Seven Days in June(67)

Shane drew Eva into his arms. She went easily, settling into his chest.

“You’re the strongest person I know,” he said. “What you’re teaching Audre about resilience, strength, creativity? She’s lucky to have you. She’s dynamic as hell, and it’s all you.”

Eva went still. And then she pulled away sharply.

“Stop,” she said. “Just stop.” And she turned on her heel, opened the gate, and flew up her stoop stairs. Stunned at this sudden shift, he followed her up the steps, taking them two by two.

“Stop what?” said Shane.

Eva ripped her keys from her pocket and tried to line the right one up with the lock, but she fumbled and dropped them. Shane picked them up—and with an exasperated exhale, she whipped around to face him, sticking her hand out.

“Gimme my keys.”

He handed them over. “Stop what, Eva?”

“Stop making me fall for you again!”

Shane flinched. “How am I making you? It’s happening to both of us.”

“Really? I didn’t show up to…wherever you live…and disturb your peaceful life, out of nowhere. You came here to do this. On purpose.”

“I meaaan, I don’t really do anything on purpose,” he said, keeping his voice light with self-mockery, trying to calm her. “I had no plan, no ulterior motive, other than to apologize. On some AA shit. But I’m not sorry this happened.”

“I can’t do this,” she said, brows pinched with stress. “I can’t let you suck me in. You just met my daughter. I have too much to lose.”

“Suck you in,” he repeated.

“Yes!”

“It’s easy to blame me, right?”

“Excuse me?”

In the near darkness, Shane’s eyes blazed. “I showed up in Brooklyn, unannounced. Yeah. But let’s tell facts. You came to Horatio Street. You convinced me to go to the Dream House. And you left me there. I know you twist history to make things easier for you, but I’ve never made you do anything. Do you ever think about your role in all of this?”

“My role?” Eva’s voice rose five decibels. “Please, I’m not even a real person to you! Just a piece of fiction you made up.”

“Nah. You’re fiction that you made up.”

She wanted to slap him. “Nice. Go home.”

“I will. But first, this. Do you even remember that house? You scared the fuck out of me. I slept with one eye open, ’cause I was terrified you’d cut too deep. Or take one pill too many. You branded us. You did that. There isn’t just one dangerous person here. There’s two. We’re the same.”

Too infuriated to speak—seething, knowing that this was uncomfortably accurate—Eva turned her back to Shane and fumbled with the lock again. When she spun back around to face him, trembling, she unloaded all the bottled-up fury she’d been holding in for years.

“WHERE DID YOU GO?”

Stunned, he shook his head. “What?”

“Where did you go?” She stepped toward him, raging, keys digging into her palm. “Okay, we’re both bad. But you disappeared. Not me.” Angrily, she swiped tears from her eyes. Couples and families were breezing past, oblivious to the weeping woman and her tormented-looking man at the top of the stoop.

“Yesterday was perfect,” she continued, raging. “Today was perfect. We’re so fucking good, still. Look at all the time we lost! How could you leave me? That morning, when I woke up and you…you weren’t there. I had to teach myself how to breathe again, in a world without you in it. Do you get that?”

Eva gasped, pausing to catch her breath. “You begged me to stay, promised me you’d never leave. But it was all a lie. You never even tried to contact me. Not even to see if I’d made it out alive! Is it fun for you to ruin lives and escape unscathed? Are you sick, or just a liar? I stayed alive for you. But you killed me, anyway.”

“Eva…”

“I told myself I didn’t care.” She was openly weeping now. “But I do. You broke your promise. Where did you go?”

This was what Shane had come to tell her. But everything had changed. Especially after he’d seen Audre’s portrait of Lizette and witnessed how Eva had softened her mother’s history.

I know better, but a part of me still worships her.

Shane didn’t want to unthread Eva’s emotional connection to her mother. But he owed her an explanation, and it was the only part of this trip he’d actually planned for.

“I didn’t leave you,” he said finally.

“What?”

“Your mom never said anything?”

“No,” she said, her voice cracking, pleading. “What happened?”

“I didn’t leave you.”

Confusion flooded her face.

“I would never have left you. It was…your mom. She sent me away.”

“You’re blaming it on her?” Eva trembled with white rage, fisting her hands to steady them. “When I woke up, I asked for you. She didn’t even know who you were, Shane.”

“How do you think she got there?” Shane’s voice was an unsteady mix of regret and pain. “I found her number in your phone, and I called her. When she got to the house, she called the paramedics. And the police. And sent me to prison.”