Chapter Nineteen
Skylar Parish
I set my pencil down, shoving the papers around me into a neat stack.
“Well, I think that’s enough for today. It’s already noon,” I say, stretching as Henry groans, flopping back onto his bed.
“I thought it’d never end. I don’t know how Everett keeps up with you!”
I grin. “He doesn’t.”
Henry rolls his eyes, collecting his own materials as I slip on my shoes and head for the door.
“You’re leaving?” he asks. “You don’t want to get Kelly and Ev and go find some fun winter activities to do?”
“Nah. I need to go see my parents before they whine about me not visiting.”
“Alright, have fun. Don’t stay out too late; our first round of finals is tomorrow!” he yells after me.
I wave him off as the door shuts behind me; I know when finals start, thank you very much. I’ve also prepped and prepped for them—mostly with Evie.
Speaking of… What is Everett doing today? This morning, all he would tell me was that he has plans. Which, most likely, means his family. We don’t really talk about them.
He knows what I will say, and I know that he won’t listen. For as confident and laid-back as Everett is in his social life, when it comes to his personal life, he’s like a kicked puppy begging for scraps.
I wish he could see his own potential to be loved. I hope that one day Everett will look in the mirror and realize that it was never his fault that his parents didn’t love him as they should have.
Someday, I hope that he realizes that loving him is the easiest thing a person can do.
I think about this the entire thirty minutes it takes to drive to Rockhill. I think about his smile and his potential—how he’s already excelling and thriving, and how I cannot wait to see him become the best version of his ever-changing self.
And I get to. I get to witness, just as I always have, the great becoming of Everett.
My parents are home, as expected, and I walk inside the front door without knocking. Mom is in the kitchen if the smell of pancakes is any indication, so I head that way.
“I’m home,” I shout, placing my keys on the island as she spins around.
“Sky! What a lovely surprise!” she squeals. “I’ll make a few more pancakes.”
“Thanks. I’m starving.”
“Prepping for finals, dear?” she asks, turning around to grab the powdered batter and pouring some more into a bowl.
“Yeah. First round is tomorrow, but I should be done Wednesday afternoon.”
She nods enthusiastically. “You’ll do great!”
I sit at the table, watching her move around the kitchen with familiarity and grace. My love for cooking came from her, and it’s a good thing, too. Everett sucks at anything within that category.
“I’ll have to go for my RN exam after I graduate at the end of this month,” I say. “I’m sure I’ll pass, but let’s not celebrate too hard until I do.”
I’m not necessarily concerned about it, but I don’t want to jinx anything. Since the accident, all I’ve ever wanted to do is help people. If I do, maybe that twisted side of me will shrink even further than it did from the therapy.
“I hear you,” Mom placates, looking over her shoulder to give me a smile. “We’ll hold off until then.”
Everything is coming to a close: school, my rise to being a nurse, my life as a carefree college student.
Even beach volley is over, sadly, though Dante and I did own up to our A-team status and won most of our matches.
Yet, even though it is borderling depressing to leave this era of my life behind, I’m excited; there are so many new possibilities that come with this change, and every single one of them involves Everett.
Everett, whom I confessed to. Shit, I’ll never get over the embarrassment of telling him that I love him for the first time, drunk off my ass.
It wasn’t a lie: I am certain that I do love him. I just wish I had been sober, or not in the throes of passionate love-making.
Mom, as if she can read my mind, suddenly says, “Oh! I saw Everett today!”
I perk up, eyeing her curiously. “Really? Where?”
If he won’t tell me his plans, I guess Mom will.
“I was grocery shopping, and I saw him across the street at D’Oro. I think he was getting an early lunch with his parents and his girlfriend.”
I almost laugh. His girlfriend? Please.
Mom will assume that any young girl with a young guy is a couple, but I’m living proof that that’s not true. Everett is mine, and he was most likely with his parents and the child of one of their clients.
“Oh, yeah?” I reply, keeping my smirk as hidden as possible. “Good for them.”
I know I could very easily come out to my parents and tell them about Evie and me, but I am not willing to risk his safety.
If I tell them, they’ll want to meet up with the Carmichaels, and the only way to prevent that is if I tell them about what truly happens behind the closed doors of Everett’s childhood home.
I refuse to give them that secret if Evie is not ready for it. Therefore, I won’t tell them about our relationship. For now, we will remain a secret.
“Yeah,” Mom says with a wistful sigh. “She was so beautiful too! Long blond hair and a pretty face. Do you know her, Sky? Maybe Everett could bring her over one day.”
Long blond hair? A beautiful face?
I do know her. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that she’s talking about Ashley, the girl from the bar. The one who was touching Everett as if she owned him, kissing his lips.
The one who supposedly told him to come home to me.
So why the fuck is he having lunch with her and his adoptive parents?
“You said they were at D’Oro? How long ago was that?” I question.
Mom spins around in a hurry, her eyes wide. “A-about an hour ago? What’s wrong, Sky?”
I think she can hear the anger and the panic in my voice. I’m certain it’s showing on my face, revealing the weakest and most vulnerable side of me.
“I have to go,” I rush out, snatching my keys from the table as I hurry toward the front door.
“Sky! What’s happening? You didn’t even say hi to your father!”
But I don’t hear the rest of her panicked speech as the front door slams shut behind me. I can apologize to her later—right now, I need to see for myself. I have to understand before I make crazy assumptions that spiral me.
As I drive toward the restaurant, I try to calm my breathing. I try to remind myself of the facts and the reality I’m in.
Everett and I are official—even if in secret. Everett is not a cheater, and he would never hurt me in such a way. Even if he weren’t interested anymore, he would come right out and say it, even if only to save our friendship.
Plus, he loves me.
On Halloween, I told him that I loved him and he was so happy. He was so thrilled that he made me say it again and again.
He…
Actually, did Everett ever say he loves me too?
I search my drunk memory, trying to pinpoint a moment in which he did. I’m searching so desperately that I feel no embarrassment as I remember it leaving my own mouth.
But no. I have no recollection of Everett ever returning the sentiment; of Everett gifting me those three words.
What is happening right now? The past is coming to an end, and until a few minutes ago, the future looked so bright.
There has to be an explanation. There is no way that Everett can look at me the way he does, that he can touch me in such a way, and not love me. He does not hold it within himself to hurt me.
My soul lives within him, and his within me—it would be a self-inflicting wound to harm me now.
I pull into the parking lot in a hurry, killing the engine toward the back in one of the empty spaces. There is no guarantee that he is still here, but outings at this kind of restaurant typically last longer than an hour, right? I can only hope.
So I wait. I sit in the driver’s seat of my car and stare at the entrance with dedication, all the while attempting to calm my own raging heartbeat.
I am overthinking this. Even if it is Ashley, her parents could very well be clients of the Carmichaels and could have been inside by the time Mom drove past. This could all be a huge misunderstanding.
But as I see Everett exit the restaurant with his adoptive parents in tow, I spot Ashley next to him, his hand intertwined with hers. No one else is around.
Ash pats Everett on the back, smiling widely as they speak. Felicita leans in to kiss Ashley on the cheek. As they walk to Everett’s car, he opens the door for her, holding her hand as she sits.
And I… I begin to rapidly deflate.
This is not a misunderstanding—this is a fucking double date. One that I am not a part of as Everett smiles easily and parts ways with his family.
It should be me at his side. I have earned the right to stand next to him in all settings, even ones as delicate as this. So why am I here, hiding in my car?
Why am I on the outside, looking in as Everett lives a life separate from my own? Is my soul not buried deep inside his chest, the way his lies deep within mine?
And as I watch his car leave the parking lot, I expect that little piece of me, the one filled with rage and violence, to rise to the surface. But it doesn’t.
Instead, a deep sorrow overcomes me. A pain I have never truly experienced takes the air from my lungs and chokes me, forming tears in my eyes and a gaping void within my heart.
Everett is cheating on me. Whether it is for the sake of his adoptive parents or for himself, it does not matter. He is cheating.
How am I meant to stomach this? How am I expected to survive this nuclear bomb, this great fallout? Of the two of us, I always figured that I was the malicious one; the one who could dismember and poison another.
I was wrong. I was so terribly, unexpectedly wrong, as I underestimated the cruelty of him.
I have lowered my guard, and this time, it is me who has stumbled into striking range. And Everett has so carelessly lunged, fangs dropped for a killing blow.
There is only one way to do damage control in this situation: I have to separate myself from Everett before I collapse completely. I have to shield myself before I let it affect the portion of my future I can hold onto.
I mean, finals are tomorrow. I have to concentrate.
This means changing the locks. Everett has a key to my place, and I can’t very well hide from him if he can come and go as he pleases.
So, on my way home, I dry my tears and hit the hardware store that’s near campus. I search the aisles, grabbing a new door handle, a screwdriver, and two sets of keys. I’ll have to give one to the front desk at my complex.
It might be a flimsy way to protect myself, but it’s the only thing I can control at the moment. Well, that and turning my phone off. I just have to get this finished before Everett tries to come over again.
As I move toward the checkout, I spot a familiar face at the entrance.
Jacob catches my stare, his expression turning stony in the yellow lights that are illuminated above.
“Skylar,” he says emotionlessly.
“Hey, Jacob,” I greet. “How have you been?”
“Fine.”
Silence. We stare at each other, and I try to get a read on him, but all I can sense is irritation. What’s his damage?
“Uh, that’s good, I guess,” I mumble.
He tilts his head, his indifferent expression shifting into one of anger. “Are you… Are you seriously going to act like everything is fine?”
I squint at him. “Everything is fine.”
But it’s not. I just got my heart broken, and this asshole is acting like he knows about it and is angry at me for it.
Jacob lets out a harsh laugh. “Right. Sure. Because you didn’t blow me off for another man during our date and then ghost me after.”
Did I… did I do that? To be fair, after Everett and I solidified our new relationship, I stopped responding to all the men and women who would hit on me. But that was weeks ago!
“I didn’t owe you a response,” I respond, my reply short and confident. “It was one date.”
“You really are a cruel person, you know that?” Jacob sneers, huffing out an agitated breath. “You have no regard for the feelings of others.”
“That’s not true!” I insist.
“Yes, it is. I thought your confidence was really cute a few weeks ago, but now… Now I just see that you’re a narcissist who uses others and tosses them aside once you’re done.”
“That is completely unfair,” I snap. “Look, we went on a date, and it didn’t work out. Don’t turn me into the bad guy because I didn’t fall in love with you.”
“This has nothing to do with love,” he deadpans. “You agreed to a date and left halfway through to be with someone else, then acted like I didn’t exist. You could have just told me you weren’t interested, but instead, you couldn’t even respect me enough to shoot a text.”
I… Well, that’s a valid point. I just didn’t think about it; not once after our date did I truly consider Jacob at all. And that… Fuck.
He’s so right. I was so enthralled with Everett and what we were becoming that he didn’t even cross my mind. I just… left him out to dry.
“You’re self-absorbed, and honestly very mean. You should really think about your own actions, and how they might affect others. Seriously. Just… forget it.” And with that, he turns and exits the store, not even bothering to do his shopping.
I stand, frozen on the spot as his words sink in.
I truly thought that I was better now. That I was working hard to become the kind of person who is worthy of being called a good man. Have I sincerely been a monster this entire time?
Is it wrong of Everett to venture to someone nicer and softer, when before, he was coming home to this every night?
No. I will not validate his betrayal with my own flaws. But maybe this is for the best—if he hasn’t figured out how terrible I am before now, I guess his leaving prevents the pain of him discovering it.
I am stuck here, forever the worst version of myself. I’m caught in a violent loop, my head spinning and my stomach churning.
Maybe they should have locked me up.
Maybe I will always be a vicious viper, coiled to strike.