Evelyn
I letKatie lead me back to her apartment, trying and failing to process it all.
Howdid it happen and why the hell was it happening to us—to me?
Wasn’t I already carrying on the weight of the world on my too-small shoulders? Couldn’t everyone see just how bogged down I was by all the pressure? That getting up every fucking day was a job I wasn’t sure I wanted to do, and I just wanted all of it to just stop?
Just fucking stop.
Please.
Katie moved us to their modest living room, and I could see there were blankets and pillows on the couch left where my brother had obviously slept the night before. I avoided the area as she gently pushed me down to the lone recliner next to the couch.
“Let me make you some hot tea, okay? You’re shaking.”
I wanted to tell her I wasn’t cold, that we were getting well into spring and it was a nice day outside.
I had been excited about the weather earlier, too, which felt silly now, given the situation I was in.
“Here,” Katie said softly, wrapping a throw blanket around my shoulders. “Try to calm down, okay? Let me just make that tea, and then we’ll talk.”
“Talk? What is there to talk about?” I asked, my voice emotionless.
I couldn’t let myself feel anything. At least, not now.
It was too much. All too much.
“Just hang on, okay?”
I nodded and watched, somewhat detachedly, as Katie made her way to the small kitchen and added some water to the kettle. She didn’t say anything as she stood in front of the sink, her posture tense while she waited for the water to boil.
The kettle’s whistling sounded loud in the apartment, and I pushed away my thoughts just as she was pouring water into two mugs, the steam billowing above them in swirls of white smoke. My gaze came in and out of focus and finally settled as she moved my way.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, taking one mug from her hand.
We didn’t say anything while we sipped the tea, her watching me with expressive brown eyes and me looking out the window.
Physically, Katie and I looked similar. With fair skin prone to freckles, dark brown hair and big brown eyes that looked too big for our small faces. She was only taller than me by a couple of inches, too.
We could have been sisters in another lifetime.
She certainly looked more like me than Emilia did.
I didn’t know her very well, but from what I did know, she could have done better than Liam.
She had been attending Harvard University when she met Liam, and I didn’t know if it was because of him or not, but not long afterward, she dropped out of school. Now, she worked part-time as a grocery store clerk in the same store as Liam, and it seemed to me her only aspiration in life was to become Mrs. Liam Merriweather, which was unfortunate, but it wasn’t my place to say otherwise.
I knew she grew up in an affluent home, and that her family disowned her when she dropped out of school and went to live with Liam.
She was always so put together, even when she was living in a run-down apartment like the one she was in, whereas I had felt so fucking lost lately. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with my life, even still, at the age of twenty-two.
I wondered what she would do in my situation, and whether I really wanted to take advice from someone who seemed to have made some really questionable life choices herself.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Do you know anyone who could part with fifty thousand dollars and not miss it?”
“Yes, my family. But they won’t do it. They don’t want anything to do with me.”