The Struggle (The Things We Can't Change Book 2) (8 page)

“I may not be able to afford to have seventy of them in my house, but I can read a clock, thanks,” I snap, and snatch the bottle of water out of her hand. I unscrew the top and begin to chug, now even more annoyed because I
am
thirsty. I watch her expression change out of the corner of my eye, go from wariness to annoyance.

Her eyes narrow slightly, and her hands seem to go instinctively onto her hips. “What’s
your
problem?” she demands, and this is the most… most
attitude
I’ve seen from her in a while.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I reply sarcastically. “Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve got to spend my whole summer shoveling dirt for a family who can afford to
pay
to have that done without even noticing the money is gone.”

“I’m sorry, would you rather be in juvie?” she snaps. “You know, we could have just let them send you away.”

“Maybe you should have!” I shoot back, tossing the rake down on the ground. “I never asked you to step in!”

“Fine! Next time I see you getting into trouble, I’ll let them haul your ass to jail!” Evie says, and we’re both half-shouting, faces getting red.

“Good! Stay the hell away from me and out of my life!” With that parting shot, I stalk away, not bothering to put away the rake or go through the house. I take the long way around the enormous house, shaking my head and muttering to myself the entire way.

Evangeline

31

I watch Zeke leave, anger making me tremble.
Boys!
I hadn’t wanted to make a big deal about what Dad and I had done for him, because I knew he definitely wouldn’t see it as any kind of favor. And yet the fact of the matter is, he
would
be in jail if we hadn’t stepped in. He would have been sent away. I wasn’t expecting a thank you or anything, but outright hostility seems a little over the top.

He finally turns around the corner of my house and is out of sight, and in a rare flash of anger, I kick the rake he left on the ground. I want to dislike Zeke. I want to push him out of my mind or ignore him. But neither of us can deny the fact that our lives are entwined, probably will be for a long time. He saved me, something he probably, well, not
regrets
doing, but regrets all the consequences that came from it. And I bear the guilt of Cindy’s accident on my shoulders, am responsible for Tony going berserk that day. These two incidents have made us irrevocably intertwined in each other’s lives, and I think we’re both resenting the fact that we can’t shake them.

I’m not sure why I feel this connection to him, why I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind, why I feel safe around him. The confusing thing is that it’s the opposite of with my dad; with my father, I know he won’t hurt me. I know he wants nothing more than for me to heal, and that he’ll die before allowing me to be hurt again. But with Zeke, I can see it. I can see that he has darkness in him. There’s an edge to him that he makes no effort to hide, and yet I feel safe with him anyway. He could flip a switch, do an about face just like Tony did, and yet I’m still drawn to him.

I should be terrified of him. Even before I dragged him into my mess, he had a rough reputation, pushing everyone away, doing graffiti, and there were already rumors that he was a love ‘em and leave ‘em type with girls. But his draw is… hypnotic to me. He enters a room and I want to stay there, just so I can get that feeling of safety. Yes, I see the darkness in Zeke, and somehow it doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t scare me. I don’t know why he seems to keep rescuing me, either. Maybe our whole problem is that we can each sense the darkness in each other, and it’s enough alike, similar enough and dark enough that it makes us feel some kind of connection.

It comes to me in a flash, and I gasp, frozen for a moment in the backyard. I stay stock still, unable to believe it as the words flow through my brain. Then I turn and sprint up to the house and into my makeshift office, one of the spare bedrooms we never use. I collapse into my chair, my momentum causing the wheels to skid halfway across the room. I scrabble my feet to get back to my desk, grab a piece of paper and then have to hunt frantically for a pen.

And then finally, at long last, words are pouring out of me.

I don’t care if it’s random, half a thought, just a short musing. I am writing again and it feels as though a noose around my neck has been loosened, the chain holding me back growing longer by a few links.

We all have darkness inside of us. Some of us go our whole lives without discovering it, tapping into it, exploring it. We remain blissfully innocent and unaware of it. Some of us are able to find it, usually by accident, and we fight our battle with it, face it at every turn and defeat it. Some of us seek it out for just that purpose, because we’re strong enough to acknowledge it willingly, and know we can emerge victorious.

But some of us are consumed by it. We can’t shake it. We find it and it swallows us, pulls us in like quicksand and there’s no hope for escape. It turns us into someone we don’t recognize, makes us sink to depths we didn’t realize we were capable of.

And still others get it pulled out of them by someone else. Someone forces them to face their darkness before they are ready, and then leaves them to fight the battle alone.

My darkness was pulled out of me, and now I am drowning in it.

It’s winning. I don’t know how to stop it.

It’s dark and depressing and yet it’s still
me
. It’s how I feel, its expression, and I know that is a good thing. It’s the first I’ve written, actually been able to put down on paper since Tony… hurt me that night, and I don’t care what it is; I just know it’s good enough to go on my blog, and I can’t wait to put it up there.

I turn on my computer and jiggle my foot as I wait for it to boot up, desperately wishing it would go faster. Finally, I pull up the internet and log in and I’m typing into my blog so fast that it takes me twice as long to type it up, I have to keep correcting my typo’s. Finally, it’s typed up and formatted, and my finger is poised above the
Publish
button when all of the sudden, I freeze.

Tony wouldn’t like this.

The thought goes through me in a flash, making me go hot, and then icy cold.
I don’t care about Tony,
I tell myself.
His opinion doesn’t matter. He has no control over me anymore, over what I do or say or write.

I’m still hesitating, though. I tell myself to click the mouse. Command my finger to do it, but it refuses, my body and mind not communicating properly.

Tony is lying in a hospital, unconscious, because of you. Is the best way to honor him, to make your peace with him, to be publishing blog posts about how his darkness consumed him?

Damn my conscience. That’s the root of the issue, that this is about Tony just as much as it’s about Zeke and me. The message is flashing through my head once again, his desperate words, the stupid fucking message that I can’t delete off my phone. I can’t stop listening to it, hate the guilt that fills me when I think about it, think of what I drove Tony to do.

Just publish it! Do it! Defy him, Evie! He can’t touch you!

I’m trembling, shaking now. I watch my index finger shake wildly over the mouse, poised to click.
Do it. DO IT!
Rage courses through me, anger at Tony for still having this hold over me. How is that even possible? What the hell did he do to me that I can’t shake him? Why do I still care what he thinks, still have the mindset that I have to answer to him?

I told Dr. Gottlieb that all I wanted, the choices I made, were to defy him even though he wasn’t here, and it was true. But I didn’t tell her that every time I did it, actually went through with it, I suffered for days with guilt, with anger that I still cared what he thought, just like with the nail polish.

And now this. Caring about
hurting
Tony, hurting his feelings, dishonoring him with this stupid post he will never see, when
he
is the one who broke
me
, snapped me right in half and made me—still has me believing—that I can never be put back together the same way I was before.

I can’t do it. I can’t fucking make myself do it. Because the darkness inside me isn’t mine; it’s consumed me, Tony has brought it to the surface and he uses it to control me, even though he’s a thread away from being dead, can’t even speak or open his eyes.

I wish I could rant and rail at him, scream at him to let me go. And then I realize… I can.

I push up and out of my chair, almost as quickly and sharply as when I had run in there in the first place. I grab my purse and very nearly tumble down the stairs, only to be caught by my dad.

“Hey there, sweet pea, where are you going?” he asks.

I can’t tell him, can barely form a coherent thought because I’m so mad and yet so filled with guilt, two such opposite emotions and yet for me they’ll always run together, hand in hand.

“I have to go do something,” I finally manage to say. “It’s, it’s important, Dad. I just need to be by myself for a little while. I’ll call you. Can we go into the office tomorrow? Please? I’m sorry, I just-”

“It’s fine,” he says, interrupting me, an understanding look crossing his face. This isn’t the first time I’ve inexplicably felt the need to get out of the house, to just try and escape everything. My destination this time, however, is very different. Still, my dad knows that sometimes I need to run, try and run away from my problems. He usually lets me, because eventually they always catch up, and when they do, I run yet again – to him. “Go ahead. Just keep me posted.”

“Thanks,” I breathe, and then I’m out the door and running flat out to my car.

I don’t give a thought to nervousness as I start the car and am off down the driveway, pulling out onto Riverside Drive just a little bit too quickly. It seems to take forever to get there. I feel like I hit every red light, get stuck behind every single person who isn’t quite going the speed limit. The world seems to be fighting me, trying to keep me away. I should let it. I shouldn’t do this. But I have to. I can’t seem to stop torturing myself, know I need to do it and just face the guilt, embrace it. I also want to see if it helps. If it makes anything different.

Finally, I’m pulling into the hospital garage and parking. I shouldn’t be here. I know that I shouldn’t, for reasons other than my emotional health, or more accurately, lack thereof. But I seem to be in a trance as I walk into the hospital, inquire for the room number and hold my breath as they look up the name and give it to me without argument.

Then I’m slowly walking to the elevator bank, watch with detachment as my hand reaches out to hit the button for the sixth floor. Somehow, I have the presence of mind to be discreet, to check and make sure there is no one else in the room or nearby before I enter. I stand frozen in the doorway for a few long moments, battling with myself, wanting to run but knowing I’m not going to.

My right foot suddenly lifts and is crossing the threshold, and I’m in the room. I take slow, careful steps toward the bed, until I’m standing right next to it and looking down at Tony. He’s lying still as death, but he just looks like he’s sleeping. Sleeping, as I always feel I am. I wonder if this is what I look like when I float away, if it’s some kind of mini-coma or something.

There’s a new gauntness to Tony’s face, reminding me of Zeke’s hallow cheeks. Tony has lost weight because he’s being fed through tubes, blissfully unaware of all the trauma he’s caused. The pain and devastation that he just gets to sleep through, while we’re all trying to live through it. I feel a flash of hatred and anger that he gets to avoid all of it, has it so easy, but they are tired emotions that quickly fade away.

I glance up at all the monitors giving soft beeps in slow, steady rhythms; heartbeat, lungs, brain waves. They don’t know when or if he will ever wake up. Something about hitting his head and his brain swelling, and waiting to see if it will recede enough for him to wake up. I don’t fully understand it and I don’t want to. I have enough guilt without Tony actually dying, and in a horrible kind of way, this is better than either alternative; having Tony alive and well and still in my life, or having his death on my conscience.

That doesn’t erase the guilt, though. Guilt over the fact that he did this because of me, and that I am responsible for the chance of him dying, responsible for Cindy dying. It’s no wonder Zeke hates me. It’s all my fault. A tear slides down my cheek, but it’s for Cindy, not Tony. I hadn’t even
known
her, she’d had nothing to do with any of this, and yet she was the one that had died. It isn’t fair. I stare down at Tony, clench my fists together because I wish I could strike him, and I know that is beyond ridiculous.

“I hate you,” I say through clenched teeth, tears still spilling slowly down my cheeks. “I hate you, I hate everything you’ve done, everything you’ve made me do. I hate what you’ve turned me into. I hate that I don’t want you to die, and I hate that I don’t want you to live.”

It’s all true. I don’t have that awful pull toward him anymore. I can clearly see what he’s done and how much damage he did to me, now that I’ve had to live without him for almost two months. I’ve learned that I can still live without Tony at my side, but I also know that I’m not
living.
I still feel dead inside, still think of him with every thought and action, still think of his opinion, even when I’m trying to defy him. I hate that I feel the need to defy him, when he’s lying here and can’t touch me, can’t lay a hand on me.