Beloved Evangeline (39 page)

“
You did it, Evangeline. You never stopped trying and you finally found what you were looking for all those years ago.”

“
Couldn’t have done it without you.”

We chatted over tea for nearly an hour.

“
Do you know anything about Simon?” I asked when I was satisfied she was going to be fine and we’d finished with our pleasantries.

“
No, I don’t. I don’t remember seeing him at the hospital.”

“
Yeah... the hospital didn’t have a record of him being there. I tried calling his cell but got no answer.”

When her girls appeared with faces pressed against the sliding glass door, Nicky and I hugged our goodbyes.

I spent the whole day running various errands. A surprising amount of tedious little things tend to accumulate when you’re incapacitated for an extended period of time. I collected my mail from the post office, made a number of phone calls to various banks and creditors, and picked up some groceries. The hat and sunglasses were a godsend. At this thought, I felt a small stab of pain for Mr. Fernwood—and for Wesley. Although a part of him was glamour, all phony and despicable, there was also a genuine kindness underlying all of that. I hoped both of them were alright, wherever they were.

The one thing I put off for one more day was the dreaded phone call to my boss. Of course I had been fired but it seemed like a phone call was in order as a matter of good form. I had no idea of the exact etiquette in such a situation but felt the responsible thing to do would be to call my boss and at least apologize for my insanity. Of course, I probably could have asked Gavin or Nicky, but I felt that asking my friends about my job lacked a certain dignity. I need to do everything else by myself, why not that?

After all, the worst was probably over, right? It felt as though there was nothing I couldn’t do right now. All of the broken, painfully sharp pieces of my mess of a life seemed to have finally been pieced together, not effortlessly, but together they now were nonetheless.

As I rounded my driveway and was in sight of the front door, I saw a figure in the shadows and paused instinctively.

33.

“
Hey, there.” A male voice called from my darkened porch.

Frozen in place, my eyes went wide with alarm.

The streetlight illuminated the man’s face as he stepped from the shadows.

My tensed shoulders relaxed as I realized I would not be fighting for my life again tonight.

“
How are you? The hospital said you just vanished. Will you have to go back?” Simon asked.

“
It’s a really long story, Simon, and I’m just not in the mood to tell it right now. To make that story much shorter, I filed a complaint with them today. I did want to be a lawyer, remember? I have good reason to believe I’m in no danger of going back.”

“
Really? That’s great...”

“
How long have you been waiting here, Simon?”

“
I don’t know—a few hours, I guess.” He looked at me curiously. “You look
different
somehow.
Complete
—that’s the only word I can think of.”

I knew better. I had to be absolutely swollen and bruised and horrifying. But I was much too tired for argument. “Thanks, I think,” was what came out. “Look, I’m
really
tired and am just not in the mood to fight with you again. Tell Gavin I said “hi,” or not, whichever you think is best, and I’ll see you guys next week.”

He said nothing and just gawked at me with the oddest expression. He held my gaze intently for a few moments. My pulse quickened and a strange sense of longing overcame me.

I shook my head as I remembered that this was not the friend that liked me, and I was not too sure what I thought about him, either.

“
Goodnight, Simon.”

As I turned for the door, Simon grabbed my wrist and spun me around. He was very close, his face nearly touched mine. He looked as though he were about to say something—some mental turmoil was stopping him. Instead of speaking, he leaned forward abruptly and kissed me. After only an initial moment of shock, I kissed him back. I couldn’t stop myself. He put his hands on my face and my hair, kissing me desperately, as though this was his one shot and he wanted to do it right. He was unquestionably successful. His hands finally gripped the back of my shirt and held on tightly. My hands found his hair and the back of his neck.

I was lost.

After several minutes, our unexpected kiss wound to an end. I tried to pull myself out of its spell, but found I couldn’t speak. I hadn’t wanted the kiss to end. It was the best, most unexpected gift I’d received in a long, long time.

Simon inhaled sharply and rubbed his pant legs quickly, apparently trying to compose himself. “I’ve been lying to you, Evangeline, and I’m sorry.” He took a few steps back from me and turned his gaze toward the sky.

I just stood gaping at him in dazed, albeit happy, confusion.

“
To be honest, I thought you’d see through me and figure it out, and maybe you did.” He looked back at me nervously. “It’s
me
, not Gavin. I’m the one who’s... in love with you.”

Surely I was hallucinating. I know the self that I’ve become over the past few years—prickly, standoffish,
unlovable
. So this just can’t be real.

Despite my disbelief, Simon was still talking.

“
I didn’t have the balls to even talk to you at first, and then, as time went on, and I realized that no one else was right for me. I only got more and more
obsessed
. You’re different,
brave
, in a way I’ve never seen. I would’ve done literally anything just to see you smile. I was obsessed with finding new material, testing out my jokes to see what really made you laugh. My heart would stop for a few beats when your face lit up, smiling or laughing at something
I
had said. I thought for awhile that would be enough, if I could just make you happy, make you forget whatever was weighing on you so heavily, but I guess, it wasn’t working. I was actually kind of driving Gavin crazy. It was his idea, at first, to lay the blame with him, to give me an excuse to talk to you, like Cyrano de Bergerac without the nose.”

“
He told me to pretend to be his wingman, to treat it like that, to give me the courage to talk to you
normally
. And it worked... for awhile. But then, when you started withdrawing again, I don’t know, I snapped or something. I remember the exact night, the night you pulled away from me. Do you remember?”

I furrowed my brow in confusion, trying in vain to recall.

“
We had all gone out for drinks at Magellan’s—me, you, Nicky, Gavin, Lyle, and, I don’t know, four or five other people from the office. I think it was about six months or so before Steve’s…
party
.” He looked uncertain for a moment but continued, “Everyone else went inside—thanks to Gavin—so I could be alone with you. For awhile I was worried that you’d rather talk to Jonathan than to me, the way you two were going on and on,” he paused and chortled darkly, “But then, when everyone was finally out of the way, everything was great. You and I were enjoying really great, relaxed conversation. We were sitting at what I thought was a romantic table outside, underneath the stars, with the glow of hanging outdoor lights surrounding us, sparkling off the water. It was a perfect early spring evening at my favorite restaurant by the river; I’d planned everything perfectly so I could finally confess. I even arranged for them to play
Under the Milky Way
by The Church—the most romantic unromantic song I knew you liked.”

“
We started talking about how much we both loved hiking and the outdoors, and your face lit up in my favorite way. You told me about all the plans you once had to hike in places like Europe and South America. When the conversation lulled and we both sat enjoying the music, I felt emboldened. I leaned in for the kiss, and to my shock and surprise, so did you. We were so close to kissing I could literally taste it—but at that moment there was a loud crash of fallen dishes behind us. You opened your eyes with such a look of shock and revulsion and
disgust
, obviously at what you had almost allowed yourself to do—kiss me. You were clearly embarrassed, flustered. You knocked over your drink and excused yourself, practically running away.”

“
I know I lost it then. I walked away from the table, like I had to walk away from you so many times since. I just couldn’t keep my shit together and knew I was just going to, I don’t know, explode or something, so I left instead. That night I left without even telling Gavin. He was actually kind of pissed when he found out I left him there. But it was like being this close,” he held his fingers up, indicating an infinitesimally small amount of space, “to my dream and having it yanked away from me. Do you have any idea how that feels, knowing that what I had dreamt of so intensely could never be? Worst of all was when we went back to work the next Monday—you acted exactly the same as you had before, like nothing had even happened. I ran through all sorts of scenarios to explain why you acted the way you did; none were appealing.”

The memory of that night came rushing back. I remembered opening my eyes, seeing Simon, and being scared out of my mind, scared of making the same mistakes and hurting the people I cared about most. I had repressed the memory, and then stopped going out and thereby avoiding putting myself in any sort of situation where Simon and I might find ourselves together like that again. The reason was obvious—I had just prevented myself from considering or even thinking about it before: I was in love with Simon.

I drew in a long breath. “I didn’t remember, Simon. I think I just didn’t want you to get hurt.” I said the words in a rush, too afraid of saying any more.

“
I know that now, Evangeline. You don’t need to explain. Besides, none of that really matters to me anymore since... I lost you. I saw you dying... blue and
lifeless
. They’ll never know for certain how long you were gone, but they worked on you for more than half an hour. They said you weren’t breathing and only had a faint, faint pulse. Even after they brought you back—you shivered violently for 16 straight hours. The hospital had never seen anything like it—I’d never been so scared in my entire life. And all I could do was to stand there watching, completely helpless, as you drifted farther and farther away from me.” He closed his eyes for a few moments.

“
Anyway, I wanted to explain
my
behavior to you. The point is, after that last night we had drinks, there was nothing I could do to make you laugh anymore, no matter how hard I tried. You had shut down, shut me out. I convinced myself that you knew, you saw through me, saw my desperation. It nearly did drive me insane, thinking that you knew I loved you and callously and purposefully shut me out anyway. I tried to act casually around you afterward, but couldn’t. Everything I said was tainted. I know that I was cruel... but I didn’t mean to be.” He looked at me pleadingly, “I just couldn’t get my feelings under control, and by trying to hide them, they came out
wrong
.

“
At first I thought it was just normal disappointment or anger over being rejected. But it gradually dawned on me that
I just couldn’t take not being with you
. Gavin finally set me up on a few dates, trying to distract me, to get my mind off of you. He thought I’d snap out of it eventually, but no. Those dates were
complete
disasters, and believe me, I probably needed a one night stand here and there for my sanity, but I just couldn’t do it. Those poor girls must have thought I was a total stalker. One girl excused herself to answer a call during our dinner and just never came back, the classic blind date horror story cliché. I don’t blame her, though. I hadn’t been able to stop talking all night... about you.”

I wiped at my eyes—ridiculously, uncontrollably,
girlishly
soaked.

“
I tried again to tell you the last time I came over, after Steve’s party. I tried so hard, but I lost my nerve when I got here. You just looked so like a...
rock star
, a rock star after a night of partying.”

I laughed nervously.

“
I’m serious. I’ll never forget how you looked as long as I live. You had on a short silk kimono robe, and unless I’m very mistaken, almost nothing else.” He fidgeted with his hands. “I was just stunned for a moment when you opened the door. I don’t know what I expected to see, but seeing you looking like that, I definitely wasn’t. I don’t remember ever seeing you even wear a skirt before, and don’t get me wrong, you always look really nice at work, but seeing most of your really long legs for the first time like that...” He shook his head and looked away for a moment.