Page 77 of Until Tomorrow
I hated that I was a part of why Eva buried parts of herself—vital parts. That should’ve never happened. I should’ve protected those parts of her as much as I tried to protect the rest of her. And now that I knew, I wasn’t giving up. If Eva could embrace and encourage me exactly as I was, I would absolutely do the same for her.
Chapter 41
Eva
Hedidn’tlisten.Ofcourse, he didn’t.
Two days after our fight, a neatly wrapped package showed up at the condo while he was at work. It wasn’t unlike Logan to send me random presents. He always encouraged me to spend the money he made, but I always saw no need to do so. There’d been a time when we counted pennies to make things work, and that left an imprint on me. Even though we had money, I still budgeted and thought about where everything went. It only made sense to me.
Unfortunately, this gift didn’t sit the same. Inside the neatly packaged box was a stack of sketchbooks in varying sizes and an expensive set of charcoal and drawing pencils. Sitting on top of it all was a note in Logan’s handwriting.
Honey,
Once upon a time, our home was filled with your art—sketches, paintings, and whatnot—and your sketchbooks were everywhere. Not to mention the napkins, the notepads, the printer paper… the old menus. If it could be drawn on, you did.
Our home was full of your creative spirit. I haven’t forgotten that. And if I’m being honest, I miss your creative chaos. Our home was better for it.
Please know that I’m not saying you have to do anything. I know I upset you by talking about it, but I want you to know I support you. If you’re truly upset about them, I’ll return them. Just know, even if you don’t deem your talent “useful”, I believe in it. I believe in what you create. And I believe that the world is better with your art in it.
If you need a reminder of just how incredible your art is, go downstairs in our storage unit. I’ve saved everything you created for our old house.
I love you.
I closed the box and sighed, blinking back tears. Leave it to Logan and his sweet nature to make this all the more painful. I didn’t want art supplies.Maybe I didn’t want art supplies.
I just wanted answers. What was I supposed to do with myself? How the hell did you figure out your purpose? Not even at my age. Just in general. I felt so lost. And while his gift and letter were sweet, it didn’t help. It was just a reminder of all the things I used to be.
Which was apparently something Logan had kept over the years.
I chewed my lip as I debated going down there. On one hand, I needed to track down Rhett to give him his jacket back.But stalker work was needed because I had no idea where to find him.I really should’ve just given him my number when I gave him my name.
On the other hand, I wanted to crawl into a sad little hole with cereal and mope. I had list after list of all the possible things I wanted to do, but nothing seemed to… stick. School, job, new career, different school, book club—that last one was Elliot’s idea. I wanted to make friends and meet people, but who was I to these new people? What kind of person did I present myself as?
“Fuck it,” I muttered.
I was going downstairs.
Grabbing the keys we kept by the door, I marched my mopey ass straight to the elevator.
The basement had a storage unit for every condo in the building. There weren’t many, and the hallway was stupidly tiny. Logan and I had dozens of boxes locked up in ours—things that didn’t fit with the life we’d created.Like me.I sat in the hallway surrounded by open boxes, rifling through old pictures. Our wedding, our first apartment, our first house. Back when I had purple peek-a-boo hair and wore vintage rock t-shirts. Back when Logan wore out his clothes until they had holes, and I would sneak new clothes into his drawers. Elliot was in so much of what we had, but he hadn’t changed. No, he was the same sunshine puppy dog always. He’d nevercompromised a single thing about himself—not even when he made the move to Boston with us.
How? How did someone do that? Wasn’t that just a part of growing up?
Hadn’t Logan and I just grown up? Made the sacrifices and changes needed to be an adult?
But wasn’t Elliot an adult too?
I groaned and flopped back against the gate. Why did this have to be so hard? And confusing? And frustrating? And exhausting? So exhausting. I was exhausted. It was so easy to want to fall back into our routine—into the things we were comfortable with.No one said growing and figuring yourself out would be so difficult.
That phrase, ‘nothing worth having comes easy,’ popped into my head. What a load of crock. I wanted this to be easier. I wanted a neon sign with clear answers to guide me.
True to Logan’s words, there were boxes full of my art. How had I not known he’d saved all of this? There was everything from my actual paintings to the stupid sketches I did on napkins while we butchered cooking together.Why had he saved everything?
Emotion clogged my throat while I slowly went through everything. It was so much—so much of me shoved into a storage locker. How was this fair? The woman I was in all these memories wasn’t who I was now. Not even remotely.
And so I sat there, in the basement of our building, crying over old memories because what else was I supposed to do?
Somewhere amidst my tears, my phone vibrated. I shuffled through papers and tried to find out where the hell I put it in my mess.
