Heartbreaker(19)

But I was never first for my father. I ranked somewhere below a bottle of Jack Daniels, and bitter memories of the past. We co-existed for as long as possible under the same roof, coming to blows a fair few times. I was counting down the days until my escape. I’d stick around long enough to graduate, and then be gone from that silent house. I had it all worked out.

And then came Eva.



I unlock the door and head inside. What hits me first is the silence. Not tense, or angry, like the way my old place used to be whenever my old man was waiting drunk and bitter in the next room. This is all warmth and sunshine, the rays falling through the big windows and lazily melting over bare wooden floors. It feels the way a home is supposed to, the way Eva’s house did whenever I’d stop by: somewhere to laugh and talk like a real family, not two strangers trapped together out of loathing and twisted DNA. No, this is a real home. Never mind the memories still sleeping out back by the creek.

This morning, though, I know that those red-hot memories are dangerous territory, so I take a sub-zero cold shower to get my head clear and thinking straight. But all the cold water in the world can’t shake the heat when I think about Eva – about the curves of her gorgeous body, and those ripe lips just begging for a kiss. And more.

Damn, she’s not the innocent girl I used to know, and it’s sexy as hell. She’s grown up. I don’t just mean her knock-out body, but the look in her eyes, too. Five years ago, she almost seemed surprised by the force of our passion, but kissing her last night, I saw she knew exactly what she was doing. How to drive me crazy. How to leave me panting for more. In the bright light of day, she can try to deny it, but we were about ten seconds away from tearing each other’s clothes off and f*cking right there in the street.

So why the hell did I stop?

Because this matters. Because when I take Eva again, all the way, I want her to be begging for it. No going back. She’s the reason I’m here, after all.

Kyle was right. I swore I’d never come home again. I didn’t think there was anything, or anyone, worth coming back to. Eva would be long gone the minute she hit graduation, off to drama school in New York, or Chicago, maybe. One of those big-city schools she would talk about with such excitement, those nights I held her in my arms and listened as she painted a picture of the future. Me, I had a different path in store. I spent my first couple of years after leaving town drifting around, working bartender gigs and construction in Austin, and Oakland, and Kansas City. I didn’t know where I was heading. I just knew I needed to put as much distance between me and Oak Harbor as possible – far enough to keep me from turning around those dozen times I hit rock bottom and driving back home for her.

It wasn’t easy, staying away. I tried drinking myself into oblivion, and screwing every last girl who looked my way. I was desperate to forget the laughter in Eva’s eyes, or the way she’d curl her body around me. Looking back, it’s a miracle I didn’t drink myself into an early grave – or get pushed in there by some vengeful guy whose woman spent the night in my bed. But even then, I knew it couldn’t last. I would hear my old man’s voice in my head, taunting me, saying I was a loser, just like him. I was proving him right, every time I rolled home drunk, and none of it came close to filling the aching space where my heart used to be. Hell, nothing made me feel a damn thing at all, until one night I put the bottle aside and picked up my guitar instead, and managed to pour all my hurt and guilt and damn self-loathing into a song.

That was the moment it all turned around. That was when I saw a light at the end of the tunnel – and maybe even a way to earn Eva back, one day. I gigged solidly around town, playing any dive bar or coffee shop that’d have me, until finally Kyle happened to stop by a show one night – and the rest is history. But Eva was never far from my mind. After the record started building, and I’d play a show in a new city every other night, I would wonder if she was out there. Maybe just a few blocks away, or even standing in the crowd. Was she living her dreams, becoming a great actress the way she’d always wanted? Did she still hate me for leaving her without that goodbye, or did she understand I’d had no choice, and that giving her a future on her own was the only noble thing I could do? I swear I thought I saw her a hundred times over, a thousand-volt shock to my heart every time. It was worth it just to imagine she was out there, experiencing everything she wanted from the world.

Until I ran into a guy from school in a bar one night, and heard Eva was right back where we started in Oak Harbor. No big acting plans, no wild adventures. She was here, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. I booked my ticket that same night, despite the darkness I left behind in this town. Nothing could have kept me away from her, but now that I’m back, I have more questions than ever before – and a bad feeling about those shadows in her clear, hopeful eyes.

So what happened? Because this isn’t the girl I used to know. The girl I remember is sharp and wild and breathless and hungry, that shy exterior hiding a heart so deep and true it could renew even my tired and lonely bones. She drove me crazy with desire and awe, made me want to be a better man, enough to turn my back and put her first, even when it broke my heart to go. Leaving didn’t make a damn bit of difference: that girl has haunted me every night since I left this town. In the crowd of every show, living in the lyrics of every last song I write. I’ve kept her with me in my mind and heart, waiting for the day I could catch even a glimpse of her again.