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“And you’re just as pretty.”
I chew on the corner of my lip for a moment, trying to hide my reaction. “Knock it off or I’m leaving.”
“No you won’t.” She side-eyes me this time. “Not with her here.”
“Stop talking to me.” Pushing her hands away from me, I glance around to see who I know. I notice Kelly, my oldest sister weaving through the crowd. She spots me as well, greeting me with a huge smile and a wave. Kelly and me, we rarely get along. Let me rephrase that. Wenevergot along. Kelly, she’s different.Okay, I’ll just say it. She’s a bitch. Beautiful and she knows it, which makes her one pretentious pain in the ass most of the time. Regardless, she’s my sister and I love her. My parents call her the female version of me. I will not agree with that comparison at all. It’s so rude of them. They’re basically calling me a bitch.
Kelly makes her way over to me, yanking Josh with her. That’s when I hear the opening notes of a Miranda Lambert song I’ve heard before.
I look up to the stage and my heart stops. Evie steps from the shadows and moves toward the microphone. Her focus is locked on something in the distance.
From here, she looks different. Older, more mature, yet, the same small-town innocent girl I remember. My memory of her doesn’t do her justice. I want to stop time right then and drown myself in every detail about her that I’d missed for so long, knowing, fucking believing, she’s the only one who got me through the last couple of years. When I didn’t have the strength to get off my knees, it was this girl I stood for.
Motionless on stage, Evie bites down on her bottom lip, the shake of her hands visible even from where I’m at. My heartbeat rages in my ears.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Frankie glances over at me to see my reaction. Apparently pleased with her handiwork, she hugs me closer. “She’s going to be so excited to see you,” she whispers in my ear.
Yeah, right.
“Hey, dude.” Josh draws me into a hug, swinging me around like a rag doll.
Josh Kurtis is Kelly’s boyfriend. They’ve been dating since high school and I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t around. They left after high school, went to college together in Arizona and graduated last year. From what Frankie told me earlier, he got a good job with an engineering company and they bought a house together in Birmingham.
I don’t say anything but attempt to untangle myself from him and not throw up. Dizziness takes over and I find it hard to stand for a minute.
He smiles and picks me up again. It’s painful. It hurts every part of my body to be touched, let alone picked up and hauled around, but I don’t make any outright notion to the pain I’m in. Collapsed lungs, ruptured spleen, broken bones, all that shit heals with time but emotional damage, that’s not easy. It creates a void in your acceptance to receive affection.
“Put him down.” Kelly slaps Josh’s shoulder, probably noticing how white I am. “It’s my turn to hug him.”
Fuck, really? What’s with everyone and wanting to maul me?
Kelly and I hug briefly, but it’s thankfully a quick reunion, small talk made with no questions asked.
Behind us, I hear whistles, most of them coming from a man standing in the corner next to the stage. Both Josh and I turn to see who it is. I recognize him from high school but can’t think of his name.
Sean… Scott… oh, who cares.
“Fucking jackass,” Josh mumbles, twisting around so his back is to him.
Kelly peers over Josh’s shoulder to see who he’s talking about, shaking her head in disgust. “That’s putting it lightly.”
The guy’s propped against the fence, a bottle hidden behind a paper bag and a cigarette dangling from his lips. What gets me is the predatory way he’s watching Evie. I’m furious that he’s looking at her like that. I know I have no claim over her, but still, she’s mine. She’s been always mine.
Just as I’m contemplating walking over to him, and maybe kicking the shit out of him for good measure, Evie begins to sing. And fuck if I’m not completely captivated by her every move. The way her eyes close and her delicate lips moving around the words. The way her body sways to the music. The way her hair blows softly in the night air, all of it holds me there, as if I’d never left her.
I can sense her pain as she sings about wanting just the memory of a time when life made sense. Tears surface in her eyes, but I can’t tell if it’s from the stage lights or maybe sadness.
Is the sadness because of me?
You fucking know it’s because of you, dipshit. How can it not be?
How much have I hurt her? What if she doesn’t want anything to do with me now? Her sadness feels like something more though, something else entirely. Deeper.
When she finishes the song, I’m instantly yanked to the side by Frankie.
“Wait here,” she orders, patting my chest with her hand and then runs to tackle Evie before she gets down the steps.