The Struggle (The Things We Can't Change Book 2) (19 page)

And then everything goes deathly still and quiet, all my focus turned onto one thing, the haziness startled into momentary submission as I see it. I’d forgotten all about it until now, forgotten about the other night, the temptation. Now, however, it all comes back with startling clarity.

The knife.

I reach out and slowly, achingly, pick up the letter opener from the desk. My hand is shaking so hard I almost drop it and I focus everything I have on making it steady. I put it down directly in front of me, move to my feet as if in a trance so I’m standing behind the desk, staring down at it.

It’s the only moment of peace that I get. Even though I’ve stopped crying, the flow of tears is halted, my hair stands on end all over my body once again and I feel that I’m drifting away.

No, Evie. No. Better to float away than do this. Don’t. It’s not that bad. You can deal.

I have to decide. Stay or go. My fingers are going numb as I pick up the knife again, turn it over clumsily. I can see the promise there, so many things that I want so easily achieved by one simple act; grounded to the world, releasing some of the dirtiness inside of me, punishing myself for what I’ve done to everyone around me. But it’s so dark, so
wrong.
I know I’m crazy to even consider it. It’s just so hypnotically appealing though, and my own words suddenly come back to haunt me.

…some of us are consumed by it. We can’t shake it… It turns us into someone we don’t recognize, makes us sink to depths we didn’t realize we were capable of… My darkness was pulled out of me, and now I am drowning in it.

It’s winning.

I turn the knife over again and again and accidentally nick my forefinger. It’s a quick flash of white-hot pain and I am instantly, completely grounded, feet firmly back on earth. I watch with detached fascination as blood wells up in the cut, a plump round bead that grows impossibly large, trembles on the tip of my finger for a moment, and then finally falls to the desk as if in slow motion. It hits a piece of paper, starkly red against the white, making my mind spin with images of the bathroom, blood on the white tiles when Tony was beating me. Back when I tried to give up, let him just finish me off.

If I already decided once that I am ready to die, what difference does it make what I do to myself, what I do to my body, now?

I know then that my choice is made. I bring the knife up and lay the blade on my upper forearm, just below the crook of my elbow. I caress my skin with the cool steel, letting the ice cold object bring some relief to my flushed body.

In that moment, I know the darkness has won. I know it’s something I can’t change, will never be able to change.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath.

And then I press the blade down against my skin.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I don’t usually like to put in an author’s note about the characters or story because if I feel the need to defend my creations, it means I might not believe and stand by what I wrote. However, I debated endlessly about this story and in the end, I decided to go ahead and put down a few thoughts about Evie.

Before you throw down your e-reader and rush off to discuss how weak and spineless she is, and how you couldn’t stand her, let me say this: abuse is real. Abuse, depression, self-harm, everything in this book is real and I have striven and done my best and tried my hardest to portray it as such. I am incredibly lucky enough to have never been abused or in a situation where I came close. However, many others are not so lucky.

In the fiction world, we want things to happen the way we view that they should. Every book should have a happy ending, and I wholly agree with that and I can promise you with everything I have that Evie and Zeke WILL get that. But they have a journey to travel before they get there, just like real people. Things in real life don’t happen the way they do in fiction; we don’t meet a sexy stranger and suddenly we get over our abuse and hang-ups and fears because we want him so much that we lose all our inhibitions. Some people prefer to write their stories like that, and that’s totally fine, but I chose a different route, one I believe to be more accurate.

People don’t understand the mind behind an abuse victim. I’ve used reasons I’ve heard or, upon reflection, feel might be true, for Evie’s battle. But it’s impossible to fully understand it if you haven’t experienced it. Reading the beginning of this book, once Tony is gone and Evie is free, you think she will be fine. This is always the belief of people who haven’t been abused – it’s Zeke’s belief; if the cause is gone, why can’t they just snap back to being fine?

That is a stupid, naïve belief. It’s like getting shot and thinking that removing the bullet will fix it. Clearly, that’s not the case. Many, many people are in abusive relationships because of low self-esteem, and they cling to their abuser for self-worth and when that person is taken from them, they are lost. It’s not a simple thing to get over, and it takes
time
.

So all I ask is that before you run wild saying that you were expecting Evie to bounce back completely, that you want her to stop being a doormat, remember that healing doesn’t happen in a day. And that Evie isn’t just a character. She is real. She is real in the sense that there are hundreds and hundreds, thousands, of girls like her out in the world, abused, too scared to speak up, both in love and in hate with their partner. And most of them don’t have the small advantages that I have given Evie; an exceptionally understanding father, a stable home, money, and especially someone like Zeke, who makes her feel safe and promises change.

This book was incredibly important to both Evie and Zeke’s journey. This is one long book written in smaller parts, and if I cut a ton out and squashed it all into one book, this part might have been more minimal, but it’s integral to the story, to Evie and Zeke’s development. It’s important to understand their problems before they can heal from them. And on that note, I promise the next book will (hopefully!) be everything you’re wanting from Evie and Zeke.

Kassandra