Chapter Thirty-Eight - Ixion
By the time I leave Chella’s tea house it’s dark. I didn’t mean to stay so long. Didn’t even mean to go. Her text last night was vague, but it was enough to plant ideas in my head. Enough to make me question everything.
I didn’t mean to say so much to her. We’re not exactly friends and I barely know her, but she knows enough. More than most. And she had a bit of information she wanted to share with me. Just in case I wasn’t aware.
I was not aware.
Her information ripped my world apart in too many ways to describe, so I don’t bother summing it up in my head.
It’s just…sad. Sad that people can be so manipulative. So self-centered. So fucking filled with lies that they can’t even tell the difference between honesty and deceit.
I’m careful with Jordan’s Mercedes as I pull into the carriage house, even though I want to crash this motherfucker into the side of the house. Even more cautious as I peer over the gate to the garden, afraid Evangeline might be outside.
But she isn’t.
Even after what Chella told me today, I’m not mad at Evangeline. That girl doesn’t have a dishonest bone in her body. She had nothing to do with Jordan’s stupid fucking game. She’s not even a player. Just a piece to be moved around the chessboard.
Like me.
Fuck that, I’m not a piece, I’m a player.
In fact, this is my fuckin’ game.
Isn’t it?
Am I delusional? Crazy, like I thought Evangeline to be?
She’s not. But neither am I. Especially after what Chella told me today.
Fuckin’ Jordan. Now I remember why I hate him. Why I left and never looked back. Why I never wanted to come here in the first place.
I was suspicious, but not suspicious enough, apparently.
I walk down the path that leads to the back steps, take them two at a time until I’m at the bottom, and key in the code to get inside.
A huge feeling of relief washes over me as I close myself up inside. And for a second, I wonder if that’s how Evangeline felt all those years she locked herself up inside? Did she feel that relief when she came home?
If so, I can relate. I want nothing more than to block out the world right now. Just be alone in my aloneness.
Her body, lying prone on the bed up in the master bedroom, makes me look at the monitor. But the blindfold she’s wearing makes me deflate with anguish.
She’s waiting for me.
I can’t do it tonight, Evangeline. I just can’t. There’s too much bullshit rattling around in my head. And if I go to you, you’ll know. You’ll feel it. I’ll ruin all the good I’ve done and I can’t. I just can’t fuckin’ do it.
But of course I can’t tell her that. I can’t tell her anything. I could do the little intercom crackle, but that would invite more discussion on the matter. It would open it up and I want to keep everything closed right now.
I can’t.
So I just sit in the chair and watch, like I’m supposed to, and pick up the notebook to finish the story.
I don’t get far because she sits up in bed. “I know you’re here now. I felt something. The rumble of a car nearby. The vibration of a door closing inside this house. I know you’re here. And you had better come to me right now and tell me why. Why did you leave this morning? Why didn’t you finish the story? I had a poem for you! All written up in my head and I had nowhere to write it.”
Fuck.
“I went to see Jordan and he didn’t show up.”
Fuck again.
“But you were there, weren’t you? Mike.”
What the fuck?
“Was it fun? Watching me wait? Was it fun when you paraded another woman in my face? Was it fun”—she stresses the word hard now—“when I had to leave alone? Did you know I walked home? All the way home?”
She’s visibly shaking. And the image of her, wearing the blindfold, is disturbing.
I reach for the intercom, press the button, and say, “Take off the blindfold and go to sleep. I’m not coming.”
“Fuck you!” she yells. “If you won’t come to me, I’ll go to you.”
She stands up, blindfold still on, and walks across the room like she can see without eyes.
She can’t. She trips over the rug and falls on her hands and knees.
“Evangeline,” I bark into the intercom, my voice booming, louder now than it’s ever been in her presence. “Take off the blindfold and go to bed.”
She just shakes her head as she gets uneasily to her feet. She stumbles over the rug again, but this time catches her fall with a hand on the bedside table. She feels along the wall, her fingertips now her eyes, until she comes to the door.
She pulls it open.
She stands at the top of the stairs.
And then she steps down.