Seven Days in June(35)

Eva wanted things. She’d just forgotten how to get them.

She used to be brazen. Where was that girl who’d run away from her mother, to Shane, to Princeton, and then to New York? Who was that girl?

There was only one person who remembered. And he’d been texting her since she’d fled the diner.

With trembling hands, she pulled her phone out of her purse.





Today, 11:15 AM

S.H.


Call me.





Today, 11:49 AM

S.H.


Please, Genevieve.





Today, 12:40 PM

S.H.


Just wanna make sure you’re okay. Please.





Today, 2:10 PM

S.H.


Okay, I have no right to know anything about you anymore.





Today, 2:33 PM

S.H.


Fuck it, yes I do.





Today, 2:35 PM

S.H.


I’m staying in the West Village. 81 Horatio Street. I’ll be here till Sunday. Please come, if you want to talk. Any day, any time. But if you don’t, I get it. And I’ll leave and never bother you again. Just know that I wish you the most brilliant, weird, and wonderful things, every day of the world.



Eva stared at her phone. Like if she looked hard enough at it, it would burst into flames. And she’d be rid of him forever.

Brilliant, weird, and wonderful. When was the last time she’d experienced any of those things? She didn’t know.

But she did know she’d do anything for Audre.

She also knew that Genevieve had always lurked on the outskirts of her personality—muted by motherhood, career, self-preservation, and common sense, but there. Eva was older, but the same bones were under her skin. The same flame, dulled to an ember, waiting for a spark to set her ablaze again.

And most importantly? She knew an English teacher.





Chapter 11





An Aggressive Act of Personal Reinvention




SHANE HALL WAS RUNNING FOR HIS LIFE.

The diner disaster had scrambled his brain. His heart was shredded. His stomach was in knots. In a former life, he would’ve dealt with this in dangerous ways. But due to his recent aggressive act of personal reinvention, he was no longer a drinker. He was a runner. A capital-R runner, and you knew he was serious, because he bought Nike Vaporflys, the sneakers the Olympics almost banned for giving runners an advantage. And he was wearing the Garmin Forerunner 945 GPS watch to monitor his pace in pro-marathoner style. Most notable, though, were his elite-grade compression socks, which were recommended by Usain Bolt in an old Esquire he’d dog-eared in some midwestern JetBlue VIP lounge. His gear was fire.

Shane didn’t half-ass anything. He ran as hard as he drank.

Never mind that in AA, he was warned of the dangers of cross-addiction—when you put down a drink and pick up a new obsession, like evangelism or multilevel-marketing schemes or rescuing pit bulls. And fine, Shane knew that his running habit bordered on extreme. But what new addictions could possibly scare him? Not having a drink was excruciating, and he beat that. Not having anything else would be easy.

So Shane ran and ran, until the steady, hypnotic rhythm of his footfalls and his modulated, focused breathing coaxed him into calm.

Because he’d had a day.

The sun was just about to set beyond the Upper Manhattan skyline, and Shane was trying to outrun it. He’d already run the six miles from his rental in the West Village, down the West Side Highway and around South Street Seaport. Now he was looping his way back up. At first, his pace was too aggressive, too swift—but for the past ten minutes or so, he’d started slowing a bit. He was right on the cusp of exhaustion. But that was what kept Shane going, that flicker of uncertainty, the threat of burning out.

And he had to keep going, because he wanted to be home before nightfall. He couldn’t be away from the apartment for longer than an hour. He’d told Eva to come by if she needed him. And ever since she’d fled, crying, from the diner that morning, he’d been waiting for her. He probably wouldn’t hear from her—but on the off chance that she wanted to talk, he had to be there.

He’d been the one to make her cry. It was what he always did, destroying the people he loved the most, the things that made him happiest. Seeing her that upset again, knowing he was the cause of it—it had triggered an old panic that was too deep-seated to shake. He had to fix it. He couldn’t let that be the last time they saw each other.

Chin down, eyes trained ahead of him, he blazed his way down the West Side Highway running path—the glittering Hudson River winding lazily to his left, with the New Jersey skyline stretching beyond it. It was thickly hot, the kind of heat that makes you listless and lethargic. Visibly drained tourists draped themselves over benches, while the path was crowded with barely moving senior joggers and mommy groups ambling by with designer strollers. Everyone but Shane was on chill mode.

Was it selfish to hope for even a second more of Eva’s time when he was the reason she wasn’t okay? Probably. Was it reckless and childish to have sent her all those texts? Fuck yes. But he’d analyzed the situation too many times since this morning, and he didn’t know what else to do.

I shouldn’t have come at all, thought Shane, almost colliding with a twenty-something couple who were somehow successfully jogging while sharing EarPods.