The Last Flight(63)
She bit back a response, angry at him for knowing her secrets. She’d needed someone to say that years ago, when it could have actually helped her. Now? They were just empty words.
He continued. “I think you’re a good person who was forced to make an impossible choice. Help me help you.”
Eva stared at him, trying to make him believe she was still considering it, letting the silence spool out between them. She knew enough about life to know that the minute you agreed to something—whether it was making drugs for a football player or a drug dealer, or turning evidence over to the feds—they stopped trying to take care of you as soon as you said yes.
Agent Castro continued. “If you don’t cooperate, we will prosecute you. Immunity will disappear, and I won’t be able to do anything for you once that happens. You’ll go to jail, for a very long time.”
Eva thought she had enough for Castro, but the minute she handed it over, he wouldn’t have to promise her anything. “If you can give me what I’m asking for, we might be able to come to an agreement,” she said.
“I’ll do my best.”
Eva hugged her arms tight against her body and said, “I assume you’ll keep following me. I have to ask that you not make things difficult. You seem to think Fish is a midrange dealer, but if he finds out we talked, he’ll kill me, and then you’ll have nothing.”
*
She barely registered the return drive to Berkeley, her mind taking over, sifting through her options and next steps. Regardless of what Castro might be able to do for her, she needed to be ready to walk away from all of it—Berkeley, her house, her job. And Liz.
Eva arrived home after dark, the lights in Liz’s apartment warm and inviting. She paused to touch the soft branches of their tree, empty of decorations now, waiting for another Christmas that would never arrive. Would Liz imagine Eva here, decorating it alone? Would she try to call Eva and wonder why she never answered her phone? Come back to visit friends and find Eva gone, her apartment abandoned? Eva knew what that was like, to feel the ragged strands of unanswered questions, tickling the back of your mind, tormenting your quietest moments with why.
As if she’d conjured her, Liz appeared, opening her door and peering out at Eva, still standing next to the tree. “What are you doing out there?”
Eva looked at her, framed by the bright rectangle of light, and didn’t answer.
Liz took a step out onto the porch, her smile fading as she caught Eva’s expression. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You look upset.”
“No, just tired.”
Liz looked as if she wanted to say something, but hesitated. Finally, she said, “When are you going to tell me what’s really going on with you? Whenever I ask, you give me nonanswers. Or tell me you’re tired. But that’s not it. Why won’t you talk to me?”
“I talk to you. All the time.”
Liz shook her head. “No. You tell me things that have already happened. That are already over. But I know almost nothing about your days. Nothing about what you struggle with. What worries you. Why you’re not sleeping. Out of nowhere, a man appears, fighting with you. Then I never hear of him or see him again.” She took a deep breath. “No, Eva. You don’t talk to me. You don’t even trust me.”
“You’re reading too much into things,” Eva said, hating how she sounded. Patronizing. Dismissive. When what she wanted, more than anything, was to throw herself at Liz’s feet and beg her to fix it. To help her.
Liz’s voice was low as she stepped all the way onto the porch and crossed her arms over her chest. “I thought we were friends. But you lie to me. All the time. About where you go. What you do. Who you spend time with. I’m not stupid. I pay attention. I hear you at night, on the phone sometimes. Arguing. With that guy?” Liz gave a thin laugh and said, “Don’t bother answering. I already know you won’t tell me the truth.”
Eva was tempted to throw the truth in her face. To spit the words at her, like bullets, piercing Liz’s belief that she could carry what Eva was hiding. She imagined rolling back the shelves in her kitchen and leading Liz down into her basement lab. This is where I make the drugs, she’d tell her. I cook them up on that camping stove over there and give half to an incredibly scary man who might have me killed if I stop.
Eva thought of Castro’s words from earlier. Of all the people I know in this business, you’re the one who doesn’t fit. “I live in a world where I don’t belong,” she finally said.
Liz stepped toward her, but Eva backed away, needing to maintain the space between them. “Why would you say that?” Liz asked. “Look at what you’ve done. What you’ve accomplished, despite all the odds against you.”
“And there it is,” Eva said under her breath. What she’d been running from her entire life. Eventually, everyone—even Liz—viewed her successes and failures through the lens of pity they felt for her.
A pressure began to build up inside of Eva, all the things she wanted to say but couldn’t. She pressed her fingers to her temples and stepped toward her door, needing to get out from under Liz’s gaze, needing to escape inside where she could think clearly, where she wouldn’t have to hide and obfuscate. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
Liz reached out, closing the distance between them, and laid a hand on Eva’s arm. “You can’t run from what’s hurting you. You can’t bury it and hope it will go away. You have to face it. Look at it. Talk about it.”