Page 84 of When Fate Breaks
She deserves so much better.
“Well, okay. See you then,” she says with a wave, turning to head out of the backyard gate and to her truck in the driveway.
I turn to follow after her, then hear Remy’s voice again behind my back. “Too bad you're only here one more day, bud.” I ignore him, not turning back as I follow after Evangeline. He waits until the exact moment that the gate closes behind her and he and I are the only two people left in the backyard to finish his thought. “So sad you can’t take your little trophy with you.” I freeze as I reach the gate, my hand shaking as it grips the handle. “Don’t worry, I’ll takerealgood care of it.” I can sense him right behind me, his whispers coming out like hisses. “Shine her up real nice every night and keep her right on my shelf for the rest of her life. Exactly where she belongs.”
I yank the gate open so hard that one of the hinges snaps. Remy comes up at my side. “Tsk tsk tsk, that just won’t do,” Remy drawls. “Mind fixing that up for us before you leave, yard boy?”
If looks could kill, the one that I give him has to come pretty damn close. It’s unsuccessful, however, Remy just chuckling as he claps me on the shoulder once more. I turn my head to see Evangeline watching us thoughtfully through the windshield from where she’s sitting in the front seat of her truck.
“See ya, bud!” Remy calls over his shoulder, faking niceties. He blows a kiss in Evangeline’s direction before hopping into his own truck and pulling out of the driveway.
I pull the half dangling gate closed, grinding my teeth the whole way until I reach the passenger door, climbing up and closing myself in the truck cab with Evangeline. As if she can sense my lack of desire to talk, Evangeline pulls out of the driveway without a word. It’s not until she’s made it onto the highway heading towards Montgomery that she finally speaks.
“Blake?”
“Evangeline.”
“Are you okay?” she questions, her eyes flicking from the road to me.
When I don’t answer instantly, she shakes her head. “Nevermind. Can I ask a different question?”
“You don’t need to ask–”
“Permission,” she cuts me off. “Right, yeah. Sorry.” She lets out a sigh. “What were you and Remy talking about?”
“Sports,” I reply evenly, turning to look out the window. I’m not going to outright say to her that her fiancé is an asshole. She knows. I know she does. She’s the smartest woman I’ve ever met. And telling a smart woman what she already knows has never gotten anyone anywhere in life. Besides, I know words have never gotten through to Evangeline anyways. She needs action. And I intend to show her what she’s missing for every last second until my time here is up. Though it makes me sick to my stomach to even fathom the idea, some action obviously led her to choosing Remy to spend her life with. I just need to figure out what that possibly could have been.
“What did he say to you?” Another moment of silence goes by while I process how best to respond, but Evangeline beats me to it, continuing. “I thought…I thought I heard him say something about your dad again.”
I sit up straight in my seat, my head falling back against the headrest and turning to look at her.Of course, of all the shit he said in that conversation,thatwould be the thing she picks up on.
“Did he?” she pushes.
I look at her thoughtfully as her eyes shift between me and the road. There’s no sense in lying to her. I know that.
“He did.”
Evangeline’s lips purse tightly as she blows out a shaky breath, her cheeks pinkening. “Goddammit. I’m sorry, Blake.” My eyes stay trained on her, watching as the pinkness in her freckled cheeks works its way in patches down to her neck. “Blake, he– He doesn’t know,” she whispers, her head shaking.
“Whatdoeshe know about me?” I ask.
Her eyes stray from the road a few seconds longer than they probably should have, meeting mine. “You haven’t exactly been a topic of conversation.”
“In five years?” I question.
Evangeline takes several long seconds to answer. “Is it really that hard to believe?”
Yeah, yeah it is.
“He knows we’re old friends. And that we have a lot of history between us,” she continues. “I mean, that’s the truth. Isn’t it?”
“I guess it depends if you consider an omission of truth to be a lie.”
She flinches in her seat, turning to gape at me. “I’m not lying. What else is there to tell?”
I can tell by the way her voice cracked at the end of her question that she doesn’t even believe herself. I blow a deep breath out of my nose, letting my eyes fall shut. I don’t want to fight with her. This isn’t the way. When I open my eyes, I see hers are glassy, shining extra golden in the sunlight coming in through the windshield. When her gaze meets mine, I let my lips pull up at the side. “It’s your life, Evangeline,” I say. “It always has been.”
Her lips part, but she doesn’t say anything more, focusing solely on the road until we park and walk into the convention center.
