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Before I could break the new tension that had encased us, a loud bang sounded beyond the room, and Eve let out a sharp scream before clamping her hand over her mouth. She stared at me, terror in every line of her body.
“What was that?” she moved her hand to whisper.
“Nothing. They’re probably knocking shit over,” I lied.
It was a gunshot. Unmistakable. If they’d escalated to shooting someone, then shit was getting far too real. I could just imagine it. Start this stupid thing on a high, where you feel bulletproof, and come down to realize that you’d just shot someone, and the police were on their way. That made for desperate actions, and there was nothing more dangerous than desperation.
“It sounded like a gunshot,” Eve whispered, not taken in by my lies. Of course she wasn’t. Eve was a very smart girl. Effortlessly smart. Not only was she book smart, but street smart, too. She’d had to be, growing up where she did.
“It doesn’t matter. We’re safe here,” I intoned. “Sit down,” I told her and stepped away, moving closer to the door so I could hear what was happening outside. I slid down the wall and sat.
Eve shuffled along the wall, closer to me. “I don’t want to sit over there alone,” she muttered.
I noticed then that she was shaking. She was wearing shorts and flip-flops. While Maine was hot during the day in summer, at night the temperature dropped pretty dramatically.
When I failed to respond, she shuffled closer, until her arm pressed against mine.
“You’re cold. What the fuck were you wearing to leave the house?” I wondered, grabbing my discarded leather jacket and handing it to her.
“I didn’t ask for your jacket.” Her tone was acidic. Always so sensitive to criticism. “Anyway, I’m not cold.”
“You’re shaking,” I pointed out.
“I’m scared.” The admission seemed to leave her involuntarily, given the way she tensed up right after. She sighed. “I’m scared, and I don’t want to be alone over there. I’m not good at it.”
“What, being alone?”
“Yeah, being alone. I’ve been with another person my whole life. I hate being alone.”
Asher. I couldn’t even imagine being a twin and always having someone around.
“Well, lucky you. It’s worse to be good at being alone,” I muttered, leaning my head back on the tile behind us. “I’m a fucking expert.”
Silence fell at that confession. Why had I said that? She was hardly someone I wanted to spill my insecurities to.
“You’re never alone, though…You’re always with the other Ice Gods – at school, at practice, on the weekends.”
“When you grow up, Cinderella, you’ll realize. You can be alone anywhere, even surrounded by people.”
She was quiet for a moment and then nodded. “You’re right. I don’t understand. Is that why you were taking those pills?”
“We aren’t talking about this,” I ground out, anger instantly flooding me at the reminder of her betrayal.
“I just wondered. I can’t imagine being you and taking something like that?—”
“Why not? Why is it so hard to get?”
“Because you have everything. You live a charmed life…how could you want to escape it like that?”
I let out a hollow laugh. “Charmed? You don’t know me, Eve. You have no idea what kind of life I live.”
“Maybe not the details, but I know you have three square meals a day, and you never have to worry where they’ll come from. I know you have a roof over your head, and heat in the winter, and AC in the summer that you never have to worry will get shut off, or being evicted. I know you have a car, multiple cars, and never have to take the bus or walk late at night, and feel unsafe, or be followed home.”
“You were followed home?” I demanded, more anger flooding my system at the thought.
She ignored my words. “I know you’ve never been hurt and not been able to go to the hospital because you don’t have insurance.I know you’ve been abroad and seen amazing places…I don’t even have a passport. Should I keep going?”
Her words had stolen my rebuttal. Yeah, when she put it like that, I was quite the rich, privileged asshole. I already knew that about myself. It was only another thing to loathe.
