want to go back to who I was before her. She’d be so disappointed.
“Wow, you got it bad, boy.”
I blink at Bennett. I’m so messed up without Flo that even a blind cat could sense it.
“Remember the advice you gave me a little while ago, about feeling like you can see that something isn’t right for someone?”
I nod. “I still want to know who that was about, by the way.” Although I’m sure I already know, I’d like to hear it come from Bennett’s mouth.
“Stop trying to change the subject. We’re talking about you and your midlife crisis right now.”
“I’m not middle-aged.”
Bennett scoffs, eyes shifting to Leo for a second, and then to the phone.
“Might as well be. Now listen, if I’m honest, being without Fo isn’t right for you, and I can tell you now that she probably feels the same.
You’ve changed since she came along, Evan.
You’re more relaxed. Less hard on yourself.
I asked Flo all about the trip before she left, and she gave me nothing.
There was no excitement there. No drive, or passion, but when she looks at you and Leo, that’s when the determination comes out of her. ”
“She made me feel like I was a good father, but also like I was more than just that.”
“And that’s what I’m talking about.”
A crease forms between my eyes. “Why are you yelling?”
My friend chuckles, swiping a confused look on his face, before mumbling, “Sorry. My ears are blocked.”
“Bennett, as much as I want that woman back in my arms, the press would eat this story up.”
“And since when does Evan West care about what the press says? You’re already in the news every month, so people would probably assume it’s a load of pisswaddle anyway.”
“What the fuck is pisswaddle?”
Bennett’s large shoulders rise. “No idea, it just sounded right in the moment.”
My irises shift to Leo. He’s been less energetic since Flo left.
Grumpier. He’s not sleeping as well, and as much as I try to convince myself it’s just because he’s feeling a little under the weather, I know better.
I swear, the kid isn’t even enjoying Whisker Wheelers as much anymore.
I asked if he wanted to go to see the movie for the third time, and he said no.
“You want her back. I can see that, but do you want Flo back as a nanny… or something else, West?”
“Do you really need me to answer that?”
Bennett rolls his eyes. “Oh, to be in love. But yes, I need an answer.”
“I don’t want Flo as a nanny, because they’re temporary, and things with her feel anything but.”
“And you’re really going to keep that inside of you and live with regret for the rest of your life?”
Leo then rushes up to me, tapping on my phone and babbling into it as if he’s actually using it, which makes Bennett repeat the button-pressing and robotic noises.
My son has been obsessed with my phone lately, so I trade Donkey for it and pocket the device, but not before dragging him onto my lap and blowing a raspberry into his neck, making him squeal and pull away.
I can’t be the sad single dad who has no drive and doesn’t put my child first. Leo is everything to me, and I have no idea where I would be without the little miracle. He made me a better person, made me feel like I have a purpose in this world, and I’d walk through fire for the kid over and over.
We’re still here, back to the routine we had before Flo came long, but it now feels like our jigsaw’s missing a piece and doesn't fit the way it used to, and I’m not sure it ever will if she’s not in the picture.
But then my son has to look me in the eyes and mutter, “I miss Flo, Daddy,” and my body feels like it’s crumbling.
“I know. I miss her too, buddy.”
Leo’s still my absolute world—I’m nothing if not his father—but our world feels a whole lot smaller without Flo.