And not as late.
On autopilot, I rap on the door. A drowning pulse radiating in my ears. Barking sounds echo in the distance, I cringe as I realize that the whole house is now going to be up. I don’t have to wait long before the door opens and Xavier is at the door. Eyes squinting as he looks over at me, and I can see the moment he realizes it’s me at the door.
“Evie? What are you doing here?” He asks, looking at his watch to see it’s eleven o’clock at night and here I am standing on their doorsteps. “Does Harps know you’re coming?”
I open my mouth to say something but nothing comes out. Instead I inhale a breath, and I feel like I can’t get enough air. I take another quick breath, and it’s still not enough. My chest feels like it’s constricting, and squeezing out everything in my lungs and I can’t fill it back up. My lips quiver and I look at Xavier in a panic.
“Harper!” He yells over his shoulder and in the next moment he’s by my side. His arm around my shoulder and he’s ushering me into the house. Then the next thing that registers is that I’m in their living room with my head between my knees and a comforting hand on my back as I take in deep lungfuls of air.
A cold wet nose nudges my calf and when I open my eyes I see Winston laying down with his head between my feet looking up at me with concern. His head snaps towards the footsteps that grow closer, then the pressure of a hand on my back registers as it moves up and down my spine.
Harper whispers to me to take some deep breaths, and focus on the surroundings. She guides me through the grounding exercise she has used when she would have panic attacks. She asks me to list five things I can see, four things I can hear, three things I can taste, two things I smell, and one thing I can touch. By the time we reach one, I feel my breathing evening out, things don’t seem as all-consuming as they did when I first arrived.
I can get through this, and with Harper here right now, I know that the next steps won’t be as scary.
“What’s going on babes?” Harper asks me softly, letting the question hang in the silence, waiting for me to answer. This is something I would always do to her, hit her with the silence until she breaks. Which she normally does, but tonight she’s holding strong. I kind of hate that she’s pulling my trick on me, but I know I’ll break. I won’t be able to keep this to myself, not after last time.
My chest begins to constrict as the grief of last time begins to consume me once again. The grief still comes, but it’s been farther in between those moments. When it does appear I feel like I’m being told the news all over again, and my heart shatters.
“I’m pregnant.” I breathe out, the weight of holding this to myself lifts a little. “I don’t know how far along I am, or anything. I just took a test this afternoon.”
“Do Monty and Josie know?” She asks me, and I just shake my head in answer.
“I can’t tell them. They don’t want this with me.” I tell her, licking my lips, the saltiness registers on my tongue as I realize I’m crying. I quickly wipe away the tears and sniff before I can continue, “This isn’t anything they signed up for, and the sooner I separate myself from the delusion that this could be a thing, the easier it will be.”
“Evie, you don’t know this isn’t something they would want.” Harper begins.
“You can’t tell me for certain that it is either.” I snap back at her. “I’m sorry, Harps, but you don’t. I can’t sit here and think that everything will work out when that’s never been in the cards for me. I came to terms with this a long time ago.”
“Terms with what Evie?” She asks, encouraging me to continue.
“I came to terms that a happily ever after wouldn’t be in my cards.” Saying it out loud for the first time causes a fresh new wave of tears to fall, “I don’t deserve to have the happy ending, when all I’m good at is screwing things up and making everything more complicated. They don’t deserve to get the looks from strangers and the whispered words as I walk around town with them. They’ll probably say that I seduced poor Monty to stray with the whole nanny bit. That it was my plan the whole time to lead him away and get him to leave his family.”
“Evie…” Harper stops, but I throw my hand up to silence her.
“You can’t tell me anything to convince me otherwise Harps. That’s exactly what will be said, and their parents will hate me, the boys will hate me.” I gasp in another deep breath and try to blow it out slowly, but instead it stutters out.
“Okay, okay– let’s take this one step at a time then. Do they know you’re here?” Harper asks.
I shake my head, “No, I waited until the boys were in bed and I told them that I had a migraine and I just wanted to go lay down alone. Then I ordered an uber and waited for it to come get me.”
Harper fills her cheeks with air and slowly blows it out, as she takes in all the information that I just dropped. “You need to tell them you left, Evie.”
“No. Nope. I can’t, not right now. You can’t tell them either, and Xavier either. Where is he?” I look around and see he’s nowhere to be found.
“Xavier!” I shout, and a few seconds later he comes rushing into the room.
“What’s wrong?” He asks, coming over and sitting on the other side of Harper but his focus is on me.
Not in a creepy way, but in that caring way that he has when it comes to people he or Harper care for. It’s something I appreciate a lot more than I thought.
“You can’t tell Monty and Josie I’m here. I need space, and if they know where I am then they’ll come over here and want to talk. I can’t talk to them right now, and I can’t tell you why right now. I’m sorry but I can’t, and I’m sorry that by saying that I’m making Harper keep something from you.” I keep eye contact with him so he can see how serious I am right now. “Just, please don’t tell them. Not until I’m ready to talk to them, okay?”
We sit there in a stare off for what feels like an eternity before he nods his head. “Okay. I don’t know why you don’t want them to know where you are, but I’m not going to force you to do something you aren’t ready for. You can sleep in the guest room tonight and we can talk more in the morning.”
I nod my head, fresh tears starting to form as relief rushes through me. “Thank you.” I whisper, and he nods his head and then kisses Harper on her temple before he gets up saying he’s going to put fresh sheets on the bed. Leaving us alone, and allowing me to finally let everything that’s happened over the past twelve hours wash over me, and the dams fully break. An ugly sob escapes me, as Harper jumps to my side and holds me while I let everything out.
Chapter Forty
