Page 17 of Sweet T

Evan stirred the melting butter into his grits and then stirred his eggs in as well, mixing everything together. “This will do for now. I’m starving. I can’t remember when I ate last.”

“But you remember your name. So, you don’t have amnesia.”

Evan took a bite and, even though it was typical hospital food, the mixture wasn’t completely without taste. It needed salt badly, though. “I remembered my name because you said it. Until then, I’m not so sure. Once you said it, though, things came back to me.”

“I got it from your driver’s license.” Tucker nodded to Evan’s wallet on the nightstand. “That’s all you had on you.”

“What about my bag? My phone?”

“I didn’t see either.”

Evan’s eyes grew large. What little color had returned to his face drained.

“Relax. Maybe it’s at the tavern and got lost in the shuffle.” Tucker took his own phone from his pocket and began texting. “I’ll ask Shelly if she remembers seeing it. It was dark and raining. You keep eating.”

Evan did as told, though he was clearly preoccupied now.

“Let me tell you what I know,” Tucker said. “Last night around eleven-thirty, some friends of mine found you in the parking lot. You were hurt, near unconscious. We called an ambulance, and they brought you here. My friends left once we knew you were gonna be OK, but I stayed. I took the liberty of going through your wallet to find out who you are. I hope that’s OK.”

Evan nodded.

“I don’t think you were ever inside my bar before that. I would have remembered you. But if someone at the bar did this to you, I want to know who.”

Evan set his fork down. He’d eaten a little more than half of what Juanita had brought him, but his appetite was slipping away. “I don’t think you know the guy. This didn’t happen at a tavern. It happened on the road. Some guy named Rick.”

Evan saw a brief flash of what might have been anger in Tucker’s eyes before they returned to the comforting brown ones he was used to.

“Rick?”

“Yeah. I don’t know or remember his last name. I was hitchhiking on I-20. He picked me up. We stopped and—” he trailed off, unsure if he should tell Tucker the details of what else happened. “He beat me up. Left me on the side of the road.”

“There’s no way you made it from I-20 to my bar in your condition.”

“We weren’t on the interstate when it happened. He-he said he knew a place where we could... fool around.”

Evan watched Tucker’s reaction. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for, but Tucker was his only tether to the world at the moment and, even though they hardly knew each other, he was profoundly afraid of losing him.

“Did this guy rape you, too?”

Evan shook his head. “No.”

“Did they... Did the doctors do a—what do you call it?”

“A rape kit? No. I came to during the examination and refused.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because I didn’t want to go through it. Besides, I told you it was—” he struggled for the word.

“Consensual?” Tucker said.

“Yeah. He was nice enough to give me a ride in the storm. Not bad looking. I thought it was the least I could do.”

Tucker’s face went hard again.

“Please don’t think less of me.”

“Why would I think less of you?”

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