We all settle at the big dining table. Each of our apartments has the same twelve-seat table, except Ransom. His seats double that. Holly produces a booster seat out of thin air, settles Mia at the head of the table, and we tuck into the food. Evie seems overwhelmed at the variety, focusing more on loading Mia’s plate than hers, so I slide her plate towards me and start adding things to it.
“Do you like…this?” I ask her, holding up a spoonful of beige pasty shit. It does not look appetizing.
She looks at my face and laughs. “Hummus? Yes, I love it.”
I add two scoops of it to her plate, and a bunch of the veggies, very aware of her eyes on me. When I’m satisfied she has a good selection of everything, I slide the plate in front of her.
“Eat,” I say, nudging it even closer, then grab my plate and add food until there’s a mountain.
“We ate not that long ago,” she whispers.
“Yeah. But I’m hungry again. Aren’t you?” This conversation feels loaded. It seems like such a simple thing, to eat when you’re hungry, but I don’t think things have been simple for Evie in a long time. It’s clear she’s not been eating enough. I peeked in her fridge while she was packing her room, and there was barely anything in there.
“I…yes. I am hungry.” She says, her hand on her throat.
“Then eat Evie, please.” Her eyes get glassy, but she nods and picks up her fork.
I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, but I can’t take my fucking eyes off her while she’s eating. Everything going in her mouth gets a sigh or a moan. Her eyelashes flutter, and at times, her eyes roll back in her head. It’s both fucking sexy as hell and yet makes me want to murder someone. The way she savors something as simple as a slice of apple tells me more about her life than she knows.
I watched my mom fill our plates with food, then not take any for herself. I watched her calculate everything that went into her grocery cart. I watched her put the fresh food back in favor of something cheaper and calorie-dense. Evie’s been making those same calculations.
“What?” she finally mutters, sick of my not-so-sneaky staring.
“No more, Evie,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper, but the stillness across the table tells me Holly and Micah are listening. “No more starving yourself so Mia can eat. You are a really great mom. I know you did what you had to do. But now, she needs you healthy. So eat the food, take the job, live in the apartment. Let us be your family, please.”
Her hands drop in her lap, and her eyes focus on Mia, who’s happily stuffing her face, casually dropping things she doesn’t like onto the floor.
Her eyes raise, meeting Holly’s. “I sometimes wish I never helped you.” She says, a tear sliding down her cheek. A matching tear slides down Holly’s.
“I used to sometimes wish I hadn’t left Brent.” Holly admits quietly. Our eyes all widen in shock. Why would a woman who left an abusive husband ever want to go back? Micah looks gutted.
Holly reaches out, twining her fingers with Micah’s, but keeps her eyes on Evie. “When I was with Brent, the only thing I had to worry about was him. In some of my…darker moments, laying in a bed in a woman’s shelter or while I was scraping together money for groceries, going back sometimes seemed like the lesser of two evils.”
Her lips wobble. “But I’m so glad I didn’t go back. I probably wouldn’t be alive today if I had. So you saying you wish you’d stayed out of it? I totally get that. I wasn’t there, so I can’t pretend that I fully understand the price you’ve had to pay for your kindness, but I can imagine.”
Reaching her other hand out, she waits patiently for Evie to take it. “Thank you. Thank you for helping me. It cost you so much. And now, well, my boyfriend’s stupid rich and loves me like crazy, so if I want to spend his money on you, I don’t think he’d have any objections.” She winks at Micah, but he’s not smiling. His eyes are blazing as he looks at Evie.
“She’s…my life…take it all.”
Watching Evie’s face, I see the moment she finally gets it. That we’re not coming from a place of pity, or amends. We are drawing her in because she gave us Holly. Gave my brother the best partner I could ever imagine for him. Gave him life.
“You’re already our family, Evie,” I say. “You’re the only one who hasn’t realized it.”
She pulls her hand from Holly’s, covering her eyes as her breath heaves. We wait in silent empathy while she cries. Minutes or hours later, she drops her hands, letting us see her ravaged face.
“Ok,” she says with a trembling smile. “But what do you mean, ’live in the apartment’? What apartment?”
7
EVIE
I’m overwhelmed. It’s good, but I need to find a quiet place and curl up so I can have a meltdown. My emotions are at an eleven, and I’m waffling between hope and dread. Hope that this could be the fresh start we need, and dread that it’s going to be the wrong move.
I’m holding it together though, as we pile back in the elevator. When Holly presses the button for the thirty-fourth floor, it clicks that Colt asked the Men in Black to take my stuff to thirty-four. I thought it was the name of an apartment building, or maybe a storage unit or something.
When the door opens again, I can’t seem to make my feet unstick from the floor. “I thought maybe I’d be staying with you for the weekend?”
Holly steps off, turning to smile at me. “We have a guest room and you are so welcome to stay there. But we thought you might like to get a taste of what living here would be like.”
