Georgie, All Along (99)

“Used to talking to me?”

“I don’t know if you should be coming around here, Ev,” I say, but I make sure it’s gentle. I make sure there’s no Get gone about it this time. After Georgie, I’m soft all over, my shell peeled right off my skin.

“Because of Dad?”

I lower my chin in a quick, abbreviated nod.

He shrugs, casual as you please. “I think I’m done with that.”

I blink up at him. “Done with Dad?”

He shrugs again. “Not the way you are. But done doing everything he says, I think. Done being under his thumb.”

I don’t see as how that’ll work, what with how involved my brother is in the business, and the iron grip my dad keeps on it. But I also don’t see as I have a right to ask. Instead I look out toward the water and say, “He won’t take well to that.”

Evan snorts, a real I don’t give a shit sound if I ever heard one. “Well. My wife left me because of him, so.”

I snap my head toward him, surprised by the anger that surges inside me—a fire banked for all these years, and I’ve been waiting for someone to toss a log onto it. To give it a little air.

“What?” I say, not bothering to hide any of the word’s sharp edges in my mouth.

“That’s probably an exaggeration,” he says. “Really she left me for some guy from her high school. But she never liked it here, never wanted to work for him. She always told me I was too wrapped up in the path he’d set for me. We argued about it a lot.”

I’m quiet for too long, but it might be a necessity—I’m still getting over the shock of me and him standing here together, and now after ten years of never talking to each other he’s told me something personal about him and his ex-wife.

That openness—I admit it reminds me of someone, and that hurts like a punch to the gut. I think of their names paired together, Georgie and Evan, and hate how I’m betraying her all over again with the thought.

It’s you, she’d said.

“Sorry to hear it,” I finally say, hoping he doesn’t hear the rawness in my voice.

“She’s happier now. She deserves that.”

I know how you feel, I think, but I can’t bring myself to say it. Can’t bring myself to be open with him in the way he is with me.

“Sucks, though,” I manage, and he chuckles, then goes quiet again.

“Look, Lee,” he says, lowering his eyes to the dock. “I can tell you’d rather I go, and I get it. I’ll say my piece and leave.”

I blink at him, confused. Do I seem like I want him to go? “I didn—”

“First, I came to apologize to you. For how things went down that night, with Danny.”

“Jesus Christ, Evan,” I say, my voice coming out harsh. “Don’t apologize to me.”

He furrows his brow, and there it is again: his confusion a mirror of my own. “Why not?”

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for. I brought him there. I was . . . I was who I was back then. It’s me who’s sorry. I messed up everything for you.”

“Why, because I broke my collarbone? Who cares? I hated playing football anyway.”

“No you didn’t,” I say, but I realize as soon as I do that I have no idea what he hated, what he loved. I didn’t know him at all, except as an extension of my dad.

“It doesn’t matter,” I correct. “It was my doing, that night. I never should’ve gotten you or Liv into that situation. Or Mom and Dad. I shouldn’t have come around, especially with how I was at that time.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have swung on that guy the way I did,” says Evan.

“You were protecting Liv.”

He shrugs, this one looking less casual and more strained. “He backed off as soon as I came out. I took the bigger risk, starting a fight, with him holding a gun. Something worse could’ve happened.”

He might be right, but I don’t see how it matters now. “You don’t have to apologize to me for that. I don’t give a shit that you fought with him, except that you got hurt. He had it coming. I would’ve done it, too.”

“I know,” Evan says. “That’s what I’m saying. I did it because it’s what you would’ve done.”

If that’s somehow supposed to make this apology make more sense, I’m not following.

“I’m not going to say I looked up to you. That’s too simple. I did, when we were younger, but once you . . .”

He trails off, unsure. But I can help him out with this one. “Started being a little punk.”

He huffs a laugh. “Yeah, I guess. Once you started being like that, I don’t think I understood you.”

“That’s because you knew how to act right. You always did.”

He shakes his head. “I know how to act like everyone else. Like Dad. I’ve always been good at that.”

“That’s not—”

He holds up a hand to stop me talking, and I do. I owe him that.

“But that Thanksgiving, man—I hated school. I hated being on the team. I was nothing there, and—” he breaks off, laughs at himself a little. “I wasn’t used to being nothing. And then you came home, and you looked so different. Living your own life.”