The Healing (The Things We Can't Change Book 3) (19 page)

“Hey, Evie, are you okay?”

I’m pulled from my own thoughts by Zeke’s gentle question and my gaze snaps over to him. He’s looking at me in concern, or more appropriately, the fingernails that are digging into my upper arms.

“Fine. I’m fine,” I say quickly, way too quickly. I have to force my hands to relax, and then drop my arms to my sides with great effort. “It was just… nothing.”

Zeke is staring at me and I know he sees right through me, just as he always does. But this is one thing that I know I don’t want to talk about, something that has always been so shameful. I don’t talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. Dr. Gottlieb only brought it up once during our sessions, and I had made it clear that I wasn’t ready for that, and wouldn’t be for a long time.

“What’s wrong with your bedroom?” Zeke asks in a firm voice.

I shrug again, trying to force an innocent expression over my face and knowing that I fail completely. “Absolutely nothing at all. I just like it down here. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Then show it to me.”

I stare at him, hardly able to believe the command. “What?”

“Show me your bedroom, if it’s all well and good up there. Although, since you’re white as a sheet, I’m guessing you’re lying to me.”

My bottom lip juts out in defiance and I stare at him mulishly for a long minute before wheeling around to the stairs. “Fine,” I bite out, pounding up the steps.

If he wants to see the freaking room then he can. Maybe he can scare away the ghosts that are still in there. And I can keep my cool just long enough for him to look at it and then it will be fine. This is one part of my life that I don’t intend to ever discuss out loud. Too dirty, too shameful, and I had been too stupid because I allowed it to happen.

I lead Zeke to the second floor and down the long hallway, through the upstairs den, and into the second hallway. Then I grasp the doorknob of my room and push the door open, gesturing for Zeke to enter with a flourish. He does, and luckily is so distracted by trying to figure out what might be in here that makes me nervous that he doesn’t notice I’m practically hyperventilating.

I place a hand over my chest and close my eyes, telling myself to be
calm, calm, calm
. It looks like a typical rich girl’s room; the requisite four-poster canopy bed, though I had re-done my canopy in bright teal and lime green fabric, and my bed comforter was bright purple, my sheets pink. All the other furniture was white; two white nightstands, elegant, dainty things that matched better with the princess themed room of my youth. White dresser next to the walk-in closet, three white bookshelves crammed with books, a white vanity table I hadn’t used in years, because I’d learned it was so much easier to get ready in the bathroom, especially in the recent months when I couldn’t be in this room longer than it took to grab some clothes and flee.

There was a small white desk, more in the style of a writing escritoire, that I also had never particularly liked, since it wasn’t very comfortable and had been the biggest reason I’d asked my dad, begged him my freshman year, to have my own ‘office’. I’d wanted somewhere to write, to keep all my things and school work. He’d refused for the longest time, then surprised me with the decorated office for Christmas. In the typical style of my dad, he’d known exactly what I would have wanted there; an adult room, with a big darkly polished desk, big professional leather chair, bookshelves installed along the walls behind the desk. It had been perfect, and even before this room had become tainted, I’d spent the majority of my time in there.

The thoughts quickly die, however, when I look once again at the bed. I don’t think I’ll ever want to own a four-poster bed again. If I manage, by some kind of miracle, to marry and have kids, I probably won’t even be able to buy my daughters the princess beds they’ll undoubtedly want. Too many bad memories. It makes me feel sick, looking at it, remembering how that time, I’d lain under Tony without even struggling, just dead, knowing the house was empty and no one could hear me. I’d given up. Given up and that thought, in retrospect, is disgusting and shameful to me.

“What’s the big deal?” Zeke asks, and I look at him as he turns around to stare at me. “It’s just a room.”

“Ex…” My voice is a croak and I have to clear my throat to get it to work. “Exactly. Just a room. Can we go now?”

“No,” Zeke says shortly, and he resumes prowling around my room, clearly trying to find out what is making me so nervous. I watch for a moment as he peers into the walk-in closet and examines my book collection. Then my gaze returns to the loathed bed.

A bedroom is supposed to be a girl’s sanctuary, especially her bed. You’re supposed to get tucked in at night, and once your parents close that door, nothing is supposed to be able to touch you. How wrong I know that is. Nothing can ever keep you safe in this world. I want to have my own room again, one that isn’t tainted by this memory, a place where I can go and feel safe, even if I know it’s just an illusion. But I can’t seem to find that as long as there is this place to return to and torture myself with.

“Did Tony beat you in here or something?” Zeke asks as he hunts the room. “Is that why you’re so bent out of shape?”

I try to get out a sarcastic laugh, but it sounds hallow and scared. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Even my voice is a little shrill. “Tony didn’t beat me in my own bedroom. Get real.” That bed. That fucking bed. I want to burn the damn thing, forget about it forever. Burn it so I can imagine that someday, I’ll be able to burn my memories of Tony away just as easily.

At that exact moment, Zeke whirls around to stare at me. I jerk my gaze up and toward him, not wanting to be caught staring. It’s too late, though. He follows my previous line of sight and looks at the bed for a long moment. I see the exact moment where he connects the dots; Zeke isn’t stupid, never has been, and he has always read me entirely too well for comfort.

He jerks, literally recoils away from the bed, and an acidic feeling of shame begins to burn in my stomach.

“
Fuck
, Evie. In your own bed? In your room?” His eyes are wide and horrified and I immediately want to sink down into floor.

“You’re being stupid,” I say quickly. Denial, always a great tool. “That’s absurd and it’s... it’s not what you think.” Except it’s exactly what he thinks, and my voice lacks any real conviction. It’s completely flat and much to my eternal embarrassment, filled with fear.

Zeke is staring at me with new eyes, and I can see the pity behind his gaze and it makes me want to die.

“Stop,” I snap, and this, at least, is convincing. “Don’t look at me like that. You don’t have any idea, and I don’t want to talk about it. We’re not opening that door, and we never will.”

“You’ve got to talk to
someone
about it,” Zeke insists, and if I didn’t abhor violence with such a passion, I would have slapped him.

“No, I don’t,” I say. “I’m doing fine on my own. No one needs to hear that story, least of all me.”

“You’re fine?” Zeke scoffs. “Is that why you can’t even walk in here?”

We both look at where my toes are on the line of the door threshold, a hair away from being inside the room, but he’s right. I can’t walk in there. I have no real reason to, don’t need clothes or anything and I can’t make myself do it.

I try to bluff my way out of it because he’s making me feel panicky, too big for my own skin, and I feel a horrible sense of lightheadedness stealing over me. “I could if I wanted,” I say, a note of false bravado in my voice. “But I don’t want to right now, and you can’t goad me into it.”

“Yeah, right.” Zeke rolls his eyes and I know he sees right through me. “Get in here, Evie. Show me, if it’s really nothing and you have it under control.”

I try. I really do give it some effort, just because I want so badly to prove him wrong, and to prove to myself that I’m not as weak as I know I really am. But I can’t make myself do it. I stare at my feet, ordering my right foot to move, to take a step, but I can’t. I struggle for at least a full minute before I realize that my chest is heaving and I’m on the verge of having a panic attack.

Zeke finally rushes to my side, planting his hands on my shoulders and saying my name several times before I finally look up at him and into his wide, concerned eyes.

“Okay, okay,” he says soothingly, “so you can’t walk in here. I’m getting that now, okay? Just, shit, breathe. Breathe, Evie. Breathing?”

I nodded jerkily, feeling tears sting at my eyes, and the words burst out before I can stop them. “It’s like it’s haunted,” I gasp, wrapping my arms around myself and feeling how I’m trembling. “Every time I walk in there to get clothes or something stupid like that, I just run in and out. I feel like he’s still in there, and he’s about to jump out and get me. I tried to sleep in there just once. I had the worst nightmares. I could feel him laying on me again, he was smothering me and holding me down and-and-” I can’t finish because I’m crying, and also because Zeke has put his arms around me and squeezed me close to him, patting my back awkwardly.

“Please don’t cry,” he says, sounding uncomfortable. “I’m really not good with the crying thing, Evie.”

“O-o-okay,” I say, huffing on the word as I try franticly to catch my breath, and fail. “I’ll stop. J-just give me a second.”

But I don’t stop, because secretly, even though he’s not holding me very tightly and his hand is almost hurting me because he’s patting my back so hard, being held against Zeke’s chest is the most comforting thing I could ever imagine. He’s so tall and his arms are so strong around me, and while ordinarily a guy as big as he is would scare me to death, with Zeke I just feel
safe
. Even so, after another few seconds, once I finally feel I’m somewhat back under control, I pull away and wipe the tears off my face, and suddenly I’m mortified.

“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. It all… it all just gets to me sometimes.”

“No problem,” Zeke says, and then clears his throat before turning to regard the room. He hesitates, and then finally says in a very serious voice, “Why didn’t you tell your dad? I’m sure he would have like, moved you out of this room or something if he’d known. Did he even know it happened in his, um, house? I feel like your dad would have offered to move or something. Shit, I probably would have taken him up on it too. That’s really kind of messed up, Evie.”

“Exactly why I didn’t tell him,” I say wetly, and dare to reach a hand into the airspace of the room and yank a tissue off the nightstand with lightning speed. “He had enough to deal with because of me. And I just slept in the basement and… and dealt with it. I only needed to come in here for clothes.”

“Evie, you shouldn’t keep any of this a secret,” Zeke lectures, and now he sounds more exasperated than anything else. “You shouldn’t have kept it a secret in the first place, but especially now, seriously.”

“I know,” I say quickly. Doesn’t he already realize that I know that? Maybe it was all within my control, I was the one who brought it all on myself, but most of the time, it felt like everything about it had always been out of my control.

“Well,” Zeke says, finally stepping fully back into the room and surveying it with his hands on his hips. “Since your dad is… gone, I kind of feel an obligation to do what he would have done, if he’d known.”

“Which is?” I ask dryly, glad he’s not making me talk about all of it.

Zeke walks to my bed and rips off my top comforter and sheet. Before I can even protest, he’s walked to my balcony doors, tossed them open, and flung the blankets outside.

“Hey!” I shriek, and I’ve darted over to the balcony to watch the blankets fall, parachute style, down to the large, empty driveway, without a thought to my fear of the bedroom. “What was that for?”

Zeke is looking at me with a big, stupid grin on his face. “Like I said. What your dad would have done.” He pauses, seeing I still don’t quite get it, and says significantly, “Trash it.”

“Trash it?” I echo incredulously, leaning over the edge of the balcony. “But, my stuff!”

“It’s just
stuff
,” Zeke says from behind me, where he’s disappeared back into the room. “Which I’m guessing you can afford to replace.”

I start to turn around but Zeke appears at my elbow once again, and he’s holding out the funky lamp from my nightstand, a bulbous white porcelain base with a blue and white chevron patterned shade.

I stare at it. “You want me to… throw that out the window? I
liked
that lamp.”

“See?
Liked
. Past tense.” He waggles the lamp at me. “You don’t like anything about this room anymore, do you? Not since Tony… not since that night.”

I don’t say anything because he’s right and it’s irritating me.

“So let me ask you this,” Zeke continues. “Did you ever get mad at Tony for what he did?”

“Mad?” I echo the word as though it’s a foreign one. And it seems like one. I have been so many things lately, emotionally speaking, but I can’t recall ever being mad.

“Yeah, mad,” Zeke repeats, gesturing with the lamp a lot as he talks. “I mean, I’m definitely not an expert on emotions, I’ll be the first one to admit that, but Tony… he stole a lot of shit from you already. And then he messed with your bedroom. Are you really just going to take that lying down? Like a fucking doormat or something?”