“What- What are you doing?” I ask. I try closing my eyes and opening them again, hoping that will make him disappear. This isn’t happening. There is no way this is happening.
“Listen, Scarlett, I know you’re probably confused, but you have to understand that-”
“You’re alive, Lucas. Like, you’re living and breathing right in front of me, of course I’m confused,” I say, tripping over my words as I take another scan of his body. Yep. He’s right in front of me. Alive. Not a corpse the police couldn’t find. He’s a real person with a beating heart and he’s talking to me.
“As long as no one sees you, you need to go back. I’ve been trying to keep a low profile,” he explains, glancing behind me. I just stare up at him, words failing me. He sighs, rolling his eyes. I need an explanation, but my brain still hasn’t fully processed what I’m seeing, so words are the last thing that can come out of my mouth right now. “Look, only certain people know that I’m alive and I shouldn't be here, but I had to see Gio. I can’t believe what happened to him. In hiding or not, he’s still my best friend.”
I nod, trying to understand him, but I’m still stuck on the part that he’salive.I went to his funeral. My dad cleared out his office. My mom lights a candle for him on every anniversary and his birthday. He wasgone.
But he’s not.
“Scarlett?”
“Yes,” I say, shaking my head a little to look at him better. “Yes. Okay. I’ll go back.”
He nods at me, and I turn back around, mumbling to myself because…What the fuck? There are so many people here, all of us packed in like sardines.
I doubt anyone saw him, but I did. Sometimes I notice the most peculiar of things and that just happened to be one of them. I get why he would run away, but I need to know who the few people are that know he’s alive and why they’ve been hiding it from the rest of the company.
When I get back to the burial area, I walk behind the girls, heading straight towards Evan, who’s standing with his dad behind a huge group of people. They’ve both got their hands in their pockets, staring at the ground, looking identical. I’m panting by the time I’m in front of them.
“Ev,” I say, gripping onto his arm so I don’t fall into him. He looks down to me, his eyes a little sad and tired.
“Yes, Angel?” he asks. His dad raises his eyebrows at the nickname and my gaze snags on him for a second. What is in the Branson genes? They both look so picture perfect.Not the time, Scarlett.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I whisper, glancing back at his dad nervously. He smiles that Branson smirk and I do a double take before looking over at Evan. He must notice the weirdness of me sort-of meeting his dad for the first time because he also looks at him.
“Go talk to your girlfriend, boy. Seems like it’s important,” his dad says, still smiling.
Evan rolls his eyes as he smoothly removes my hand from his arm only to thread his fingers through mine as we walk in the opposite direction. His touch is so firm, yet everything about him is so sweet. He squeezes my hand as we walk through the crowd of people.
“Why does your dad think I’m your girlfriend?” I ask curiously, looking up at him. But he’s not looking at me. He just starts to walk faster, tugging me along with him.
“Don't mind him,” he says easily. When we’re further away from the crowd, we stop at a large tree, and he pulls me behind it so we’re out of view. “What did you want to talk about?”
I’m suddenly so hyper-aware of his presence that I almost forget what I was meant to say. His black suit is doing nothing but aid these filthy thoughts I’ve had since he went down on me in the library. Neither is the slightly angry look on his face. I shake my head as if it will get rid of the thoughts. I only realise we’re still holding hands when he brushes his thumb against mine and it brings me back down to earth.
“Do you remember when I told you that Gio hasn’t been feeling himself since his wife died in a plane crash along with his friend?” He nods. “Well, he’s here.” I wait for his reaction. For what? I don’t know. He doesn’t say anything, but he swallows. Hard. “Did you hear what I said, Branson? My family friend just came back from thedeadand you’ve got nothing to say to that? Do you realise how fucking insane that is? And he’s just here…At my uncle's funeral.”
My mini ramble consists of more hand gestures than it does actual words. Evan just blinks at me. He slips his hand from mine, and I try to reach for it again, needing his warmth, but he doesn’t let me take it.
“Scarlett,” he says quietly. Once. He places his hands on my shoulders, his eyes dropping to the floor. I narrow my eyes, trying to figure out what’s going on. The tone of his voice feels like a weight has dropped onto my stomach.
“Why are you talking to me like that?” I ask, worry coating my tone. My heartbeat starts to pick up, but I don’t know why. He keeps his eyes on the ground, and I kneel down slightly, urging his head up. Even when he’s looking at me, he’s not reallythere.
“I already knew, Scar,” he says. I don’t understand the severity of his words, but I feel it in my stomach. It’s that feeling you get where you don’t know what’s wrong, but your body already knows. It’s like I just stepped off a rollercoaster. He swallows thickly, blinking up to the sky, his hands still gripping onto my shoulders. “My dad just told me and pointed him out to me. I was going to tell you after the funeral, but you saw him already.”
“Ev, what aren’t you telling me?” I ask. He finally looks at me, sighing. Those green eyes shimmer with something I can’t quite place. It’s something so far, yet so close that I don’t think I even want to go.
“My dad asked me to get involved with you to find out what was really happening. They wanted to be the first to find out before the scandal went public, but then Gio died and they realised that it wasn’t a good enough story to tell, so we ended up with nothing,” he explains. His face has gone pale, as if he’s forcing himself to tell me. Today has been weird enough. Each one of his words feel like daggers straight to my heart, but I tell myself to be strong.
“So, you used me?” I ask, my voice sounding foreign.
“You need to know that I didn’t want to hurt you, Angel. I would never let anything happen to you or let my dad say anything harmful about you or your family, no matter how bad it got.”
“That’s not what I asked,” I whisper, my chest heaving. I let out a shuddery exhale, trying to regulate my breathing. I need to stay calm. I can’t spiral out. I just need to understand.
“Yes, it looks like I used you to get what my dad wanted, but everything that happened with the project was pure coincidence. I didn’t plan that, I swear. As things started to get too real, I stopped doing it for them. I did it for us. Because I wanted to helpyoufind closure. Everything you told me was because you trusted me, and I kept it to myself.”
