Page 10 of For Eva

“Seriously, where the fuck is my fucking purse?” I whipped around and began digging under the cushions on the secondhand sofa.

“Eva, would you please just—”

“No.” I groaned and pressed my hands against my temples. “I will not just do whatever it is you want me to do. I need to find my shit and leave.”

“And then what? I never see you again?”

I turned around slowly. He stood with his hands out to his sides and a blank look on his face, like he hadn’t considered the possibility that would happen.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” I asked, my voice matching my icy stare.

“Come on, Eva, I told you I—”

“Oh my God.” I threw my hands over my face as a scene from the night before flashed in my brain. “Did we even use acondom?Shit.I can’t even think about this.” I sucked in a breath and stomped across the room to the kitchen, almost tripping over my shoes on the way. I reached down and swiped them off the floor.

“I…You didn’t ask me to, so I thought…You’re, like, on the pill or something, right?”

“Yes, Danny, I am. I learned that lesson years ago, remember?” I shot him a look, this one steeped in even more animosity, before I opened the stove to see if my purse had somehow ended up in there since it sure as hell wasn’t anywhere else. “Although, I now probably have God only knows what kinds of diseases.”

“I don’thaveany diseases, Eva.” He paused. “At least I don’t think I do.”

“Oh, good, that’s very comforting.”

“Okay, look, if you just give me, like, five minutes—”

“No.”

“But I don’t understand why you can’t stay so we can talk about—”

“Because you broke my heart, Danny!” I threw my shoes to the ground, five and a half years of hurt, resentment, and betrayal erupting from the deepest parts of me.

I watched as he shrank back, my anger surprising him as much as it surprised me. “What?”

“My heart, you asshole.” I glared at him, my chest heaving. “You fucking broke it.”

“But I—”

“My mom wasn’t even dead a fucking year. My dad could barely speak to me. All I had wasyou.And you fucking lied to me, and you left.” I choked on my words and shifted my eyes away from him, attempting to swallow my emotions. I couldn’t believe I still had tears left to cry over him, but somehow, I did.

“I know, Eva,” he said, stepping toward me. “Iwasan asshole. But I cannot count the number of times I’ve wanted to tell you how sorry I am for what I did. I was eighteen and stupid and selfish and—”

“And what?” I snatched the receiver from the telephone on the kitchen counter and dialed Denise’s number.

“I was wrong, Eva. And seeing you again, just as fucking beautiful as you’ve always been, I know I fucked up. I fucked up big time, and I swear to fucking God, I would do anything to—”

“Don’t. Don’t say any more, Danny.” I stared down at my bare feet as the phone rang for the final time and the answering machine picked up.

My hand trembled as I placed the receiver back in its cradle, then glanced over to see him sitting on the edge of an old recliner across from the sofa with his head in his hands, hair threaded through his fingers.

I cleared my throat. “Look, um…if you’re really as sorry as you say you are, can you help me find my purse and drive me to Denise’s?”

Danny looked up. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

I nodded, then disappeared into the bedroom to see if my purse might have ended up there at some point during the night. Once I was sure he hadn’t followed me, I leaned against the wall and let out a tiny sigh of relief. For as much as it pained me to ask him for anything, I knew the sooner I left, the sooner I could pretend to forget about Danny Kincaid all over again.

“Okay, I’m gonna need more information here, Eva.” Denise handed me my coffee before settling into the chair across from where I was seated on the sofa. “But before you speak, may I sayonce again how sorry I am that I slept through your phone call, and I let you leave the bar without making sure you remembered my address? I should be in best friend jail.”

I pulled a pillow onto my lap, resting my mug on top. “You’re forgiven. Anyway, it’s my fault, I barely gave you a chance to tell me anything before I left. And I knew the name of the street. Just had to drive around the block a couple times to find it.”

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