Page 4 of All I Have Left

EVIE

M y friends are all assholes. I know, that’s a vague statement but it’s true.

Here’s why. I, Evie Brooks, am not a drinker.

Okay, I should rephrase that one. I shouldn’t be allowed to drink.

It’s the truth. I can’t handle booze to save my life.

Never have. It usually always ends in me doing something foolish or spending the night hovering over a toilet.

Or that one time in a holding cell down at the sheriff’s office.

My weakness? Frankie and Ethan. They enjoy testing my boundaries. It’s like a game for them, and me acting as a complete fool is entertaining to them.

Unfortunately, when I’m that drunk, I do what they want. And that would explain why my ass is getting ready to sing tonight in front of hundreds of people I’ve known my entire life. It’s the only way they could have convinced me.

After my morning shift at the coffee stand, Frankie and Ethan thought I might back out of tonight because I was worried about Shane, so they started handing over the beers at two o’clock this afternoon.

That isn’t even my biggest mistake of the day either. It was letting Frankie help me get dressed. Not only am I wearing heels, but the black dress she stuck me in barely covers my ass. I’m not even joking. I think I see my ass cheeks hanging out the back.

Frankie, oh sweet Francine, she makes me crazy most days, but I can’t live without her. She has an obsession with making me do things I don’t want to do, and her greatest pleasure in life is telling everyone how to live their life. And then saying, “But do what you want. I won’t judge you.”

She will. Don’t let her fool you.

She’s also the most caring, protective, fierce girl you will ever meet. Probably why she’s a nurse. She enjoys controlling people and taking care of them.

How we are friends is beyond my realm of understanding because of how different we both are.

I’m a little more southern, so to speak.

A simple and somber kind of girl, who wears flip-flops and cutoff jeans any chance I can.

I’m moody, easily annoyed, and the only men who are ever attracted to me are assholes.

I have the astonishing ability to attract any prick within a hundred-mile radius of anywhere I go.

Hello, Shane? Need I say any more? Didn’t think so.

“I don’t understand why I have to wear this, Francine,” I seethe. She knows I mean business when I use her full name.

“Because you need to look good on stage. You never know who might be in the crowd.” I take the last pair off and try to smack her with them. Doesn’t work. She holds another pair of heels in the air, dangling in front of my face. “How about these ones? Think you will kill yourself in them?”

“Probably.” I rip the heels from her hand. “And I hate you for making me do this.”

“You do not.” She bats her impossibly long eyelashes at me. “You love me. And Ethan is making you do this, not me. I’m simply making you look amazing.”

As I set the heels on the floor, my phone buzzes on the speaker next to me with a message from Shane.

Can we talk?

My stomach lurches at his words. “Can we talk?” I know what that means.

This is the part where he’s past the begging me to take him back and moving onto the threatening.

I’ll hear things like, if you don’t forgive me, your mom won’t have a job.

That’s the worst part about all of this.

My mom works for his dad. It wouldn’t be so bad if she hated the job, but she loves it and Mr. Larson pays her well for the work she does for them.

I flip the phone over without replying to him.

“Who was that?” Frankie digs through her makeup bag searching for eyeshadow.

Drawing in a breath, I down the remnants of my drink and force a blank expression. “Who do you think it was?”

Frankie rolls her eyes. “He’s a prick, Evie. You could do so much better.”

I haven’t been honest with Frankie. I haven’t been honest with anyone. Because if anyone knew, they’d kill Shane. I close my eyes, wishing the situation was different. “I know.”

Because of her hate for Shane, Frankie is constantly trying to set me up on dates. I can’t blame her on that one. If she was dating someone like him, I’d be doing the same thing.

Staring down at an abundance of concealers, eyeshadows, and mascaras, I think about what she said earlier. “Why are you doing this to me? I know everyone in this town. I don’t need to dress up for them.”

She blinks away an expression I don’t recognize. “Just relax and I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Smiling at me, she disappears for a moment, and then five minutes later, returns with a bottle of tequila, limes, and my mom’s salt shaker.

Now this is a plan I can work with! See what I mean? Once I start drinking, it’s all in.

We take a few shots and then it dawns on me what she said. Something threw me off at the way she said you never know who will be in the crowd. I can only think of one person I’d love to see right now. The same guy in that photograph I can’t bear to get rid of.

But that’s impossible. It couldn’t be him. He literally fell off the radar once he joined the military. Completely shut himself off from everyone.

She would have told me if it was him though. I think. At least I’d hope she would because she knows how I would feel about seeing Grayson Gomez again.

God, that name. It still sends a rush to my chest. It probably always will. Doesn’t even matter who says it. My heart is in my stomach every time.

By the way I describe him, and the way his parents talk about him, Grayson might seem like the perfect guy, but on the inside, he’s like every other guy with the same faults.

Like leaving me without saying goodbye. Just throwing that one out there.

I’m still bitter. He has a temper, not like Shane’s temper, but some things set him off.

He couldn’t make up his mind about what he wanted in life, always let me take the fall when we got in trouble because he knew I could talk my way out of it, and annoyed his older sisters to the point they tied him up in the basement when he was seven and told their mom he ran away.

But then there was the caring, seductive side that lured you in and wreaked havoc on your heart in turn.

He could draw you in with the slow southern smile and you were a goner for good.

Believe me, I was head over heels in love with that boy before I knew what hit me.

Not long after my dad went fucking crazy, we were four and moved from North Carolina to Pinckard, Alabama.

Grayson’s parents came over one afternoon to see if my mom needed anything, and the rest is history.

The Gomez family and us were inseparable from that point on, spending nearly every day at their house.

But Grayson and me, we spent every minute together.

He was the hot athletic boy next door, my protector from everyone and everything I had been terrified of, like lady bugs, and I was the shy, timid girl from a broken home looking for stability.

My bedroom window faced Grayson’s and at night, he or I would sneak out and climb into bed with each other.

Nothing happened, until we became teenagers, and the innocence of our nightly sleepovers became experimental.

He was my first everything, aside from kiss.

First person to touch my boob, first kiss with tongue.

First guy to stick his hand down my pants… . Virgin stealer, remember?

The first time I snuck in to his room, I couldn’t even get the window open.

I was that young. Maybe eight? I had a nightmare one night and couldn’t get my brother or mom up, so I went next door and tapped on his window.

He let me in, played the piano for me, and then waited for me to fall asleep before shutting off the lights.

He may have only been a child himself, but he was an amazing piano player and his voice was as smooth as velvet.

From then on, that became our nightly routine and continued until the day he left me.

Two weeks to the day from when he took my virginity and rode off like the little virginity thief that he was.

It was graduation night for Grayson, Ethan, and me. Everyone was at Josh’s parents’ lake house celebrating. I had taken my boyfriend at the time, Chris.

Yeah, Grayson stole my virginity, and technically—if we want to get detailed about things—I cheated on Chris with Grayson.

Chris and I, we were not serious by any means, but yes, we were dating, and went to prom together. Graduation night, I broke things off with Chris. My heart, my body, and my soul belonged to Grayson.

I never did tell Chris about the cheating.

The way I rationalized it, I was already breaking his heart, and the thought of rubbing it in his face that I’d slept with Grayson wasn’t my thing.

I liked Chris. I just wasn’t in love with him.

He took it better than I expected and we parted as friends.

He confessed that he’d felt the same way and had been seeing another girl from school too.

So I was off the hook about the cheating, felt good about it, and wanted to find Grayson and tell him. Only, he wasn’t there.

Looking around the room, I’d realized most of his belongings were gone. All that remained was his furniture and piano in the corner of the room along with his vast music collection. I looked around wondering what could have happened when I saw a note on the piano. Gently, I picked it up.

Evie, please read

With shaking hands, I slowly opened the note that changed my life. A note I still have under that photograph in my nightstand.

I’m so fucking sorry. I will miss you with all my heart. Please forgive me.

- Grayson

I must have read the note twenty times, but that was all it said. Immediately, I’d run to Frankie’s room. I don’t think she ever knew that I slept in Grayson’s room most nights so when I opened the door to her room, she jumped.

“Where is he, Frankie?” I asked before even getting the door opened all the way.

“Evie?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

“Where is he?” I cried, holding up the note. “Where the fuck is he? What happened?”

Frankie looked down as if she was going to cry. “Evie,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “He’s gone.”

Her hand reached up for me, but I shrugged her off. “What do you mean he’s gone? Where did he go?” My voice trembled as I tried to wrap my brain around the concept of my best friend leaving without saying anything to me .

“Grayson… he, uh, joined the military… the Army,” she mumbled. “He shipped out an hour ago.”

My heart burst into a million pieces. He left without telling me? But why? “What? Why didn’t he tell me?” I screeched back, instantly regretting how loud my voice was. I didn’t want to wake their parents. I covered my mouth for a moment and asked again, “Why? Why would he leave me?”

“He thought it would be too hard on hi—” She caught herself. “You. He thought it would be too hard on you.” More tears streamed down her face. Quickly she looked away from my horrified expression, focusing on her hands instead.

I crumbled to the floor beside her bed. Frankie caught me in her arms and held me all night as we both cried. I went over it and over it, wondering what I did wrong, what he did, all of it, and I never came to a conclusion.

I knew one thing, if I was going to have my heart broken by someone, I was glad it was Grayson Gomez. I still love him, even now. I always will.

Since that night, I ask about him a lot. Frankie says he’s fine but doesn’t give me any details. It sucks. It just fucking sucks to love someone so completely that when they leave, your heart goes with them.

I’m blank.

Empty.

Unloveable.

I don’t even recognize who I am now. The one who covers up black eyes to avoid telling her family she’s in trouble. That girl, she’s so lost I’m not sure she knows where the lies end and her truth needs to begin.

Frankie sighs, drawing my attention back to her.

I’m standing in front of my mirror, staring at myself.

“You look perfect.” Reaching around me, she takes her bag in her hand.

“I’ll meet you in a couple hours.” She points her finger in my face.

“And you better be wearing this dress. If you change, I will never talk to you again. ”

“Must run in the family then,” I mumble as she’s leaving.

Have I mentioned I’m a feisty drunk? Thought so.

Literally seconds after she leaves, Shane calls me. It’s like clockwork with him.

Sliding my finger across the screen, I sigh and stare at myself in the mirror again. “Shane, you have to stop calling me so much.”

He’s quiet for a moment and then sighs. But this time there’s humor in it. There’s a three-second pause before he says, “Ya gonna stop me?”

“How is this going to convince me to take you back? It’s only proving to me that you can’t give me space.” My whole body begins to shake as I close my eyes and try to remember not to poke the bear.

“I’ve given you space.” His tone takes on a desperate pleading. “Fuck, Evie. I don’t know what to do to make it better. I’ve given you time, and you still won’t listen to how goddamn sorry I am. Nothing I do is ever enough for you.”

Because there are parts of me that no one can fill. Not even you.

I breathe out a shaky breath, tears burning. “I’m going to be late,” I mumble, yanking on the hem of the dress. It’s no use.

“Yeah, okay.” The line goes dead.

Shane… he has reasons for the way he is.

An abusive personality isn’t something that happens biologically.

It’s a learned behavior. I’m not saying it’s justified, but it’s impossible not to see that his behavior is a direct response of his childhood.

I’ve heard the rumors, the boy from Montgomery whose mom killed herself in front of him.

But that does not give him a reason to hurt me.

Wiping the tears from my eyes, I look at the mirror.

Who is this girl?