Things had settled down after being home for a couple of days, with me they had anyway. Ava still hadn’t come out of the room that Corey had taken her to and we were all worried about her.
Charlie had said yesterday that he couldn’t give her much longer, not only did he need a statement, but the social worker had to find her a foster home.
“Has she still not come out of her room?” Elena asked on the fourth morning.
Ty had taken Eli to preschool while Elena came around for a visit. I loved having her come over, not only was she easy to talk to, but she understood some of the things that I was going through. She hadn’t told me specifics but just the way that she said she understood, and the look in her eyes, let’s me know that she was telling the truth.
“No.” I shook my head, lifting the coffee cup up to my mouth, taking a sip. “She’ll only answer to Corey.”
“She needs to come out of there sooner or later.”
“I know,” I huffed. I didn’t know how to try and get her out of there. I was spending all of my time and energy on making sure Eli didn’t see how much it had affected me and that in itself wasn’t easy.
Elena pushed her chair back, placing her cup down and standing up. “Let me try.” She smirked.
With wide eyes, I followed her out of the kitchen and up the stairs. She was actually going to go in there, I couldn’t believe that she was doing this. I’d wanted to do it, but to be honest, I didn’t think I was strong enough mentally. Yet.
She knocked on the door and pushed it open, the room was so dark that I had to wait a couple of seconds before my eyes adjusted.
“Ava?” she asked softly, walking into the room. “Time to get up now, honey.”
She walked over to the windows, pulling open the curtains and looked at the bed. I followed her eyes and saw Ava lay in the middle of the bed, the blankets wrapped around her tightly as she stared at the wall. Her eyes bloodshot, making me wonder if she’d had any sleep at all over the past couple of days.
“Let’s get you showered and changed. You’ll feel much better.” Elena sat down on the bed, lifting her hand and stroking some hair out of Ava’s face.
“I’ll never be clean again,” she whispered, her voice so raw that I winced. I could see that she was in pain, not just physically, I recognized that look in her eyes. The one that said she’d never be the same again.
Elena looked back at me, silently asking what she was talking about. I shrugged, having no idea. She still hadn’t told any of us what had happened, I had a feeling that Corey knew but even he wasn’t saying anything.
“Let’s at least try though, honey.” I watched as Elena kept trying to coax her out of the bed, Ava not moving at all, not even her eyes moved from the spot on the wall that she was staring at.
I leaned back against the wall, waiting her out. The longer I stood here, the more my resolve grew, she couldn’t stay in here forever. If I had to be cruel to be kind, then that’s what I’d do.
“What are you doing?” A voice growled from behind me.
I startled. “Corey! Jeez you scared the life out of me.” My hand was clutching onto my chest as I looked over at him stood in the doorway, his body filling the whole frame.
“What are you doing?” he asked again.
“Ava needs to have a shower and come out of this room,” Elena answered. Standing up she gave Corey the ‘mom’ look and dared him to tell her any different.
He looked at all of us in turn, his eyes finally landing on Ava.
Moving forward, he sat down on the other side of the bed, his hand touching her arm. “Ava? Elena’s right,” he said softly.
I’d missed Corey so much and we still hadn’t had a proper talk since he’d been back. Not that I minded, I still had to talk with Ty. He may have thought that I wasn’t going to bring Serena up again but he was wrong. I wanted to know everything, not just what she had told me.
Corey reached forward and helped lift Ava up off the bed slowly, she didn’t move, her body limp. He carried her to the bathroom, her head going to his chest, with Elena following right behind her.
“You can go now,” she said to him when they were in the bathroom.
I waited for Corey to come back out and walked down the stairs with him. “She’ll be okay,” I said when we were both in the kitchen and sat at the table.
“I know,” he huffed. “She won’t last in the system though, sis.”
Nodding, I agreed. She needed to be around people who understood her, not with people who didn’t care.
“Anyway, what do you say that me and you go out and get something to eat? I’ll ask Elena to watch Ava,” I asked, hopeful.
He grinned for what felt like the first time in forever, his hand slid across the table, grasping mine and squeezing slightly. “Yeah,” he replied. “Let’s catch up. Just the two of us.”
I didn’t want to go out anywhere so we went to a drive through, got some burgers and then drove up to the spot that Corey always used to take me. Moaning at the first taste of my burger, I couldn’t help but close my eyes at the taste.
I’d never missed food so much in my entire life and I savored every bite. I moved my eyes to Corey, grinning wide with a mouth full of food at his chuckle.
“Some things never change.” He bit into his own burger, moaning at the taste just like I had.
“See,” I said once I had swallowed my bite, and raised my brows at him. The burgers at that place were the best and it was all I could do to stop myself from eating one after another.
We sat and ate in silence, both of us just gazing out of the window. It was nice, to just be sat with someone and know that you didn’t have to say anything.
“So…” he said, breaking the silence after ten minutes. “You and Ty, huh?”
I cleared my throat, knowing that this was going to come up at some stage. It was inevitable, Corey had always been protective and now he knew the truth about Max, I had a feeling he would be even worse.
“Yeah,” I said, flicking my eyes over to him. “I know he’s your friend-”
“Does he treat you right?” he interrupted.
“Yeah.” I sighed wistfully. “He really does.”
“Then as long as you’re happy…” He shrugged. “I’m okay with it.”
I raised a brow at him because even if he wasn’t happy with it, I had a feeling that Ty wouldn’t care. To be honest, it wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference to me either.
After the elephant in the room had been spoken about, we talked about everything. It was good to get my brother back, have him physically in front of me instead of on a computer screen.
I didn’t want to think about how long he would be here before he’d have to go away again. I pushed all of those thoughts to the back of my mind, not worrying about them until the time came.
We spoke about Eli and all the stuff they’d got up to while I was ‘away’. Then talk turned to how I was doing on the jobs and whether I’d learned to shoot a gun yet.
Telling me about when he first met Eli, I giggled and said, “I would have loved to have seen your face.”
“I was shitting myself, honestly, sis. I freaked the fuck out.” He shook his head, his face turning bright read.
I grabbed my side as a pain shot through me from giggling so much. Damn, that hurt.
“Careful, sis,” he warned, pulling up to the compound gates.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I huffed. If he wasn’t so funny then I wouldn’t be laughing in the first place, ergo, I wouldn’t be in pain. So it was his fault. That logic worked, right?
But seriously, I could just imagine his face. Eli didn’t seem fazed by it so why had he freaked out? I was sad that I’d missed it but I told myself that it wouldn’t do me any good to wallow about it, I wanted to move on from everything that had happened. The only way I’d be able to do it was if I forgot about the past and focused on the present and the future.
Parking outside of the warehouse, I was about to push my door open, but before I could, Evan’s face came into view.
“Kay.” Looking over at Corey he nodded and then moved his eyes back to me. “I need your help.”
My heart rate sped up at the serious look on his face. Holding my hand out so he could help me down, I stepped out and followed him to his cabin.
Once we were inside, he started to pace the small space, his hands waving all about. Frowning at how agitated he was, I asked, “Evan? What’s the matter?”
He turned to face me, his face pale as he worried his lip. “I...”
Stepping forward, I held my hand in the air. “It’s okay, just calm down, take a deep breath.” Once I could see that he had calmed a little, I asked again. “Now, what’s the matter?”
He ran his hands through his hair, looking at everything in the room but me.
“Take a deep breath.” I breathed in and out to show him. As if he didn’t know how to breathe. “Sit down.” I pointed to one of his chairs and waited for him to sit before I stood in front of him.
“Now,” I said calmly. “What’s going on?”
“Well, see…there’s this…girl.” He flicked his eyes to mine and looked away again.
“Erm…Okay?”
“And…I…I…don’t know how to ask her if she’d like to…court me?” he said, uncertain.
I held the giggle in that desperately wanted to come out. Ty had briefly told me about Evan’s crush on Geena and how he had freaked when Ty had found out.
“Geena?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face. It wasn’t funny that he liked someone, it was how nervous and worried about it that was.
“Yeah,” he nodded, looking everywhere but at me.
“You have her number right?”
“I have her email.” He nodded, becoming more sure of himself.
“Okay, this is what you’re going to do.” I sat down next to him, patting him on the arm. “Send her an email and ask her if she’d like to go out on a date.”
“But-”
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head and standing back up. “No ifs, ands or buts. Just do it, you won’t know until you ask.”
With that said, I stepped out of his cabin and walked back to the house, wondering how Elena had got on with Ava. Time to go and see.