Evan Elemental (The Evan Elemental Series) (16 page)

"I
can't stay and chitchat. I have to meet someone," I say brightly and turn
to leave.

"I
know. I'm taking you to the airport to pick her up."

I turn
back to look at him. "Oh," is all I can manage. Anders smiles in a
way that doesn't reach his eyes.

I give an
exaggerated sigh. I really don't want to go back to the days where he silently
loathed me. "Look, about last night..."

Anders
throws his hands up and gives me a smile that rivals Jack Nicholson in The
Shining. "It's forgotten." He stands and leaves the room without
another word. With a sick feeling in my stomach I follow.

We're
back to tense silence. The airport is only about sixty miles outside of Price,
but it might as well be a thousand. As hard as I try to focus on the passing
scenery, it's too difficult to ignore the tension and anger that radiates off
Anders. I can't take the silence anymore. I have to say something.

"Anders,"
I start without looking at him, "I'm sorry about last night. I was drunk and
mad and I shouldn't have danced with you like that."

I
glance at him out of the corner of my eye; his jaw is still tight but his eyes
have softened a bit. I figure he's not going to say anything, so I'm surprised
when he speaks.

"I
told you, it's forgotten," he replies. Instead of sounding angry he just
sounds defeated.

"Clearly
not," I sigh.

Anders
relaxes his grip on the steering wheel and glances at me before fixing his eyes
on the road.

"You
really don't remember, do you?" he asks after a few more miles roll by.

I turn
in my seat to look at him. "What are you talking about?"

My
frustration gives way to curiosity. He can't be talking about last night,
because I remember everything in perfectly clear HD quality, despite the
copious amounts of gin and jungle juice. I feel myself begin to blush as the
memory of Lex's room comes to mind. I quickly push the thought away.

Anders
glances at me. "We've met before. When we were a lot younger."

I shake
my head unable to comprehend what he's saying. The car begins slowing and
Anders pulls into a rest stop. He parks, shuts the engine off, and turns to
face me. His face is tight, but his eyes are earnest. I can see the
transparency of his thoughts as he struggles to work them out.

"For
as long as I can remember," he begins, "I've lived at the Price
estate. We lived there when my father worked for your grandmother. After he
died, I didn't have anyone else. So, she took care of me. At least, she let me
stay there."

He
gives me a second to take in what he just said before continuing.

"The
summer after he died was the first time I met you. I had just turned ten and
you must have been about seven. You came with your mother every Sunday. They
would make you sit through tea before letting you free on the grounds. That
first day, we met by the lake."

Anders
smiles to himself. I'm too stunned to speak; if I weren't completely paralyzed
with shock, I would be bolting from the car right about now. Instead, I stay
put, my full attention on Anders. Clearly he's insane, but I need to be
rational and hear him out.

"What
are you thinking?" he asks, taking in the baffled expression on my face.

"Honestly,"
I say even though my mouth is completely dry, "I have no memory of any of
that. My mother never mentioned taking me there. Until now, my only memory of
Magda is when she showed up, unannounced, to my tenth birthday, got into a huge
fight with my mom, and stormed out."

I start
to smile at the thought but stop short. It just now set in that there won't be
anymore birthday parties with my parents. There won't be any more lopsided
cakes that still taste amazing or foreign language dictionaries to roll my eyes
at. I take a deep breath and will the memories away, push them deep below the
surface where I can ignore them.

"How
do I know you're not making this up?" I demand. I'm not in the mood to
play games.
Lex
can dodge my questions all he wants,
but Anders is weaker and I won't give in easily.

"You
don't," Anders says simply, "but I have no reason to lie to you. I
just want you to understand."

"Understand
what?" I ask through gritted teeth.

"Just,
please let me finish?" Anders pleads.

"Fine."
I wrap my arms around myself and wait for him to continue.

"I
was a mess. No one would give me any answers about what had happened to my father.
I was alone. Magda provided for me, but a well-trained staff became my family.
That's why Thelma and I are close, she was the only mom I had."

A chill
runs through me as he recounts an all too familiar story.

"When
you found me that day, at the lake, I didn't want anything to do with you. To
ten year old me, you were just some annoying kid. The next Sunday I tried to
hide from you, but you found me. It didn't matter where I hid or how clever I
thought I was being
,
you always managed to find me. Eventually,
it became a sort of game. I would hide and you would find me, and then we would
go on some elaborate adventure that you would make up."

I watch
as Anders' eyes light up with a smile. "You were good at that, making up
stories and characters, roles for us to play. You told me that Anders was a
stupid name, so you called me Max and decided that I was a world renowned
dragon slayer and violinist."

I swear
my heart stops beating when he says that. "You're fucking with me,
right?"

Anders
brow creases. "What? Evan, I..."

"No.
Max was my imaginary friend. I don't know how you found it out or what kind of
joke this is
or ...
" I trail off. My hands start
to shake and I'm near hysterics. The car is off, but the lights begin to
flicker and glow.

"Evan,
stop. I'm not making this up." His words tumble out in a rush and it takes
all of my willpower not to jump out of the car and run away. "We played
games and we had fun, you were the only bright spot in my life back then. And
then one day you came and you were so upset. I had to come and find you, and
you were sitting by the fountain in the front of the house. You were crying and
you looked like you hadn't slept in days. I tried to get you to tell me what
was wrong, but you just kept crying."

I
freeze. All the color drains from my face and my breath goes shallow. "I
remember," I whisper, turning my wide-eyed gaze to Anders. "Go
on."

He
takes a shaky breath. "Finally, you told me. You had been having these
nightmares and you were scared. You were so scared. I promised you that I would
protect you, that I wouldn't let anyone hurt you. Then your mom came and took
you away and I didn't see you again, not for a long time."

I close
my eyes and let the memories flood back to me. I don't remember the dreams so
much as I remember the feeling of terror that I lived with until my parents
took me to see doctor after doctor, each one prescribing some exercise to clear
my mind before bed or some new intensive therapy. Finally, they prescribed me
medication. It left me in a haze and that time period is still blurry to me. I
remember asking my mom when I would see Max again. She told me he wasn't real,
that he was imaginary and I needed to grow up and forget about him. So I did.

"Anders,
I went through a lot that year. I must have just blocked that whole summer out.
I'm sorry." I wipe the hot tears away with my palm. The idea is
unsettling, but it makes sense. What he says adds up with what I went through,
mostly.

"Don't
apologize, you have nothing to be sorry for. It's just...when you never came
back I was so worried about you. I thought maybe, you really had..."

He
pauses and rubs the back of his neck in a very
Lex
gesture.

"Anyway,"
he continues, "eventually I found out you were okay, but I never stopped
caring about you, wondering how you were. That's why, when I started officially
working for Magda, I jumped at the chance to be assigned to you."

I have
no idea what to say to that. On one hand, it's really sweet. On the other hand,
it's kind of creepy that he's harbored feelings for me after all this time.
Then again, hadn't
Lex
said almost the same thing? My
mind is buzzing with all the new information I've taken on today and I can't
manage to sort myself out.

I bite
down on my bottom lip and try to find the right words. "Anders, I know you
don't seem to like him very much, but I'm with
Lex
.
I..."

Anders
scoffs and shakes his head. "Evan, it's not like that. I just wanted to
protect you, like I promised. But I failed."

"You
haven't failed anything," I say shaking my head incredulously, "I'm
fine."

"No,"
he breathes, his voice barely above a whisper, "I was assigned to you and
your parents. I was supposed to guard you all, keep you safe. That night, I was
behind you. I saw the accident happen. By the time I got to your car, it was
too late for your parents, but I was able to pull you out. You were unconscious
when the paramedics got there. I left before you woke up. After that, Magda
gave me a leave of absence and I didn't see you again until the day by the
lake."

My
chest is so tight I can barely breathe. Tears are streaming down my face but I
can hardly feel them. In fact, my entire body is numb. He has it all wrong: I
remember waiting on the side of the road. I remember the rain and the flashing
lights and the blood. Metal on metal on pavement. The shrill buzz of Anders'
cellphone makes me jump.

"Shit,"
Anders curses, "I have to take this."

Without
waiting for a response from me, he opens the door and hops out of the car. I
watch as he paces back and forth, the crease in his brow deepening as he speaks
rapidly with whoever is on the other end. I wipe the remaining tears from my
cheeks and try to compose myself. After a few minutes Anders gets back in the
car.

"We're
going back," he says gruffly. I can see the line of communication between us
shut down completely.

"What?
Why?"

Anders
sighs and throws the car into drive. He makes a U-turn and we're on our way
back to Price.

"Anders,
what the fuck is going on?"

"Apparently,
your assistant never showed." Anders curses and hits the gas.

"God
dammit, slow down," I demand when Anders hits seventy. He eases off the
gas, but just barely. "What, did she miss her flight?"

"Uh,
no. She boarded the flight," Anders says through a clenched jaw. "But,
she either didn't make it to the airport or she took off."

"Took
off? Why would she do that?"

"I
don't know. Look, let's just get you back."

I try
to get more info about what's going on, but Anders shuts down any of my
attempts to question him. He takes call after call on a headset but most of it
is jargon I don't really understand and I quickly find myself just tuning him
out. When we finally get back to the estate I barely wait for the car to stop
before getting out. I need to get away from Anders so I can figure everything
out. Between him and
Lex
I'm completely overwhelmed.

"Evan,"
Anders calls after me as I pound up the steps.
I stop and
turn back to look at him.
"I'm sorry..."

"Look,"
I say holding out my hand to stop him. "I just need some time. We'll talk
later."

Without
a second glance I turn and run the rest of the way up the steps and into the
house, nearly smacking into Mattie in the process.

"
Woah
. In a hurry are we?" she asks with a smirk. When
she takes in my expression her smirk fades. "Evan, are you okay?"

I press
my eyes closed to stop the onset of tears. "I don't know."

"What's
wrong?" Mattie asks hesitantly placing her hand on my shoulder.

I can't
even begin to answer that question. All I want to do is go upstairs, lock
myself in my sitting room, and get lost in an endless stream of vinyl. That's what
I would have done, normally, but this recent series of events has me
reconsidering. Why relinquish when I can take control?

I take
a deep breath and numb myself to my worries. "Forget it. Mattie, do you
wanna
go shopping?"

An hour
later, we're elbow deep in racks of Price's overpriced finest. Mattie appears
to be in her element; for the first time since I met her, she actually looks
happy.

"I
didn't take you for such a
fashionista
," I
comment taking in her threadbare blue sweater and grey tweed skirt.

"Just
because I can't afford nice clothes, doesn't mean I don't have a taste for nice
clothes." She gives me a smirk and waltzes away with a stack of dresses in
her arms. I had promised her free reign on my, but really Magda's, credit card
and she's been all too happy to take me up on my offer.

As I
sift through a rack of fifties style full skirted dresses I feel some of my
tension melt away. It feels good, just to be out in the world doing something
normal instead of spending hours sorting through junk in people's basements or
wallowing in my room pondering the meaning of my existence.

I make
my own selections and head off to join Mattie in the dressing rooms. She's busy
trying on clothes at lightning speed and giving the sales lady a hard time,
sending her to get different colors and sizes. I find an empty room and go to
work trying on a slew of pinks and greens and pale blues. After about fifteen
minutes, I'm starting to get frustrated.