The Healing (The Things We Can't Change Book 3) (12 page)

We’re off, talking strategy and code words and fake attacks and weaponry, but out of the corner of my eye, I watch as Evie settles herself on the opposite end of the couch from me, careful to keep the whole middle of the couch between us. She looks small and tiny against the big leather couch, and I stay on my end, feet planted on the floor, elbows on my knees, and pretend my entire focus is on the television and on Koby, sitting in the big leather armchair to my left.

I feel bad playing while she has nothing to do, but every time I glance over at Evie, she has a small smile on her lips, as though by sitting here with us, she’s having the time of her life. I realize with a jolt that this is probably the most fun she’s had in a long time. Legitimate fun, at least, since she’s been locked up in that house all summer with just her dad, Clarissa, and Hunter for company.

No friends her age, no one to come cheer her up. No wonder she would rather be watching two guys play
Call of Duty
. Anything would be better than going stir-crazy in that mausoleum of a house all by herself. So I keep my worries to myself and just try and include her opinion on our conversations and strategy talks and let her sit there, content and quiet.

Safe.

Evangeline

55

Zeke keeps looking at me out of the corner of his eye and I know he’s concerned that I’m bored or something, but the truth is that I’m not. It doesn’t matter that I’m just sitting here; it’s a relief to not be alone for once, trapped inside my house and feeling as though all the doors are locked around me. I want to be small and unnoticed, an observer and not a participant, because I find comfort in Zeke’s presence, no matter where I am with him. And it’s amusing to watch him and Koby playing their game, talking as though they’re in real life or death situations, not a fictitious game.

The hour grows later and I pull a blanket from the back of the couch over my lap, feeling calmer and more relaxed than I have in weeks, maybe even months. Zeke seems unable to take my silent participation any longer. He looks over at me and holds the controller out toward me.

“Wanna give it a try?”

“Oh no,” I say immediately, shaking my head. “I’ve never played video games before.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

Koby’s head whips around to stare at me in total disbelief. “No video games, like ever?” he asks incredulously.

“Well, no,” I say, feeling embarrassed by their shock. “I was always more of a reader, and To—my… old friends never really were into them. We spent a lot of time at the club, or playing sports.” I shrug, feeling lame. Even as I speak, I wonder what the heck I did with all of my time when I was dating Tony. It sounds just as boring as they are clearly thinking that it is. “That kind of stuff.”

“Wholesome, all-American teenage pastimes,” Zeke mocks. “Did you guys read law books for fun too?”

“Ha-ha,” I say sarcastically, and lean back as he tries to shove the controller at me. “No, seriously, I don’t want to. I won’t be good at it.”

“You can’t live in America and not have played a video game,” Koby says in a very all-knowing, superior voice, as Zeke fights to give me the controller. “It’s like living here and never having eaten McDonald’s. It’s a duty and honor you owe your country.”

“Definitely un-American,” Zeke agrees, grappling to try and catch one of my flailing arms. “Just do it.”

“No!” I protest. “I really don’t want to! I won’t be good at it.”

Zeke finally catches an arm and shoves the controller into my hands before backing quickly off so I can’t throw it back at him.

“I don’t know how!” I say hopelessly, looking down at the foreign thing in my hands.

“Time to learn,” Zeke says firmly. He nods at Koby to unpause the game.

“I’m going to die,” I say flatly, tentatively tapping a button and pushing the joystick. “How do I walk?”

“This one.” Zeke points. “And use the joystick for direction. You’ll be fine. Just shoot anything that moves with
this
button.”

Two buttons seem to be my limit, and I try to take a step as Koby fends off enemy fire, killing at least five guys before I manage to take a step. I get it, however, and then my whole half of the screen whirls around and around as I push the joystick frantically.

“What’s it doing?” I ask, panicked. “Why is it going opposite!”

“It just goes opposite, down is up and up is down,” Zeke explains patiently. “Look out! Someone is behind you!”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” I cry. I take another step, and then blood spatters on my screen. I only managed to stay alive for about ten seconds.

“Yeah,” Koby says slowly, still staring at the red television screen. “Maybe she was right. Best to let her just sit there and do her own thing.”

Zeke holds out his hand for the controller and I pass it over to him with a chagrined look, and he gives me a reassuring wink before the two of them sink back into their game. I continue to watch, feeling utterly content, especially when Koby’s mom brings down a plate of chocolate chip cookies and fusses over us for a while.

She clucks over Koby and he tries to brush her away, which makes me laugh a little bit, and then she comes over and tucks the blanket around me, offering to get me anything I need, a drink, another blanket, a pillow, and brings me both the pillow and a glass of milk even though I say I’m fine. She reminds me of my own mom, stirring long-forgotten memories, and it makes my heart ache a little bit.

Finally, she’s gone, and Zeke cracks some kind of mom joke and Koby tells him to shut up, but I can read between the lines, at Zeke’s longing and Koby’s embarrassed pleasure. I curl up on the side of the couch and clutch the pillow to me, completely content to watch. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like this before, so typical of a teenaged girl. Just sat and hung out, relaxed in the presence of other people. Everything I did had to be monitored by Tony, and even then I definitely wasn’t allowed to hang out alone with any other boys.

In fact, as my eyes grow heavy and they turn off the game and channel surf, arguing over what to watch, my last thoughts are of Tony. And the last thing I think as I drift helplessly off to sleep is that he would beat me to hell and back if he found out I’d been to Koby’s house, hung out alone with Zeke and Koby. And even though I hate it, the idea sends guilt swirling through me, heavy and dark and inescapable.

Ezekiel

56

I wake up in the darkness with a jolt, jerking upright on the couch. I’ve fallen asleep slumped over, the television remote still clutched in my right hand. The television has timed out and the only light in the room comes from the LED lights on the cable box, telling me it’s shortly after 3AM. My eyes slowly adjust to the darkness and I see Koby on the couch to my left, and then I look to my right, where I last remember seeing Evie. She had been curled up and sleeping deeply, looking peaceful as Koby and I watched
Top Gun
.

She’s gone.

Before I can really start to get panicked, I just catch the soft
click
of a door closing before I see the outline of the light come on through the cracks of the bathroom door. I force myself to relax all the muscles I didn’t realize had tensed up when I saw she was missing.

She’s fine
, I tell myself.
She’s totally fine. Everyone has to take a piss now and then.

Except I never hear the toilet flush. All I hear, as seconds stretch into minutes, is the sound of running water from the sink. She’s washing her hands? For—I check the cable box—three minutes straight?

Easy,
I tell myself, but I’m frantically trying to picture the bathroom, what might be inside. Razors? Anything sharp? I can’t remember.
Dammit
.
Come on, Zeke, you’ve been in there a thousand times!
Try as I might, I can’t imagine anything dangerous in there, aside from maybe a candle and a soap dispenser. Nothing Evie could harm herself with. But still the water goes on running.

Finally, I can’t stand it and I get up, moving as quietly as I can to not disturb Koby. I make it to the door and knock softly with one knuckle, whispering Evie’s name. There’s no response, only the sound of water still running.

“Evie?” I say again, a little louder this time in case she can’t hear me over the water. “Hey, Evie, are you okay?”

I hear the unmistakable sound of a sniffle and it’s like an arrow to my heart, a fist in the gut. I’ve got to get in there and find out what’s wrong, but the door is locked.

“I’m fine.”

I barely catch the faint whisper, but I can tell by the sound of her voice that she’s far from being fine. I’m already on tiptoe with my right hand patting the top of the doorframe, where I know there is probably still a key, hidden from our younger days when Koby’s mom would go crazy when we locked ourselves in any room. I find it there amid a thick layer of dust and carefully, quietly, stick it into the door and unlock it.

I inch the door open at first, eyes squinted just in case I’m totally off base. Luckily, Evie isn’t on the toilet. She’s standing at the sink in the tiny bathroom, her back to me with her hands in the sink. It’s just a little half bath, more like a quarter really, barely big enough for two people to stand in. I step inside anyway and close the door behind me, because the last thing I need is for Koby to wake up and witness whatever is going on.

“Evie,” I say quietly, but she doesn’t look up. I raise my voice yet again, trying to peer around her shoulder and see if she’s actually washing her hands or doing something worse, although I’m not getting the creepy, sixth sense feeling I usually do when she’s cutting. “Hey, Evie, what are you doing?”

The only response I get is a strangled sob, and I can’t take it anymore. I reach out and grab her shoulder, spinning her roughly around. An arc of water spatters the wall and part of my shirt as I grab both her wrists, which are covered in foamy soap. For a minute I just stand there, shocked as I take in her wet hands and tearstained face. She really was just washing her hands?

“Let me go!” Evie’s voice is panicked, full of tears and fears. “Please, Zeke, don’t hold my wrists.”

I drop her hands like they’re diseased, cursing myself for being so thoughtless. “Sorry,” I mutter, taken off guard by the apparent normalcy of what she’s doing. Although how normal is it to wash your hands for five whole minutes?

We stare at each other for a second longer before Evie whips back around to the sink, sticking her hands back under the stream of water. The cowlick is there on the back of her head, almost invisible due to the weight of her long hair, and it must have something to do with how she sleeps. Somehow just the sight of that one little quirk, that stupid tuft of hair makes something tighten inside my chest, something I want out but try to ignore at the present.

I recognize that empty, lost look in Evie’s eyes, the one I just saw before she turned around. It was the same look as when I found her earlier today, her arm cut open and bleeding. Something is wrong. Very, very wrong.

I realize there’s steam rising from the water and I’m not sure how Evie can stand to have her hands in there. It isn’t until she removes her hands from the water to pump more soap into her palms that I see the trickle of blood going down her left thumb, and I pounce on the nobs of the sink.

“Evie!” It’s a harsh whisper that I choke on, trying to keep it quiet. I turn off the water and grab Evie’s wrists again, but I try and keep the pressure on them light, not binding. I grab the hand towel and dry her hands off for her, more worried by the fact that she’s not struggling than if she had been trying to fight me.

She just stands there mutely, a few tears leaking out of her eyes now and then, staring down at my hands on hers and not looking me in the eye. Once I’m confident her hands are dry, I slowly peel the towel off them, and my stomach turns. It’s not gory, not a mess like when she cut herself or the outright disgust of when Tony almost killed her, but her raw, red hands still make me feel sick. They’re bright red, and blood is oozing up from the side of her thumb from where she’s rubbed her skin raw.

“Right,” I say aloud, and I know I’m so out of my league with all of this. I should just drive her up to some kind of rehab center and wash my hands—err, dust my hands—of this mess. But I can’t. “Band-Aid,” I say, more to remind myself what needs done than to tell Evie.

I turn and keep hold of Evie with one hand and use the other to open the cabinet behind the mirror and shake a Band-Aid free of the box and apply it to her thumb, wrapping it securely.

“Fixed easily enough,” I say in what I hope is an easy going, not-totally-freaked-out tone.

It’s apparently the wrong thing to say, because Evie finally looks up at me and tears are welling once more in her eyes.

“Nothing is fixed that easily,” she says in a wobbly voice. “Especially people.”

I swallow. I don’t want to get involved in this, don’t want to be her life buoy in this turbulent time in her life, but it’s clear as day she needs
someone
, and dammit if I can make myself walk away. I haven’t been successful so far, and I wonder how long I’ll keep trying.