Page 39 of The Villain

“When I met Tera, she was backed into a fence by four girls ready to beat the shit out of her.”

“In juvie?” his eyes narrow as he clarifies.

“Yeah,” I look out the window at his car as my memory replays that day. “She was tiny. Trying to make friends while they threatened her. She cried while she was smiling, still trying to be kind even when it hurt. I never saw someone do that before. I wanted it to stop. So, I beat them up.”

“Of course,” he smirks and starts to relax back.

“It kept happening. The smile/cry while people treated her terribly. I couldn’t understand. I still don’t. Any time it started I beat the shit out of whoever was causing it so she would stop. Tera started following me around after a while. Nonstop talking. Endless questions. She never let up. If I tried to make it stop she would start crying and smiling. Saying I was cranky and she’d come back later. She imprinted on me.”

I’m still baffled about how she managed it. How did I go from seeing her as a girl desperately trying to find a friendly face to being that friendly face?

He chuckles. “She badgered you into friendship?”

“Yes,” I tell him flatly.

“And now you guys are inseparable?”

My eyes snap to him as my expression blanks out. The last year has proven to me that we aren’t. Our solid foundation got rocked and it hasn’t been fixed yet.

She has a life here. It doesn’t include me. It can’t and remain normal at the same time. Something that she’s always wanted and I couldn’t give. It’s why we separated. A mutual decision that ended up being tougher than I thought it would be.

She has a lot of friendly faces now. People who will see her smile/cry and do something about it. People who don’t need rules or bans to keep them normal. I can’t do that.

But I don’t want to let her leave my life completely. She’s the only one that ever looked at me and saw something worth knowing. As I am instead of how I’m expected to be. I still remember getting out of juvie to see her bouncing around as she waited for me. Her excitement to be around me again. It wasn’t fake either.

She taught me how to maintain a fairly normal lifestyle and rules to follow to keep me out of jail while remaining my version of normal. I don’t particularly care about jail but it seems to be a big deal to Tera. She thinks locking me up will make me worse instead of better.

She’s shown me ways to control what no one else deals with. The need for something more. The need to feel something and the willingness to get it however I can. We made rules. Bans. Games to keep it within the limits of normality.

Tera taught me what it was to actually care for something. Then someone. If not the emotion then to recognize a person’s need and give it to them whether they like it or not. My methods are unusual to most people but that’s because they live with fear. That’s an emotion I’ve never felt.

At the end of the day I want her to be happy. If for nothing else than to never see the smile/cry again. I’ll give her whatever keeps her happy. If that means repacking and getting the fuck out of here I can do it for her.

I just don’t know if the rules will continue to apply after.

I’m already having problems with them now that I’m focusing on Shade.

“I’m not sure anymore,” I mutter flatly.

“Evie?” He says my name with a lot of concern behind it. “What do you mean?”

I’ll figure it out on my own. He doesn’t need to worry about this. He needs to focus on him.

I jerk my chin towards the phone, “Do it.”

He looks like he wants to question me further. Instead, he gets to work trying to fix what’s broken in his world.

I hear the woosh of a text sent and then he sets the phone down in the middle of the table.

“What now?” He looks like he regrets it already.

“We wait.”

He’s starting to get more nervous as time passes in silence.

He startles when the phone starts ringing. We both stare at it. This emoji is a blue heart.

“Now you answer it,” I say slowly. He’s reaching to pick it up when I stand.

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