Zeke’s eyes move from Cindy back to me, and he cases me out from my head to my toes. Not the way he did at the club in front of Tony, possessively, but as though he’s assessing me for damage.
“Why don’t you try and get away from him?” he asks, and my guard is instantly back up, the feeling of safety gone.
I stare straight ahead, forcing my grip on the Styrofoam cups not to tighten and crush them. “You don’t understand,” I say in a low voice. “You don’t understand anything, Zeke. So stay out of it.”
I can feel his body tighten next to me in anger and annoyance, and I unwittingly flinch slightly away before I can stop myself. I hear Zeke intake a sharp breath at my reaction.
“What I do understand is that if you willingly stay in that situation, then you’re just as screwed up as Tony is,” he says in a harsh whisper.
I choke as he voices one of my own fears, and glare over at him, more mad than scared now. “There’s more at stake than just me,” I snap. “Like I said, you don’t understand, just stay out of it, okay?”
He leans forward, and I pull away, scared by the closeness. Usually Tony is the only one I can’t stand to have close to me, the one who makes me nervous with his proximity, but suddenly Zeke is too big and threatening to have near me. I wonder if I am crazy to have felt a flash of safety being in his presence.
“I was watching you today, Evie. I saw how you are with him around. You’re scared out of your mind. You’re scared to have him touch you. You can barely sit and stand because he hit your ribs. You’re right that I don’t understand, because I don’t get how deeply your masochism must be if you willingly stay in an abusive relationship.”
I flinch at the words, the title that I’ve always avoided. It’s never been said aloud to me, and it’s startlingly ugly. I fight the urge to cry. Does he actually think that’s it? That I
enjoy
it? That I have some deep rooted, psychological need for the pain Tony inflicts on me? Doesn’t he get how much I hate it, being under Tony’s thumb, having him dictate my every choice and move, and punishing me when I do something I didn’t even realize was against his wishes?
I may feel trapped, I may feel that the pain grounds me, keeps me from floating away, but I don’t
enjoy
it. I don’t
want
it.
Zeke is sneering at me as he sees me flinch. “Yeah, that’s what it’s called, Evie. Abusive. And I’m pretty sure your dad would have a coronary if he found out, and wipe Tony off the face of the earth for hurting his little girl. So maybe you should just spill the beans and get it over with.”
“I can’t,” I say, through clenched teeth. I’m struggling to stay in the present, not fade into the voices I can hear in my head.
I love you, Evie. Don’t make me do it to you again, Evie. You know how much I love you, I’d die if you left me. If you ever leave me, I’ll kill myself. I’ll do it, Evie. We’re meant to be together, forever.
I turn sharply toward Zeke, forcing my ribs to move in a way that they aren’t ready for, and the sharp pain makes me lightheaded for a moment, but grounds me in the present, makes the voices fade away. “Why do you care, anyway?” I snap.
Zeke opens his mouth, and then closes it. His eyes grow hard, and he slumps back in his chair. “I don’t,” he bites out, and I know we are done talking.
We sit there woodenly, side by side, until the class is over, and Zeke leaves with his sister, and Jenny walks up to me, taking the cup I hand to her. I force a smile on my face to greet her, falling with ease into the role that I have been playing for so long.
Evangeline
10
“Evie! We’re ready to go!”
“I’ll be down in a minute!” I call down the stairs to my dad, and finish the final swipe of blush on my cheeks before descending the staircase at top speed, meeting up with him and my stepmom, Clarissa, in the entrance hall at the bottom of the stairs.
It’s Friday morning, and we have a long weekend off school. I spent a delicious morning sleeping in, and now my dad and Clarissa are taking off for Boston to attend a medical conference. I’ll have the house to myself all weekend, and while that sounds like any seventeen year olds dream, I’m sick with dread at the thought. I wish I could escape to Jenny’s like I did last time, but she’s leaving town herself after she stays over tonight, and then I know I will be on my own.
“Hey, princess.” My dad catches me as I launch myself off the last step and into his arms. “Are you gonna be okay while we’re gone?”
“I’ll be fine,” I say, squeezing him tight and inhaling the familiar scent of spicy cologne mixed with a sharp zing of antiseptic.
“No sleepovers with Tony while we’re gone,” he orders, laughing.
“Not with Tony, but Jenny and the other girls are coming over tonight.” I know this will unnerve him more than the thought of me having Tony over.
“Lord help us.” He laughs again and looks over my head at Clarissa. “We locked up the liquor cabinet, didn’t we?”
“Dad!” I protest, although I know that it’s the first place Chantal and Tiffany will head upon arrival.
“Honey, she’s going to wrinkle your shirt,” Clarissa says, coming up and prying me off my dad.
She runs her hands across his chest to smooth out the imaginary wrinkles I’ve put there, and I scowl at her back. Dad sees and winks at me, then kisses Clarissa on the cheek and gently moves her aside to pull me close against him once more and kiss me on the top of my head.
“Be safe, sugar,” he whispers to me. “Call Tony if you get scared, or me if something happens. I’ll be back faster than you can say
gotcha
.”
“I know,” I whisper back, and he steps away to gather up the bags piled next to the front door.
“She’ll be fine with Tony nearby,” Clarissa says soothingly, and I know she just doesn’t want me to call and interrupt their private weekend. “He’s more than capable of taking care of her, and Hunter will be home for the summer in just a month. We need to get going, Ian, or we’ll be late.”
I make a secret face at the mention of my stepbrother, and then walk out the door with them and watch as my dad loads the bags into the Escalade, and wave them off. Just as they are pulling through the open gates at the bottom of the driveway, Tony turns in, and they both pause to talk to each other through open car windows. My stomach starts to hurt as the windows roll up and Tony pulls up the driveway to the top of the hill and parks his car.
He steps out of the car, and my body turns hot, and then chilly with relief when I see he’s smiling, his blue eyes light and carefree. “Hey, babe!” he calls, retrieving his backpack from the backseat and hopping lightly up the steps to the front porch.
He kisses me on the cheek, and I can’t help but return his bright smile. He’s in a blessedly, amazingly good mood, and I find myself melting as I look into his big blue eyes.
“You ready to kill all this homework?” he asks, swinging his backpack forward and patting it. “We have,” he makes a show of checking his watch, “exactly four hours before operation girls night commences, and I’m thrown from the house.”
“I’m ready,” I say valiantly, buoyed by his infectious good mood. “So long as you promise to help this time, and not just rattle around the kitchen asking twenty times if we have anything to eat.”
“It takes a lot out of me,” Tony complains as he trails me into his house. “I have to keep up my strength! You’re smarter than me, and I have to expend more energy to keep up with you!”
I’m laughing as we settle onto the kitchen island, though not before I prepare a bowl of chips and dip for Tony, and pull out two bottles of water to keep the complaining to a minimum. We work for two hours straight, Tony teasing me the whole time, acting like a little boy in a way that makes me helpless against him. Sometimes I forget how good it was the first year that we dated, how I managed to fall so deeply in love with him. Then we have days like this, moments like this, and I am reminded, and I realize that I still have feelings for him.
It’s isn’t until I’m rooting around in the fridge, looking for something more substantial for us to eat, that the time slowly comes to an end, just as it always does.
Tony lifts his arms high above his head, stretching and rolling out his neck. “Have you picked your top five colleges yet?” he asks, and I pause for a short moment, then resume pulling out sandwich fixings. “I’m going to Harvard for law, obviously, but I’m still on the fence about going there for my bachelor’s. I’m wondering if I need to experience some other place, get a different perspective. I’ll apply, obviously, but it’s pretty much a given with Dad and everything.”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I say slowly, my back still facing him as I stand at the counter and make us something to eat. “Dad went to OSU, so obviously I’m going to apply there, and probably Yale too. I was also thinking… maybe USC and Stanford too.”
I’m not sure where the words come from, why I even say anything. It’s a secret I’ve been sitting on for a long time, that I want to escape and go to California for school. Assuming that if I can manage it, Tony won’t just follow me and I’ll still be trapped. Maybe that’s why I say it now. To see what he says, gauge what my chances might be.
Or maybe it’s because Zeke’s voice is still echoing in my head, telling me that I need to tell someone, that I need to get out. Maybe this is my first step to getting out, to escaping, to actually letting the truth come out. I tell myself I’m doing it because I’m brave and trying to get away from Tony’s oppressive hold over me, but deep down I know how it will end, and that I’ll feel even more trapped than ever.
There’s silence from behind me, and I’m too scared to turn around. Then I hear the stool scrape against the floor and suddenly Tony is standing next to me. It takes me a minute to gather the courage to look up into his eyes. It isn’t dark rage I see there, but a stark panic, one I’m familiar with, one I hate even more than the anger that comes over him.
“Stanford?” he echoes, and his voice is small. “That’s in California, Evie.”
“I know,” I say, and it takes supreme effort to keep my voice from trembling. “My mom was from California. She left to go to OSU, obviously, but still, I thought I might apply.”
There’s another pause, and then Tony grabs my arm, pulling me so I’m looking up at him. There’s a hardness in his eyes, and the panic has turned into a crazy, frantic look. “Are you trying to break up with me, Evie?” he asks in a low voice.
“Oh, baby, no!” I say, injecting as much truthfulness as I can into my words. “You know it doesn’t matter where we go to college, we’ll always be together. I could never break up with you.” I nearly choke as I speak, as I’m forced to envision spending the rest of my life under Tony’s thumb. The thought always makes me spiral into a panic.
“You are!” Tony cries, and his grip on my wrist becomes painful, so tight and unrelenting that it makes my eyes sting and water. “You’re trying to break up with me, Evie. To get rid of me! And I’ve already told you I can’t do it!”
“I’m not!” I say, and for some reason, instead of giving in to him, saying whatever I need to in order to placate him like normal, I feel compelled to actually argue my point, as though Tony is sane enough to listen to reason. “Just because we go to different schools doesn’t mean that we can’t be together, Tony.”
“I need you close to me!” Tony explodes, and he finally lets go of me, shoving me away from him. “And if you don’t want to be close to me too, then you don’t love me the way I love you. You’re lying to me. You do want to break up.”
“I don’t!” I protest, because he’s making me nervous, and because coward that I am, I don’t know if I can face life without Tony, he’s been at my side for so long. “I do love you, Tony! I do!”
There’s a crash as he sends one of the stools flying across the floor, and then he advances on me, trapping me against the counter, arms on either side of me. I shrink back away from him, close my eyes even as he grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls my head back so my face is turned up to him.
“Look at me, Evie,” he growls, and I do so after he gives my hair another painful twist.
I wonder if he can see any of the hatred I feel reflected in my eyes, or if he just sees the awful confusion I always feel about him, the equal pull of love and hatred, need and repulsion.
“I’ll do it, if you leave me,” he says in a quiet voice, one that is eerily calm. It sends a chill down my spine and goose bumps break out on my arms, even though the kitchen is warm and I’m flushed with fear and anger.
“Stop, Tony,” I say, in as calm a voice as I can manage. “I’m not going to leave you. Please, just stop.” Any fight I had in me is gone, because I know this look in his eyes, the frenzied, panicked look that has come over him. I just want the Tony back from earlier, the fun one that I love, not this one, who somehow knows just what to say to make me keep our secret, who knows how to scare me more than anything else in the world can.
“I swear, I’ll do it,” he says in that calm voice. “If you ever tried to break up with me, Evie. If you say you don’t love me anymore, I’ll do it. I’ll get the gun, and I’ll kill myself. There’s no reason for me to live without you. So don’t ever leave me.”