Nathan
Evelyn looked at me wide eyed, swollen lips parted, and eyes glazed over with lust. She was so confused, she couldn’t even hide it.
Sure, I had other reasons for being in New York. I wanted to start over as well, tired of being surrounded by the past. It was time for me to move on and quit waiting for an answer. What I felt for Evelyn hadn’t changed; she was the only woman I wanted in my life. I tried dating, getting to know other women…but always ended up comparing whoever I was with to her.
Evelyn had the same problem. Our “friendship” had allowed for her to feel free to speak openly about whoever she was seeing, and she was never happy.
It was sad to see that a once-energetic and pure-hearted woman had changed completely. More than anything, it was sad to see that she had allowed herself to change so much. The woman I loved, she was there still somewhere. I couldn’t force her to come out, though. It was up to Evie, only her. No one could decide her happiness.
She looked down, trying to avoid a confrontation. I didn’t know how to get rid of the fear she felt, but what I did know was that with her pushing me away, it would be difficult to regain her trust.
She was better than this fear of hers. Stronger. I didn’t want her to keep living this way, even if we didn’t end up together. I wanted to see her happy, truly happy, like I’d seen her before.
I gripped her chin, not harshly, just enough to get her attention and get her to look up at me. “So what’s it going to be, Evie? You going to woman up and face reality or are you going to keep hiding?”
Shaking her head, Evelyn maneuvered her way out of my grasp and pushed me away from her. I got the message and stepped back, allowing her to jump off the entry table.
As if I hadn’t seen her many times before, she held the blouse I’d ripped tight around her body and began pacing. Her eyebrows furrowed, and the lipstick she had been wearing when I got here was smeared.
“I don’t understand how you think you can appear out of nowhere and just force me to make a decision,” she finally said. Though she tried to sound confident, I could clearly sense the distress in her words.
She picked up the rose that I had brought for her and fixed her gaze on it. Anything to not look at me.
“I appeared out of nowhere?” I asked, staring at her. “I don’t think I appeared out of nowhere, Evelyn. We’ve tried this whole being friends thing for over a year now, and it’s fucking clear as day that neither of us has moved on.”
“You don’t want to be my friend anymore?”
I saw the way her eyes took a pained look and quickly realized she didn’t get it.
“I can be your friend, yeah. I just don’t want to be only your friend, Evelyn.”
“So is this an ultimatum?”
A tense silence surrounded us. I wouldn’t exactly use the word ultimatum with our situation, but I did need to know whether there was a future with her. If all she wanted from me was a friendship, then so be it. I would be there for her; I wouldn’t refuse. But waiting around, hoping one day she opened her eyes and realized she still loved me, was no longer an option. Not when I saw her trying desperately to find happiness where we both knew she wouldn’t find it.
I was the first to admit our relationship hadn’t started in the best of ways; I had been the married one, but all that was in the past now. Maybe that was the reason it didn’t work out in the first place. However, now we had the chance to start over, and we were both letting it slip by.
“For our relationship, yes,” I finally answered her question. “I’m always going to be here for you. I’ll always be your friend, Evie. I just need to know if you see a future between us.”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know why you’re pressuring me to decide—”
“Don’t do this,” I said, stopping her. “I’m not pressuring you, Evelyn. It’s been over a year. A whole fucking year. You said you were trying to figure out what to do, how to find yourself, and I don’t know what other bullshit. All I see is you losing yourself even more. Maybe it’s not something you should do alone.”
“You don’t know—”
“No. I don’t. But fuck, Evie. Let me help you. We can figure it out together.”
Evelyn sighed, shaking her head slowly. “Can we just eat, talk about this later?”
I agreed, only because I saw she was starting to get overwhelmed. I didn’t want to scare her off, but I wasn’t budging. This was something we had to discuss.
The time for waiting was over.
She went to her bedroom to put on another shirt while I went to the kitchen and started serving the Chinese food she’d bought.
Smiling weakly, she sat across from me, but I knew her better than she even knew herself. Not even looking at her food, Evelyn reached out for my hand. I took it gladly, running my thumb over her knuckles.
“I’m scared, Nathan. You deserve that girl, the one who wasn’t fearful of getting hurt, that didn’t doubt everyone. I’m not her anymore, and I don’t know that I can go back—”
I shook my head. She didn’t get it. Evelyn had always been stubborn, but in that moment, she wasn’t comprehending what I was trying to say.
“I’m not asking you to go back to who you were, though I know she’s in there somewhere. I’m asking you to let me help you, to let me be here for you. I won’t say how I feel about you because at this point it’s only going to scare you, but you know exactly how much I care for you. Don’t push me away. I can help you. I want to help you.”
“I don’t know why I can’t figure this out,” she finally whispered.
The brightness in her eyes was gone. I could tell she really had no clue what to do or say; she didn’t know how to find the peace she desperately searched for. Maybe I didn’t have the answers, but I knew I could help her. Sometimes being alone does nothing but confuse the person, and in Evie’s case, I was sure that was exactly what happened.
I knelt in front of her and took her hand in mine. Her lips tilted up into a small smile, and for a minute, I could see the real Evelyn.
“We don’t have to make anything official, Evelyn. I just want you to quit hiding from what you feel. That’s cowardly, and the woman I know, she’s anything but a coward. That’s exactly why you can’t figure it out.”
“Why?” She asked the question so quietly I could barely hear her.
“Because you’re running away from your past instead of confronting it. I know that you’ve been burned, I know I hurt you with things I did, the things I said, but understand I never did it on purpose. I felt like I was protecting you by hiding the video from you, and yeah, I fucked up, but I won’t do it again.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “I’m just scared of opening up to someone, to anyone. I’m scared of betrayal.”
“I won’t betray you, Evie, but you have to trust me, or at least try. The only thing standing in our way now is your fear. Are you going to let it control you, or are you finally going to control it?”
***
We sat on the sofa, each of us with a glass of wine. The conversation had turned casual, about how I invested in the gallery and when I was officially to be moving to New York. I still had to finish the semester in Pennsylvania, but that was only two more weeks. As soon as those weeks were over, I would be in NYC for good.
“Have you talked to my parents?” I asked Evie.
She shook her head shyly. “Your mom always texts me, asking if I want to visit, but I don’t know. I’m nervous, I guess.”
She had distanced herself from everyone, from the people she was closest to. I knew part of it was her being ashamed of what happened. Everyone knew about the video, and word got around. It had damaged her reputation.
“Do you want to go for breakfast with them tomorrow?” I asked, stroking her cheek with the back of my hand. “We don’t have to, but I’m sure my mom would be glad to see you. We can invite Carter if you want to.”
Slowly, I got the answer I wanted. She nodded, leaning into my touch.
With the biggest case of blue balls I had ever faced, it took all my restraint to not pin her down there and fuck her senseless then and there, especially with the way she was looking at me. I cleared my throat and scratched the back of my head, glancing at my phone for the time. “I guess I should go, Evie.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I don’t suppose you want me to stay.” I smirked.
“Actually,” she began, “I would. Not to, you know, do anything, but I mean, it’s late and you’ve been drinking, and I just think it would be best.”
I nodded. “I’ll settle here on the couch then.”
She smiled, the first genuine, Evie smile she’d given me all evening, and stood up, walking towards her bedroom. When she came back, she had a blanket and a couple of pillows in her hands.
“I guess I’ll leave you to it,” she said awkwardly. I took the sight of her in as she walked backwards to her bedroom, waving goodbye with a curious look in her eyes.
Once I heard the door to her bedroom close, I removed my clothing down to my boxers and laid down on the uncomfortable couch. This wasn’t exactly how I planned on spending the night, but it would have to do. Progress had been made, and maybe, just maybe, Evie would take into consideration what I had said.
Half an hour had passed by when I heard her soft footsteps and then the door opening again. In just a few short seconds, her figure was standing in front of me, her hair up in a messy bun and the shirt she wore barely coming down to mid-thigh.
She didn’t say anything and laid down next to me on the sofa, placing her head on my chest and a leg over my waist.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay what?” I asked.
“I want you with me,” she said softly. “I’m not quite ready to jump into a serious relationship, but I want us to give it a try. Go slow. Can we do that?”
She looked up, and I could see the insecurity written all over her face.
“I would understand if you don’t want to,” she whispered.
“I don’t have a problem with going slow,” I murmured.
She beamed. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and finally, she pressed her lips to mine gently, and I knew I’d made the right decision.
This was home.