Leo's Chance(31)

When I told Dr. Fox about that, he told me that I was just picking up where my dad had left off because I thought I deserved it. Maybe. But he probably didn’t know the excruciating pain of watching someone you love suffer and not be able to do a f*cking thing to change it. The girl I loved wanted a f*cking pillowcase for Christmas. It killed me and I hated my own powerlessness. I guess the only thing I was in control of was making the pain physical, rather than emotional, which is always the type of pain that feels unsurvivable.

The memory of that feeling comes back to me now because it’s what I’m experiencing, sitting here in this kitchen, listening to Evie tell me what my abandonment did to her. Even though she doesn’t know that that’s what she’s doing. I clench my jaw though and brace against the pain that comes in waves when I hear what she went through – she lived this, the least I can do is take it in and let it effect me fully, which is what I’m doing. But, f*ck, it hurts.

She’s silent for a minute, watching me, before she continues. "At the end of that month, I had enough money for a security deposit at any one of the apartments I had looked at. I called around and found the one that I could move into that day. I slept on the floor using my backpack as a pillow and a ratty, pink blanket I had had since I was a kid, until I could afford some used furniture. I got my GED that next year since I had moved out and started working before I graduated."

She watches me again carefully before picking up her glass and taking a sip of wine. I’ve been keeping my hands busy with the dinner prep so that I didn’t pick up the nearest heavy object and hurl it through the window, and Evie nods toward the potatoes I’m rinsing. "Want me to do that?" she asks.

"No, I want you to sit there and relax and sip your wine and talk to me." And I have to smile now because despite the story she just told, she is sitting there relaxed and smiling. She amazes me and calms my own emotions.

"You've been through so much, Evie," I finally say.

"Yeah, but the thing is, in some ways I'm lucky for it."

"How so?" I’m confused.

"Well, how many people do you think walk into their apartment at the end of the day, small and simple as it may be, and look around and feel like one of the luckiest people in the world? How many people truly appreciate what they have because they know what it feels like to have absolutely nothing? I went through a lot to get where I am and I don't take anything I have for granted, ever. That's my reward."

And that right there, that is the best example of why this girl is the most exceptional person I’ve ever met. What she just did, turning ugliness into something beautiful – it’s her gift. It’s the thing I could never, ever do, no matter how hard I tried, instead letting the ugly take over and weave it’s way through me until it changed who I was, making me bitter and rageful. And maybe that’s exactly how Evie was able to love me – she looked deeply inside of me and was able to move past the ugliness to something that was good. I don’t know. All I know is that she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, inside and out.

Finally, I say quietly, "I never would have thought to look at it that way." And I wouldn’t have. It’s why she makes me a better person. It’s why she inspires me.

I finish some more dinner prep, and she sips her wine, both of us quiet for a couple minutes thinking our own thoughts. It feels so amazingly good just to sit here with her, making dinner and talking.

I’m thinking about the stories she used to tell when we were kids, and to keep her talking and to hear her thoughts on how she grew up, I ask, "Evie, the eulogy you gave for your friend, Willow. Tell me about that."

"I'm talking too much about myself, again. How does that happen every time I'm with you?" she asks, smiling.

"Indulge me, you're fascinating to me."

She rolls her eyes and smiles at me. "I used to tell Willow stories when we were kids and lived together in foster care. She loved them and even after we were adults and I would go over and clean her up from whatever mess she had gotten herself into; drug hangover, shit kicked out of her by a boyfriend, whatever." She waves her hand, pausing briefly before continuing. "Even as an adult she would ask me to tell her one of her stories. She would ask for them by name, even in a completely inebriated state sometimes."

"Sounds like she felt special in the ownership of them. She probably didn't have ownership of a lot. That's beautiful, Evie," I say. And I know that it’s true because that’s exactly how I felt about the stories she told me. Just thinking about them made me feel good about myself and I needed that so desperately. Her stories were like medicine to my wounded heart. Then, and even thinking about them now, which I still do sometimes.

She stares at me silently for a minute, a soft look on her face. "In the beginning, it was just stupid kid stuff. I had a vivid imagination." She laughs a small laugh.

"It came in handy. Just a kid trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, you know?"

I nod. Of course I know.

And then I can’t help myself. The question is out before I even give myself permission to ask it, "Will you tell me about Leo?"

She looks down and takes a sip of her wine. Shit, I shouldn’t have gone there. "Jake, I've shared a lot tonight, and it felt good and that surprises me because I don't make it a habit of bringing up my past very often, but can we save Leo for another time? Is that okay?"