“It’s my mom,” Eve said. “She said we can’t go out anymore. She said we’re getting too serious.” This was a lie. Her mother loved that Eve was dating Nick Brady, thought that she was the luckiest girl in the world.
Her mother didn’t have much luck with her own love life. Pregnant at sixteen, married and pregnant again at eighteen, divorced at nineteen. Now bitter and alone, she didn’t have much positive to say about the opposite sex, except when it came to Nick. He’s a keeper, Eve, hold on to him, and don’t let go.
“Well, don’t listen to her,” Nick said angrily. “Let me talk to her. I can change her mind.”
“No.” Eve shook her head. “You won’t change her mind. I can’t see you anymore. I’m sorry.”
She moved toward the door. “She can’t do that,” Nick said, yanking her back by the arm.
Eve bit back a gasp of pain and the tears broke through and streamed hotly down her face.
“Eve,” Nick said pulling her to his chest and pressing his fingers deep into the small of her back. “Don’t worry. She can’t keep us away from each other. She can’t. I love you, Eve,” he said.
He sounded so sincere, so honest. For a brief moment, Eve kicked herself for telling him they couldn’t be together anymore. What were the chances that someone would love her as much as Nick? Slim to none, Eve thought. No, Eve scolded herself. Don’t back down now. A small mutter of frustration escaped from her lips.
“Don’t worry, we’ll change her mind,” Nick said, mistaking the sound as anger toward her mother. “I can be pretty persuasive. Let me drive you home.” Nick entwined his fingers through Eve’s. “I can talk to her. It will be okay.”
“No thanks,” Eve said, eager to leave the house. “She’s pretty mad. Maybe we can give it a few days until she calms down.” She just needed to get out the door. Nick kissed her one more time. Hard, desperate. Eve waited for Nick to break away first before pulling on her boots. She opened the door and stepped outside. The cold air felt good against her skin. The complicated part was over, Eve thought. She didn’t dare look back.
She couldn’t wait to get home even though her mother would be mad at her for being so late and would shake her head when Eve told her that things were over with Nick. Nick was too much. Everything about Nick was too much.
Eve moved through the streets of Grotto on autopilot, barely feeling the bite of cold on her cheeks. The bare tree branches swayed in the brittle wind and the shiny slick sidewalk gleamed like glass beneath the streetlights.
Eve knew blaming her mother for the breakup was the easy way out. Nick still thought she loved him and with that believed there was the chance Eve would disobey her mother so they could be together. She should have just told Nick the truth. That she was the one who wanted things to end, that when they were together she felt anxious and weak, like some smaller version of herself. But she could never say these words out loud. Look at tonight for instance. Why did she let Nick talk to her the way he did? Let him push her around? Why was she so weak?
Eve could just imagine how Nick would react to this. He would blink back at her with his gray-blue eyes, trying to work out what she was trying to say. But I love you, he would tell her as if that was all that mattered. Nick believed the world spun around him like he was the sun and everyone else were lesser planets. And, Eve guessed, for the most part that was the truth. But not anymore. She was done spinning.
Eve spent the first four blocks looking over her shoulder checking to see if Nick was creeping up behind her in his car but finally her limbs relaxed, her legs felt light, her arms swung easily. She began to sing softly to herself, a catchy one-hit wonder about common ground and that old movie with Audrey Hepburn or maybe it was Katharine, that she and Maggie made fun of, but right then, in that moment, it was perfect.
For the first time in a long time, Eve felt free. Hopeful.
The grumble of a car engine revving drowned out her song. Just keep walking, she told herself. Don’t turn around. The song fell silent on her lips. Nick always played this stupid game. Creep up behind her, rev the engine, make her jump, veer the car toward the sidewalk like he was going to run her over. All the while, laughing.
When Eve finally turned, Nick’s silhouette was outlined through the windshield and a familiar anxiety wrapped itself around her midsection, weighing her down. He lowered the passenger-side window. “Get in,” he beckoned, looking at Eve in that way that still made her stomach flip.
Why couldn’t this be easier? Eve wondered as she reached for the door handle. Why did goodbyes have to be so hard?
MAGGIE KENNEDY-O’KEEFE
Monday, June 15, 2020
It isn’t a surprise that Nola doesn’t stop when I try to pull her over. As she speeds past me my head fills with memories of the day that Eve died. Her mother was frantic when she came home and found that Eve wasn’t there. I had just gotten home from babysitting for the Harpers when Charlotte Knox came scurrying across the street wanting to know if I’d seen Eve. I told her I hadn’t, that I’d been babysitting all afternoon and evening. She tearfully asked me where I thought Eve could be and I ticked off all the usual haunts: Nick’s house, the library, some classmates’ homes.
Can you help Nola look for her? Charlotte asked. I looked to my dad who nodded and told us to stay together. Nola looked put out but ran inside her house and came out with two flashlights.
They still live next to my dad though I haven’t talked to Nola in years. I know what Nola’s like, but even so I want to get to her before I talk to her mother. Charlotte Knox has always been fragile and I want someone there with her when I tell her about the kids finding Eve’s boot, even if that someone has to be Nola.
As I drive through the streets of Grotto, images of Eve’s battered face pop into my head. For many years the only way to keep the memories at bay was alcohol. This worked only for so long. Today, I try to keep the happy ones front and center. Eve and me at thirteen exploring the maze of caves below our neighborhood at the bottom of the bluffs, talking and laughing and just being kids. It was all so innocent then. Nola lagging a few steps behind saying that she was going to tell on us the entire way.
Eve and me babysitting at the Harper house, their two young kids, Riley and Rebecca, running circles around us as we painted each other’s fingernails with Nola sitting all alone on the Knoxes’ front step. Mr. Harper, an attorney, and Mrs. Harper, a stay-at-home mom, didn’t like Nola hanging around their kids. No one did. I don’t want her in my house, Joyce Harper would say. When Nola was ten, Mrs. Harper found her outside holding Riley’s hand and heading toward the edge of the bluff behind the house.
She’s dangerous, I remember Mrs. Harper angrily telling my dad. If I hadn’t looked out the window and gotten to him, Riley would have gone right over. I swear to God she was going to walk him right off the ledge.