Page 37 of Queen of Ruin

“And she’s the reason you needed the money.”

She stops walking but she doesn’t look at me, she just stares at the lake, and I regret bringing it up until she turns and looks at me. She’s full of layers, and I’m just now understanding what has been underneath all this time.

“Darren…” She lifts her arms as if she wants to protest but then lowers them.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Are you telling me you don’t already know?” she speculates, and that heavy feeling in my chest is back, pressing hard against my heart.

“I guess that’s fair,” I concede, “but it wasn’t personal.”

“It is personal – just not to you.” She shakes her head. “I was a college student who couldn’t keep my scholarship because I was too overwhelmed with personal shit at home and just trying to keep my head above water.” Her eyes swim with emotion, and I want more than anything to eviscerate whatever pain she had to go through because it tears me up inside, and I don’t care what that says about me.

“And then I met your father, and I just,” she pauses, looking at me as if she wants to make sure I can handle hearing this. “I just needed something more, something to hold onto.”

She wipes a tear from her cheek and turns away from me.

“My grandmother ran out of money, and I couldn’t afford to pay for her healthcare. I had an opportunity to make a lot of money, and I took it.”

“You make it sound like it was nothing.”

“It was not nothing, Darren, but I made peace with it a long time ago.”

The silence between us feels fragile, and not even the trees want to risk breaking it as the leaves rustle timidly among the branches. Evangeline shoves her hands back in her pockets, and continues to walk the path, as if signifying the conversation is closed. When I catch up, I touch her arm to stop her. She turns to me and the wind picks up, causing ripples in the once-stoic lake which mimic the changing shades of blue in her eyes as she stares back at me.

It’s the tightness in my chest and something deep and dark within my belly that whispers like calls to like, because Evangeline and I – dare I say it – are the same. Maybe I knew this all along. Maybe I knew it the minute she looked at me in the alley of the bar and that’s why I couldn’t let her walk away, just like I can’t let her walk away now.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Darren,” she glowers and walks away. I catch up, holding onto her arm to stop her again.

“I didn’t say it to anger you.”

“What do you want me to say? That it’s okay because you didn’t know that you took away my only means to help my grandmother?” She doesn’t know how much her words affect me; how much it eats away at me.

“There are a lot of things I wish I’d done differently.”

“You and me both,” she sighs.

“What was it about him?” I dare to ask.

“Darren,” she warns, and I can see the turmoil in her eyes.

There’s a part of me that’s desperate to know, and a part of me that should just let it go.

“You said you went to his lecture. What was it about him that stayed with you all this time?” I probe, because I’ve never been good at letting things lay. “I was his son, and I didn’t get that part of him – you did.”

Her expression softens as if she can tell how much this means to me.

“I need this Evan,” I plead.

She furrows her brows. “What if I can’t give you what you need?

“Trust me that whatever you tell me, I’ll make peace with it.”

15

WHAT DOES EMERSON HAVE TO DO WITH POLITICS?

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