If Shaun were still alive, she would have at least had him. Deep down, she even thought that might be why he’d chosen her in the first place. That the answer to why me, why now was simply that she’d still be in school when he graduated. They might even graduate together, if he kept missing class. Then he’d never be alone.
Evie sighed. She looked at the drop below the broken fire escape to the second-floor landing, and through the rusted slats there to the scrubby grass below. Tomorrow, she’d tell her mom everything. Not just about the baby, but about Shaun too. The truth. Not Shaun the Invincible—the real truth. The one no one knew.
Evie swallowed at the lump in her chest, remembering Réal yesterday. His sweetness, his perfect lips, her hand in his, warm and secure. The word love out loud…
If he was serious about being there for her now, he’d hear the real story too.
She had no idea how he’d take it. How many times had he told her he and Shaun were like brothers? Grown up together, lives entwined, as good as blood, et cetera. Ré loved Shaun. They all did. He was the sun they had all spun around.
But that night, he’d been the other Shaun. The one that only she knew. Pushy. He was so pushy, always laughing at her when she pushed back, making her feel small. Aw, come on, always. It was just so much easier to let him crash over her.
Like that night, after the lake. Drunk, driving home. Her lip swollen and hot. He’d followed her up the attic stairs, lifting her clothes when all she’d wanted was to go to sleep, mad and alone.
“Shaun, stop it,” she’d said. “You’re drunk.”
“Don’t be so frigid.” He’d laughed, not stopping.
Should she have bothered saying please? Did please work on freight trains?
She’d let him undress her, let him breathe and sweat. Because he wasn’t always like that. He was nice, mostly. Not the monster you imagine boys who don’t hear no to be. He was still Shaun, even when he hurt and when he wouldn’t listen. It was all so confusing, she hadn’t known how to feel, even though it had all felt wrong somehow.
Evie blinked tears from her eyes, staring out at the field where he was found.
Where should she have drawn that line, exactly? When did it stop being okay for him to always get what he wanted? He was her boyfriend, not some stranger climbing in the window. They’d had sex plenty of times, and it had mostly been nice, his face nuzzled into her neck, his heart beating fast against hers.
Just…sometimes it hadn’t been like that. Sometimes he hadn’t cared if she’d wanted it or not, and then it had felt like their whole relationship was just for him. Like she was hardly even there at all.
Inside her backpack her phone buzzed. Evie sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She dug her phone out and read the screen. Hey. You home?
Butterflies flew out from under her ribs. She looked across the field. Réal’s place was that way, just over the tracks and trees.
She typed back At the Grains.
There was no dot, dot, dot indicating a reply.
R
At the Grains.
He lay on his bed, head propped on a bent arm as he stared at the phone in his hand, thinking, What in hell is she doing over there? He rolled and stood up, pulled his jean jacket from the back of his bedroom door.
Instead of replying, he went out to the Buick, a large paper bag tucked under his arm. He dropped it on the passenger seat, pulling the door closed behind him, then dialed Evie’s number and put the phone to his ear.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he echoed. He cleared his throat. “Are you busy right now?”
“Not really.” Her voice sounded heavy.
“Could I maybe come see you?” he asked, tapping his thumb on the steering wheel, hoping for a yes. There was a long silence, and he pictured that dreamy, other-planet look in her eyes, like his words had to leave orbit just to reach her.
“Okay,” she finally said. “I’m in the storehouse. Third floor.”
He shivered at the thought of that awful hole in the wall. “’Kay, don’t move,” he said. “I’m coming to you.”
It was not even a five-minute drive. He parked on the street and jumped the rickety fence, leaving the paper bag in the car. He came up under the hole in the storehouse wall and looked for her. She leaned out and smiled. He blinked and smiled back. He pulled the broken board from the ground-floor window and climbed in, taking the stairs two at a time to where she was.
“Hey.” His voice bounced off the rotten walls.
She sat cross-legged, leaning on the empty doorframe, looking like a rail rat, all scraped up and dirty, her clothes covered with grime. “Hi, Ré,” she said, hair falling away from her tipped-up face.
“Why are you so damn close to that thing?” he said, jutting his chin at the gap in the wall. He crouched a few feet back from it. He wasn’t a fan of heights, but he’d been Shaun’s friend long enough to get used to them. She answered with a shrug. Maybe she was used to them too.
He looked around at the filthy floors, empty bottles smashed everywhere, fist-sized holes in the walls. He didn’t like this place. It was dark. He hadn’t been near it since that night, since the arc light. He didn’t want to see the field below.
“So,” he said, “remember when I asked if I could cook something at your place?”
She smiled, and he could tell she was sort of laughing behind it, but he didn’t care. “Of course I remember,” she said.
He jerked his thumb back the way he’d come. “It’s in my car,” he told her. “I
