The Healing (The Things We Can't Change Book 3) (2 page)

“That boy! The delinquent that your father hired,” Clarissa sneers.

I come to her side at the window and look out over the backyard. My breath catches in my throat as I easily recognize Zeke’s tall form. He’s working on the gazebo, just as he has the last three weeks. As though nothing has changed. I didn’t expect him to come back; it had actually never occurred to me.

But there he is, attacking the ground with a shovel. I can tell by his quick, jerky movements that he’s angry, and I’m pretty sure he’s not here entirely by choice. I don’t care. At the sight of him, my heartbeat quickens, and not in a bad way.

I lift a hand to the glass, as though touching his figure through it will allow me to actually touch Zeke. I can’t hold back a small smile, even though I haven’t the slightest idea why or where it comes from. Every time Zeke and I talk, we argue and take shots at each other.

“He shouldn’t be here,” Clarissa says decisively. “He’ll murder us all in our beds.”

“He doesn’t come to the house while we’re sleeping,” I point out dryly.

She glares at me. “He’s a drug using, trigger-happy delinquent, whether it’s a spray paint nozzle or a gun. We don’t need that garden anyway. I hated the idea of putting it in. He’ll be happy to leave if I tell him we still won’t press charges.”

She starts to turn away but stops when I say firmly and loudly, “No.”

Clarissa whirls on me, just as she always does when I try to defy her. I don’t know why she’s always resented me, though I suspect most of it is—was—jealousy over my relationship with my dad. I’ve always been daddy’s little girl. Or at least, I was.

“I said, I don’t want him around my house,” she snarls.

I keep my gaze steadily on her eyes, not blinking. “It’s not your house, Clarissa. Remember?”

She’s struck silent and I can tell by the way her fists are slowly clenching and unclenching that she’s livid. I know she would like nothing better than to strike back at me, return blow for blow, but she can’t and she knows it.

Clarissa got an incredibly generous monthly allowance and a trust from my dad’s will. She got his retirement fund, the vacation house on the ridge in Mackinac Island, the condo in Boston and the one in downtown Columbus right next to Grant Hospital. He even left her his Porsche.

I got my own trust with an allowance of two thousand dollars a month and full access when I turned twenty-one. I got a separate fund for education that would allow me to go to school anywhere in the world. But to Clarissa’s everlasting jealousy, I got the house and controlling interest of his business. And his vintage restored Dodge Challenger. Clarissa has to live with me until I turn eighteen and graduate, but she lives in
my
house, and it burns her every day, and has caused the tension between us to rise to boiling point.

With a low growl, she finally leaves the room, and I resume staring out the window at Zeke, magnetized by his figure. I realize suddenly that I am grounded back in my mind again, no threat of floating away. The feeling I’ve been seeking so desperately since my dad died, the one of safety and comfort, is here surrounding me and consuming me, with Zeke’s presence. Just like before, without my understanding why or how, I feel safe at the sight of him.

Without a second thought, I turn from the window and fly through the house. I pound down the stairs, loud enough that Clarissa yells at me from wherever she disappeared to, and then I’m flying out the back sliding door and leaping down the steps of the deck, so forcefully I almost fall down.

Finally I’m on the lawn and striding toward Zeke, still feeling odd twinges in my body, fighting the urge to float away. All I can think is that maybe he can help. Maybe, like before, that wonderful safe feeling that I always get around him, the one that reminds me of my dad, will be recreated. I’m desperate to feel it again, to stop drowning in a world where I feel I have nothing left to cling to.

I’ve just made it speaking distance from Zeke when he looks up and notices me. The change that comes over his face is immediate and instant. His features darken, his light eyes crackle with fury and his mouth twists in disgust. I stop walking abruptly, nervous by the sudden change in him.

“Get the hell away from me,” he snarls, and I’m pretty sure my jaw drops.

“Wha-what?” I sputter.

“I said, leave me alone.” He turns his back on me, resuming his ferocious attack on the dirt.

I stand there for a long moment and stare at his back, startled. Then everything seems to crash over me all at once, with the force of a tidal wave. Loneliness, depression, grief, that stupid sensation of floating away. There is no safety to be found here, not with Zeke. Not with anyone else, ever again.

My eyes fill up with tears but I don’t want Zeke to see me cry, not again, and so I turn and flee back the way I came. Fury is coursing through me now too. Anger at Zeke for turning me away and myself for thinking that he would comfort me, or something else equally as stupid. Fury with myself for being so weak that I can’t handle all of this myself, that I think I need someone else to lean on and make me feel safe, that I can’t do it on my own.

So I run all the way back to my dad’s office and deal with everything the only way that I’ve learned how. The only way that works. I retrieve the knife from underneath the desk, and this time, I don’t make any promises to myself that this is the last time.

Ezekiel

44

I go to the club for my shift in the dining room the next evening, shoulders and arms screaming at me for the abuse I put them through yesterday. I was working in a fit of blind rage, not caring about the quality of my work or who approached me or why; I just wanted the anger out of me, along with the grief. Since I can't paint anymore, it seems the only way to accomplish this is to work myself into exhaustion, until I'm much too tired to think or more importantly, to feel.

I'm already tired from today's work; the trees and bushes were finally delivered and I unloaded them, so my back and thighs are going to be sore tomorrow as well. Still, I walk into the club with as much swagger as I am able, and am immediately bombarded by Tessa.

“Hey, Zeke,” she chirps, and due to lack of rest and my general mood the past few days, her voice instantly rubs me the wrong way.

“Hey, Tessa,” I mutter back out of politeness. I’m saving all my energy and propriety to get through the next five hours of waiting tables, because I know it’s going to take all my remaining energy. It’s been a struggle lately to deal with all these rich people and overhear all their so-called problems.

I keep on walking past Tessa but she grabs my arm and forces me to stop or drag her along behind me.

“What?” I demand, my voice sharp.

Tessa lets go of my arm and adopts a mock hurt expression as she cross her arms. “Oooh, it’s cranky Zeke that decided to come to work today? You know, you have mood swings worse than most hormonal girls.”

“Thanks for the info, anything else?” I ask sarcastically.

Now she sidles in close, reaching out to take my hand and rub her thumb across my knuckles. “I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out tonight after work. It’s been a couple days and I’m feeling… lonely.” There’s a purr in her voice that tells me exactly what kind of ‘lonely’ she's talking about: lonely in the pants. I just can’t drum up the slightest interest for Tessa tonight.

I think she’s gorgeous and has a kick ass body, but I can usually only stomach being with her if I need to forget, to not feel. I don’t need that tonight. What I need is sleep, so I can continue my slave sentence and keep fending off Evie Parker’s knight-in-shining-armor looks. Luckily, I know just what to say to throw Tessa off the scent.

After shrugging her hand off, I continue for the kitchens. “You didn’t seem so lonely when you and Kyle left work together this weekend. On Monday everyone was saying how you hooked up three times at one party.”

I enjoy a private, rare smile at Tessa’s momentary open mouth expression and start for the kitchen again, but Tessa recovers faster than I’d like and runs after me again.

“Zeke, that... that was nothing! You of all people should know how unreliable rumors can be!”

“Considering I heard it from Dominic, who was there, I wouldn’t doubt it too much,” I say coolly. I go to push through the double doors, but Tessa grabs my arm again and holds me back. This time I’m tempted to just keep going and drag her.

She gives me a long hard look, and then slowly a smile blooms on her face. “Are you jealous, Zeke?” she asks, sounding positively thrilled at the idea.

I recoil, physically and mentally. “I'm pretty sure that’s not what I said.”

“Sure sounds that way to me.”

She still sounds thrilled and I know I have to give it to her straight, for both our sakes. The last thing I need or want right now is a girl clinging to me, and if I were to ever let someone in (fat chance) it sure as hell wouldn’t be someone like Tessa. I remember back to what Koby said about her the last day of school, how she's gotten around with everyone who works at the club. I don’t really care, I’m not jealous in the slightest, but I’m not going to keep hooking up with someone who is still sleeping with multiple other guys. I’m not stupid.

“Look, Tessa, you're gorgeous and not annoying for the most part, but you aren’t an exclusive kind of girl. I'm not really into that. Kyle Miller’s leftovers are nothing I can get myself excited about. I don't do flings where one person might be picking up shit from four other people.”

I meant to offend her, but she takes it totally the wrong way. Tessa sidles up to me, trying to look coy, but all I can think in that moment is how bland and boring her face looks, no emotions, no torment, no struggle. I wonder if she feels anything at all, ever, compared to Evie and me, who always seem to be feeling way too much.
Fuck
. Evie,
again
.

“So what you're saying is, you’d like to be exclusive?” Tessa asks, and my hackles rise in alarm.

“That is
not
what I’m saying at all,” I bite out, frustrated because this isn’t at all going the way I want it to. “I'm saying we're done for now. I’ve got some shit to deal with and you can hang out with Kyle until you leave for school, okay?”

Finally,
finally
, Tessa rears back as intended, looking wounded. “Way to not sugarcoat it, huh, Quain? You really are an asshole sometimes, you know that?”

I shrug. “And you really get around.”

She slaps me, but I was sort of expecting it. I'm feeling now, feeling irritation and annoyance that this is taking so long, that she’s trying to make it into something that it never was and definitely never could be.

“I'm not saying we can’t hang out anymore, Tessa. I’m just saying I don’t want to hook up anymore, okay? Don’t let anyone ever say that I misled you.”

Tessa's face flushes darkly and I know her pride is insulted but I really can't bring myself to care. I feel… Gross, icky inside my own skin. Suddenly the little bit of irritation she makes me feel seems like way too much, too much feeling and emotion for me to handle and I know I've got to stop seeing Tessa for now. Until I’m back under control, until I never think of Evie anymore, until I know the walls around me and my heart are back up as firmly as I want them to be.

“You-” Tessa begins, but the kitchen door bursts open just then and we’re confronted with Uncle Alex.

He’s glaring at us and I know he’s pissed off. When I glance at the clock on the wall, I see I’m now almost ten minutes late clocking in because Tessa won’t let me go.

“What I’d like to know is why two of my servers aren’t in the dining room. Serving,” Alex says in a sardonically polite voice as he crosses his arms. 

“Sorry,” I mutter, and quickly make my escape. I can feel Tessa’s eyes burning holes into my back as I go, and I reflect that I might have just dodged a bullet where she was concerned. Sometimes I catch that flash of light in Tessa’s eyes, the same one there in Cameron’s eyes, in Tony’s, even in Evie’s and my eyes. The flash of light that means she’s got just a few screws loose and is capable of taking a nosedive right into the insanity pool. Good thing I got out while the getting was good.

Evangeline

45

My arm is constantly on fire and I’ve taken to wearing hoodies while at home, so no one will see what I’ve been doing. Not that there’s many people to hide from. Clarissa and Hunter drift in and out of the house, and while Uncle Greg has stopped over a few times trying to lend support, I’ve made it clear that I’m still grieving and not ready to face the world just yet. So he stays slightly distanced at my request, and I never leave the house. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did so; probably my dad’s funeral, almost two weeks ago.

I like the constant hurt, though. It reminds me that I’m grounded, that while I may not be accepting and moving on or healing, at least I’m dealing and I’m not floating away. Dealing unhealthily and crazily and stupidly, but dealing nonetheless. I’m coming to enjoy my solitude, actually. I wish that Clarissa would leave permanently and take Hunter with her and just leave me to waste away here, because the idea leaves me with a content feeling. I’m all alone in the world; I might as well make it literal, not just figurative.