Page 103 of It's Always Been You
She sneers. “Would you stop trying to psychoanalyze everything I do?”
“Talk to me, Evie.” My voice shakes on her name. “Please. Tell me what you’re thinking. How you’re feeling. I know I’ve hurt you.”
Her lips tremble, and then her face crumbles. “Honestly, Brandon?” she wails, then pauses. Tears roll down her face, and I step toward her, aggrieved, but she raises her hand and backs up another step. Her back bumps up against the closet door, and she flinches.
I struggle to keep my distance while she cries.
It feels like an eternity before she speaks again. “Somehow,” she croaks eventually, wiping her hands down her face. She rubs her tear-soaked eyes with her fists. “The truth is so much worse than the lie I believed for so long.”
She collapses, as if her body can no longer support her weight. I catch her before she hits the ground, winding my arms tightly around her waist to support her. She resists me, pounding weakly against my chest. “I loved you!” she wails into my shoulder, and I hold her tighter, trembling as I fight the wave of emotion that crashes over me. It pulls me under its current, spinning me around, disorienting me with its intensity. “I took care of you,” she sobs. “I was there foryou through everything. I stuck by your side when no one else did. But you left me. You weren’t there when I needed you!Why?”
The truth of her words breaks me. I betrayed the only woman I’ve ever truly loved.
I will have to live with the consequences for the rest of my life.
“I’m sorry, so sorry,” I whisper into her hair, unsure what else to say. “I’m so sorry.”
She clutches fistfuls of my shirt in her hands, allowing me to support her as she struggles to breathe. I shush her frantically, stroking her hair, her arms, desperate to calm her down. “Why? What did I do?”
“Evie, Evie,” I choke out, the tears streaming down my face now. I struggle to support her as she wilts like a dying flower in my arms, overwhelmed by the weight of my own grief. We spill to the floor together, and I pull her onto my lap and begin rocking her, hoping it’ll soothe us both.
God, what have I done?
“You did nothing wrong, Evie,” I assure her, struggling to keep my composure. “Nothing at all. I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t want me,” she sobs quietly, drenching my shirt. “Why doesn’t anyone want me?”
“I want you,” I whisper. “I did, I do, and I always will, Evie. Always.”
Those words seem to soothe her. After a moment, she groans and reaches for my hand, squeezing it hard. “Oh, gosh. I’m sorry,” she gasps, hiding her face in my shirt.
Confused, I glance down. “What do you have to be sorry for?”
“I’m overreacting again,” she moans.
“You’re reacting perfectly reasonably,” I say. “Believe me.”
“I’m not. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m like this.”
“Please stop apologizing.”
Still clinging to me, she sighs and buries her face in my chest.
“You said this afternoon that you thought I manipulated you,” I say after a few minutes, when her breathing has evened out and I can tell she’s calmed down. “And that I used you, then tossed you aside.” Those words are now branded on my soul. They will leave a scar when the wound heals. “But it was nevermy intention to sleep with you, Evie.” I take a slow, steadying breath. I ask my patients to bare their souls to me daily, but when push comes to shove, I can’t seem to do the same—even when it matters most.
Evie squeezes my palm, telling me to take my time.
I can’t seem to find the right words, so I start with an image. “The morning after, when I woke up with you still lying there peacefully in my arms, drooling against my bare chest—the bitter reality of our situation dawned on me, Evie. You were only twenty-two. My best friend’s kid sister. And everyone knew how I was with women.”
She lifts her head to look at me, curious.
“Everyone knew that you’d had a crush on me since you were a kid. And I had only just given my life to Christ, and I was trying to change my ways, yes—but even still, I knew that no one would take our relationship seriously. They would have taken one passing glance at the situation and assumed I was taking advantage of you. Especially Jamie.”
Her brows draw together like she’d never considered that before. It gives me a small amount of hope that she might understand my perspective better, now that she’s willing to hear me out. But I know, deep down, that there will never be a sufficient enough reason or valid enough excuse to rationalize the way I betrayed her.
She deserved so much better.
She looks down, her expression unreadable as I go on.
