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“What? No smart remark? No comeback?” he taunts. My arms wrap around myself as I take a step toward the house. “You’re not the same girl I knew. The old Eve would’ve fought with me. She would’ve told me—”
“I’m the same girl I’ve always been,” I say. He lets out a humorless laugh, and I whirl back toward him.
“You used to have dreams, Eve!” he shouts, startling me at his sudden burst of emotion. “You used to take pictures. You used to fill your walls with places you wanted to go. Your map!” He throws his hand toward the house, his face red with his anger. “It’s fucking empty. Where are all the pins? Where’s all your adventures?”
“I still have dreams, but I grew up.” My hands flail, my anger rising with his. “Not all of us can just take off and do whatever the fuck we want, Roman.”
He ignores me, stepping into my space. “You never use your camera anymore. You spend all your time at the fucking church or at home, playing Susie fucking homemaker. You’re not a housewife, Eve. That’s not you. It’ll never be you.”
“Stop acting like you know me. You don’t!”
“I used to know you better than anyone. What happened to my Goldie?”
“I haven’t been your fucking Goldie in four years!” The shouted words shove themselves out my lips before I can stop them. But once they’re out, I’m glad they are.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
“You left!” I scream.
He throws his hand toward the tire swing, his eyes blazing. “You never came.”
You left.
My hands rest on my chest as I stare up at the dark ceiling, replaying the events from the day, the words she’d said—the words she’d screamed. The heavy truth of them that, instead of bringing me any closure, any peace, has only brought me more pain. More confusion.
You left.
I left, so she became this? A shell of the person I knew, nothing more than the sweet church girl she was forced to become. Everything that made Eve, Eve, has been stripped away. I’ve had fleeting glimpses of her old self since being back, but that’s all they’ve been, fleeting.
You left.
If I would’ve known this is who she would’ve become, maybe I would’ve tried harder to stay.
You left.
Yeah, I left. But she never came.
She never came.
High above, the moon casts its silver glow, reflecting off the rippling lake’s surface. Cicadas buzz loudly in the rainy night as I readjust my backpack on my shoulder, my other hand wrapped tightly around the coarse, damp rope of the tire swing for stability. The ancient oak shields me from my father’s potential gaze, but I can see inside. I can see her room.
Her dark room.
I left a note on her pillow telling her to meet me here, at our spot. To run away with me.
To choose me.
But with every second that passes without her coming down those steps, without her by my side, her answer is becoming clearer and clearer. She’s choosing Divinity over me. She’s choosing my father over me. She’s choosing to stay in her protective bubble, the one that’s shrouded in falsities.
Yet, hope still claws at my insides. She’ll come, a voice in my head reassures me. She’ll be here.
I shift again, feeling the trembling ache in my legs from hours of standing. Raindrops cascade through the leaves, pelting me, but I don't move. I keep watch of the house, waiting, silently praying to a god I don't even fucking believe in that she'll choose me.
That someone will choose me, just this once.
Each droplet of rain on the lake is a harsh reminder of her absence. And the longer this goes on, the more her absence is beginning to feel like betrayal.
All the words she’d told me, were they just lies? Pretty promises to string me along, to make me feel like she cared? Like I was worth something?
