The Love Story (The Things We Can't Change Book 4) (3 page)

He goes on and I fight to keep my eyelids open. It’s hard, because now, at the end of the already-long day, I can barely keep myself from laying my head down and sleeping right there in class. I yawn, my eyes watering uncontrollably, and pinch my arm to try and get myself to stay awake. Good thing I don’t have to take any notes today.

Another yawn comes, this one the biggest of all and my jaw cracks audibly. Behind me, I can sense more than feel Zeke yawn in sync with me and almost instantly, snickers echo from across the room. I look over before I can help myself and see Chantal and Tiffany, seated next to each other, both staring at me with ugly smiles.

“Why so tired, Evie?” Chantal asks, her blue eyes glinting. “Zeke?”

“Oh, I think we know what they were doing last night,” Tiffany says wickedly, and the room explodes into whispers before Mr. Riordan shouts for order once more.

I turn slightly in my desk and look back at Zeke, who gives me a helpless shrug. I can read the truth of it in his eyes:
there’s really nothing we can do.
And he’s right.

Neither of us created or wanted this whole stupid situation but we are the ones who have to live through it. And I know that as long as I have Zeke, I
can
get through it. I cling to that thought the rest of class, the rest of the day, the rest of the week.

Evangeline

85

As the week proceeds, it doesn’t get any better. Tiffany and her group take every chance to make my days miserable. They begin to wait for me at the door of the school every day, jeering as I walk past. My date with Zeke—and the promise of a weekend—are all that keep my spirits up.

Jenny is always with them and though she never actually takes part in the ridicule, neither does she say anything to stop it. When I actually manage to look up from the ground and into her eyes, they beg for me to speak up, to stand up for myself. I know my own eyes are asking the same thing of her. It would seem we have something in common after all: we’re both cowards.

It makes me wonder what I would do, would have done, if our roles were reversed. But with my own experience and memories, I can’t believe I would ever allow Jenny to face what I did alone. To abandon her all summer and then stand and watch as people torment her.

Then again, I can’t believe what
I
have turned into. I used to lead them, to be the one to quiet Tiffany or Chantal with a single condescending look. Now I keep my head down and walk doggedly past, only trying not to hear as they mutter
whore
and
murderer.
I reflect with both annoyance and disappointment in myself that Zeke may have helped me conquer my fear of Tony, of rape and ghosts and floating away, but fear of peer pressure and bullying is another monster entirely.

And bullying is what it boils down to. The way they jeer at me when I walk past, the way they whisper insults and dirty names just loud enough for me to hear. It’s there in the way they slip threatening notes into my locker and how they leave a room if I enter it, if possible. If they can’t leave, they purposely edge as far away as they can, clearly letting me know what they think of me.

I have a new respect for the stories of bullying that I always ignored or scorned. I’d always thought of myself as a strong person, strong enough to fight back and to never allow this. A strong person bent, perhaps, by extraordinary circumstances such as Tony’s rape and abuse, but it appears the victim in me is still closer to the surface than the strength.

All I want is to fade into invisibility. Being not seen at all would be preferable to this abuse.

I pursue the week doggedly and Zeke is what really helps. I cling to him, pull myself through the morning with the thought of seeing him at lunch, and then through the afternoon with the promise of seeing him in Speech. The thought of going to school and seeing him there is what gets me through long evenings in a mostly-empty house. Clarissa has descended back into her drinking and without Zeke there to pass the time, the nights drag on and on. I try and use the time to finish outfitting my new bedroom and my office but the activity feels empty and unexciting without Zeke there to help me.

I think about inviting him over to help, and while we text every evening and Wednesday night he calls me and we talk for almost three hours, but it doesn’t seem right. It’s probably for the same reason that he doesn’t ask to come over or hang out. We’re waiting for Friday night, for our date. To see each other outside of school before that, to break the anticipation of taking this next step in our relationship, feels taboo. Neither of us says it, but in that strange way Zeke and I have always had, we both seem to understand.

We bide our time. And finally, Friday arrives.

I dress with extra care that morning, standing before my closet and racking my brain to think what I can wear that Zeke will like and what doesn’t seem too fancy for school and yet fancy enough for a date. It feels wrong somehow to change after school, as though I’m trying too hard.

I take a break from staring at all my clothes to do my hair and in that, at least, I’m confident in what Zeke likes. I use my rollers, taking my time to arrange every curl perfectly and muttering a prayer of thanks that it isn’t raining or humid today. Then, still wearing a robe, I return to glare at my closet. I like my new look, a little edgier than I’ve ever had before, but so far at school I’ve been sticking to plainer outfits, nothing that screams out at people or calls attention to myself.

Simple jeans and v-necks, hoodies and long sleeved T’s, khaki’s and button-up flannels. Always with long sleeves to hide my scars, because
that
would just once again spurt up the rumor mill. I’ve been playing it safe, partly to stay in hiding and partly because I’m scared to take the chance and debut a new look.

I don’t want to break from that today, but I
do
want to please and impress Zeke and wear something that will make his cool green eyes heat up when he catches sight of me. I want to wear something that will make him want me. I want to go on a normal date, with a normal boy, and have a normal good time. I want him to kiss me on the doorstep and go back to having all the things that a normal seventeen-year-old girl should have.

Then I give a small laugh because absolutely
nothing
about Zeke and me has ever gone normally. Why should our first date? I throw my hands up and step into the closet. I emerge a few minutes later in jean capris with a rolled up hem, floral-printed wedge sandals and a matching floral-printed tank top with a sweetheart neckline that emphasizes what little chest I have to offer and is billowy below the fitted breast.

It’s spaghetti straps leave me feeling horribly exposed and, not to mention, are against school dress code, so I add a white cardigan and feel a little better. I pause to examine myself in the mirror, add light pink lipstick and then make a face at myself. With my neutral makeup, I look like the Evie of old, dressed in a cookie-cutter country club outfit, playing it safe. But I have a feeling the girly look of it will please Zeke and I ignore my misgivings.

I can tell that I’m right when I get to school and he is waiting for me outside the front doors, just as he has every day this week. His eyes instantly rake me over and a flush of pleasure blooms inside of me when I see the pleased smile on his lips.

See?
I tell myself.
Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it doesn’t please Zeke.

I suffer through a day where I can’t seem to make myself sit still. School in general just seems unbearable lately and I find myself wanting to make a countdown until it’s over and I’m graduated and off to college. Speech, where Tiffany and Chantal mock my nice outfit, is particularly hard to bear, but I keep telling myself over and over,
tonight, tonight, tonight.

Tonight Zeke and I will be alone. In a different setting than we have ever been together.

And I can’t wait, am on the edge of my seat, to find out what will happen.

A glance at the clock tells me Zeke will be here any minute. Even as I think this, the doorbell rings and I wonder how I missed hearing a car in the driveway. I exit my bedroom and hear the front door opening with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Clarissa.
I’ve left Zeke to the wolves. I quickly sprint for the stairs and thunder down them quickly, ignoring the unladylike noise I make. It’s much more important that I rescue Zeke.

I stumble into the entrance hall just in time to catch Clarissa saying, “Oh, good. The lawn needs mowed. Get on that, will you?”

I want to die of shame, for myself and for Zeke’s sake. My stepmother is standing but she weaves back and forth, squinting and frowning at Zeke as though he’s the one moving, not her. A tumbler, empty but for half-melted ice cubes, is in her hand. I’ve made the discovery upon my return from Florida that she’s moved on from wine and turned to hard liquor.

I need to call Uncle Greg about her but all my problems at school—and Zeke—have taken forefront in my mind.

Zeke catches my eye over Clarissa’s shoulder and I’m relieved to see that he’s grinning. “I’ll get right on that, Mrs. Parker. Just as soon as Evie and I get back.”

Clarissa looks at me with red-rimmed eyes as I come to stand next to her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asks.

“Out,” I reply. “With Zeke.”

She sneers. “Should have known it was just a matter of time before you fucked the help. It’s practically a requirement for a rich orphan, isn’t it?”

I don’t dignify this comment with a response. I just step out onto the porch and the door slams shut behind me. Zeke is shaking his head.

“Evie, you really need to do something about her. She could get dangerous. She’s already a danger to herself.”

“I know,” I say quickly, a little irritated. I don’t want Clarissa to ruin our first date. “I will. I just have to figure out what.”

“Soon,” Zeke insists, and then seems to sense that I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Instead, his eyes roam over me appreciatively and he smiles. “Did I tell you earlier that you look great?”

A blush rises before I can help it, making me feel as though I’m twelve years old. But I’m glad I guessed correctly about what he’d like. “No, but thanks. You do too.”

And he does. Though Zeke has looked like his old, unapproachable self all week at school, today he looks like the warmer Zeke of the summer. He’s wearing dark, well-fitted jeans and a maroon Henley shirt with the sleeves pushed up over his forearms.

“I tried,” Zeke says self-righteously, the glint of humor back in his light eyes. “Spent at least an hour on makeup and even longer on my hair. It just wouldn’t behave!”

“Oh, shut up!” I smack his shoulder but he catches my hand and hold onto it, looking at me seriously.

“Are you ready?” he asks in a low voice.

“Yes,” I say simply.

Evangeline

86

If I could live one moment of my life over and over again, it wouldn’t be the day I was rescued from Tony. It wouldn’t be any of the half-dozen dim memories I have of my mom, or a last, precious moment with my dad. It wouldn’t be one of my moments of healing over the summer or even my twenty-four hour trip to Florida. It wouldn’t even be my first kiss with Zeke outside the stoop of his apartment, wild and spontaneous and scary-wonderful as it was.

No. The moment, the memory I would love to re-live a thousand times, is our first date.

Everything is different and yet the same. There is the same easy companionship, the perfect understanding of the other and cautious awareness of wounds that are still a little fresh and recent. And yet the air is still charged. Chemistry, always denied in the past and now acknowledged and welcome, hangs heavy around us. Every touch is electric, filled with a zing of power. One look from Zeke’s light green eyes is enough to send a rush of heat through my entire body.

They are all feelings I never thought I would experience again in my whole life. I was sure that Tony had ruined me forever. I thought feelings of lust—rushes of heat in secret places, tingles, even the act of kissing—would fill me with disgust and repulsion. That all I would be able to remember were those nights with him. Heavy hands holding me captive, a choking weight overtop of me, only memories of Tony’s rough kisses.

I always expected to feel dirty whenever a man looked at me with want in his eyes. And I can barely stand to shake hands with someone. How could I hug anyone, hold hands with them, allow them to caress me?

It isn’t like that with Zeke. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if it’s because I’m slowly but surely getting better, or maybe because Zeke knows everything already and part of the shame of it all had been the idea of telling someone what had happened to me.