Chapter Twenty #2
“Oh,” Everett mutters, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I guess I never told you who he was, huh?”
Ashley groans, plopping down onto the couch next to me. “You’re an idiot, Ev. Let me guess, he found out about your master plan?”
I shift away from her, crossing my arms as I awkwardly ask, “Master plan? What are you talking about?”
My sorrow is being drowned out by confusion. She is not acting like a girlfriend.
“Great. Let’s just get into it then,” Everett grumbles. As he stands before us, his eyes drilling into me, I fidget nervously. “Listen, Sky… I have this plan. A plan for us to be together.”
“We were already together, asshole,” I counter.
“What do you mean we were?!”
“Good god, can we just get to the point before you two spiral further?” Ashley interjects.
Evie sighs, dropping to his knees before me once more.
“Alright. Obviously I can’t be open around my dad.
It’ll turn out bad for me. So, I figured I could keep the peace and present Ashley as my fake girlfriend.
That way me and you can run away once we graduate, and he won’t put his hands on me before then. ”
I blink. I stare at him, and I blink like an idiot. What kind of Hallmark bullshit is this?!
“A… fake girlfriend?” I repeat, and Everett nods enthusiastically. “So you’re manipulating your parents to keep your funding and your peace until we graduate, and then you want me to what? Run away?”
“Well… yes.” His eyes flicker from me to Ashley, his expression shifting into something anxious and mildly scared. “I just thought… I don’t think it’ll be best for me to stay, and I don’t want to leave you, so…”
The three of us just… exist for a moment. I’m trying to comprehend what is being said and how I fit into it; how it’s meant to excuse his behavior.
Ashley is staring at me expectantly, as if I’m meant to piece it all together so easily.
I wasn’t aware that Everett wanted to get away from Sinclair completely. Does he want to leave Florida altogether? Am I meant to just pack up my life and run? What will my parents think?
There are so many questions whirling through my mind, and yet the only thing I am certain of is that Everett is not lying.
You see, only Evie could craft such an idiotic plan and come out the other side thinking he’s a first-class genius. I believe that he genuinely thinks this is his best path forward.
“So, just to hear it said plainly,” I start, “you two are not romantically involved? It’s all… fake?”
“Right,” Ashley agrees. “The most I do is hold his hand around his parents. After that we part ways, or I sit and listen to him gush about you. Though, to be fair, I’m certainly surprised it was our star volley player behind those stories.”
Good god, what has Evie shared?! I flush, turning my attention away from her.
Everett is staring at me hopefully. “Do you understand, Sky? This is the only way that I can keep my family until the end of the month. I just want a peaceful end to this era of my life.”
It’s sad, and majorly fucked up, that this is what he is left with. That after sitting through foster care until he was six, then being adopted into a family that literally signed up to love him, he is now here—trying so desperately to receive that love.
I take a deep breath, preparing myself for this fight.
“Evie,” I call softly. “They are not your family. If they can’t love you for you, if they can easily cause you harm, they are not your home. I don’t understand why you’re trying so hard to pretend it is.”
Everett does not fight me the way I anticipated he would, only giving me a sad smile. It says so much, this smile; it tells me that he isn’t dumb, he understands, and yet it doesn’t matter anyway.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” he says. “Your parents have always loved you. But Sky, please try to see that love isn’t something that is just given to me.
It’s something that I’ve always had to earn—and for a bit longer, not just to keep my car and my everyday expense money, I want to hold onto that feeling.
I want… I want to be loved by my parents for a while longer, no matter how fake that love is. ”
I feel sad for him. As I look into those soft, sorrowful eyes, I want to rage.
Everett is beautiful and intelligent, as well as an overall good man. That should be enough—more than enough. Take me as an example; I’m not a great person, yet my parents love me unconditionally. This is how it should be.
And yet, the Carmichaels have made affection feel like an unattainable prize, only fit for those who benefit them. They have shifted and manipulated Evie’s view of his worth and what he deserves.
It should be illegal to choose a child and then neglect them. It should be a crime to obtain something so precious and small and attempt to destroy it.
“I will never understand why you go to these lengths to please them,” I admit, reaching out to graze his cheek with my fingertips. “But I do understand that you’re a good man. That you don’t deserve this.”
Everett’s eyes soften, a hopeful smile shaping his lips. “So you believe me? That I wasn’t cheating on you?”
Oh, right. Ashley is literally right here. But I don’t have to hide in front of her, right? She already knows everything.
I nod. “I believe you.”
And what a relief that is.
Ashley sighs aggressively, but it sounds like contentment.
“Alright!” she shouts, standing from the couch as she stretches her arms above her head. “Looks like my job here is done! Though, I’m not sure why I was summoned.”
“I wanted him to see that you know this was all fake,” Everett explains. “You and me, I mean.”
Ashley chuckles, patting his shoulder as her eyes fall to where I sit. “Don’t you worry, Sky. The last time I was with Ev and thought we were serious, he turned me down as he cried over you. I am not competition.”
Competition? Please. I’m Skylar Parish—she never stood a chance.
Let’s just… uh… ignore all the previous crying and pretend I was this confident the entire time.
“Thanks for coming over, I guess,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Call me for the next gig, Ev. Later.”
As the front door clicks shut behind her, Everett grabs my hand, pulling me up from the couch.
“I can’t believe you tried to lock me out,” he pouts.
“Well, if you had told me about this master plan sooner, I wouldn’t have been so shocked,” I reply defensively.
Everett nods, his expression turning weary. “I was afraid you’d freak out and tell me to disown my parents again.”
“I still think you should do that. It’s not good for you to be around them. And I hate seeing you fight for their love like this.”
“Just for a couple more weeks,” he says, and it almost sounds like he’s asking for permission. “We graduate at the end of this month, and then it’ll all be over.”
I’m unsure if it’s morally right for me to deny him this. Sure, I want to tell him no, that he can’t go on like this. But it’s his parents and his life. He technically has the right to say what he pleases to them.
And plus, after my run-in with Jacob, I’m petrified that Everett will eventually see the evil in me too. That he’ll wake up one day and be able to taste the rot growing inside of me.
If it takes me supporting this backward plan for him to stay ignorant of my true nature, then so be it. I’ve been fooling him for over a decade now—certainly I can fool him for the rest of our lives.
And doesn’t that make me the cruelest of them all?
“Let’s go on a date tomorrow after our first round of finals,” Everett suggests, beaming at me.
“A date? But people will see us.”
“I doubt anyone important will be this close to campus, and if anyone does see us, it’ll be college students who don’t care,” he assures me.
Given how hard he’s been working to keep our relationship a secret from his father, he is very laid-back when it comes to other people. From being upset I wouldn’t dance with him at the Halloween party to this date, I would say he’s being reckless.
But I also really want to go on a date.
“Alright,” I concede. “A date, then.”
Everett fist bumps the air, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Yes!”
He’s adorable—the same golden retriever he’s always been. And one day, he’ll be free to be this breathtaking at all times, with me, out in the open.
And as long as I can keep a grip on my secrets and my anger, I may dare believe we can be like that forever.
Everett only needs to lie for a couple more weeks, but when I look ahead, I believe I’ll be a liar until the day I die.
I can only pray that he never finds out.