Page 86 of It's Always Been You
“What is it?” Still, she says nothing, and it makes me wonder if last night was a fluke. If she’s iced me out again. Only once we’ve entered the practice and are approaching the front desk do I try again. “Evie?”
She sighs. “Nothing, it’s just that MRIs sound terrifying,” she admits, pulling her diary from her bag. She lays it on the desk and grabs a pen as she sits down. I say nothing. Ever since I caught her journaling last week, she hasn’t tried to hide that she writes and scrolls through Pinterest during her downtime.
And I’m glad. It means she’s beginning to relax around me again. To trust me.
Last night is proof.
“I’ll be right there with you, if you want.”
She nods, and it sends a ripple of pleasant surprise through me, knowing she wants me there. I hesitate, then step forward and peer over her shoulder as she poises her pen. “What are you writing about today?” I wonder, too curious not to ask.
“It’s a diary, Brandon. That’s for me to know and you to not.”
“How long have you been journaling like this? You do it a lot.”
She hesitates, then blushes. “A while.”
“A while?”
“Since . . .” She shrugs and leans back, toeing the chair back and forth. “Since I was a teenager.”
My brows shoot up. “And how often do you write?”
“Every day, nearly.” She focuses on the way she’s twisting her pen around in her fingers. “It helps me process my thoughts and emotions.”
“Every day since you were a teenager?” I clarify, gobsmacked. She must have filled up hundreds of journals by now. I still need to do something about the one sitting in my car . . .
“For the most part. I’ve written pretty much every day since my stay in that psychiatric hospital”—her blush returns as she peeks up at me through her dark lashes—“when you and Dana brought me that journal—and Frederick. Remember?”
My mind is suddenly twenty miles away. All I can see is a thirteen-year-old Evie, sitting in the common room of the children’s psychiatric hospital, both of her wrists bandaged after a self-harm episode gone wrong. The memory of her, pale and small, staring absently at a silent television while Dana tried to hold a conversation with her—it’s a haunting image. I still don’t know whether she tried to take her life or not.
“Brandon?”
“Yes,” I whisper, coming back around. “I remember.”
“That was my first journal,” she says. “You said I might enjoy writing—that it could be a good way for me to process things that feel heavy. And it was.” She shrugs one shoulder. “I’ve been journaling ever since.”
My body feels heavy, so I sit down on the desk. I have no recollection of that conversation, but it sounds like something I might have suggested. I had no ideaI was the reason she started writing. And so religiously, by the sounds of it. I’m . . . shocked. And humbled. And a little heartbroken.
It’s only beginning to dawn on me just how important I was to Evie.
A fresh wave of guilt threatens to crush me under its unbearable weight. No wonder Evie has been so reluctant to let me back in. I didn’t just break her heart when I walked away from her—I broke herspirit.
“I mean, I wrote before then, too,” she rushes to add, concerned by my sudden silence. “Just not as much. And not about my feelings.”
That catches my attention. “What did you write about then?”
She shrugs and looks down. “Just little stories. Mostly on printer paper or flashcards—scraps of paper I could easily destroy or hide. I usually ripped them up and flushed them down the toilet.”
My chin jerks back. “What? Why would you do that?”
She purses her lips like she’s afraid she’s shared too much. But to my great surprise and delight, she keeps talking. “I didn’t write ‘appropriate’ things for someone my age. At least, not according to Francine.” A million questions spring to mind, and she must be able to tell because she laughs. “It was nothing crazy,” she adds quickly. “Just silly poems. Sometimes love stories.” Her eyes flick in my direction, then dart away again.
“Why would Francine consider that inappropriate?”
Another blush spreads up her neck, and this one looks more like a rash. “You wouldn’t get it.”
My brows lift. I’m a child and adolescent psychiatrist. There’s very little I haven’t seen or heard. “Try me.”
