Page 71 of Into These Eyes

Anika whips her head toward him. “Now you’re getting it, bro. Welcome to the family.” She shovels in a mouthful of ice cream, then bites her lip, apparently deep in thought. “Are you two sure you’re not related?” she asks, blinking at me as if it’s all so confusing. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Give it a rest, Ank,” I beg, knowing it’s pointless. She’ll milk this for all it’s worth.

“But, if you’re my sister, and he’s my brother, how can you not be related?”

“ Half brother. Half sister,” I remind her. But as I stare at the beautiful young woman beside me, I know to the core of my heart that she’s a whole, vibrant being who can’t be divided into a fraction. There’s nothing half about her.

She shakes her head. “No, I don’t like the sound of that. I’m not introducing either of you two as half of anything.”

“You won’t be introducing us full stop, since I’m going to kill you,” I joke so I don’t burst into tears at the fact she feels exactly the same way I do.

Her large round eyes glare at me. “Jamie Evans, are you threatening the life of a police officer?”

“I’m threatening the life of my … sister.”

She beams. “See, you can’t even say half sister, can you?”

I let out a defeated breath. “Fine! It doesn’t sound right, even in my head.”

Utterly pleased with herself, she wriggles further into the couch. “This’s gonna be soooo much fun. I mean, parties, right? Can you imagine the look on people’s faces when I mention my brother and sister are totally in love? What a conversation starter!”

Exhausted by a highly emotional day, and with another one coming, I finish cleaning my teeth, turn off the ensuite light and plonk on the edge of my mattress.

I wish with every bone in my body that Gavin was here, in my bed.

I know we made a promise, but I long to feel his arms around me, his body pressed against mine.

Two more nights, I remind myself.

A kaleidoscope of butterflies sweep through my stomach.

This rule Anika’s enforcing feels like it’s building up unrealistic expectations.

What if I’m a useless, terrible lover? I have nothing but a bad experience to go on.

This waiting is causing insecurities to surface.

Insecurities I wouldn’t have had time to think about if we’d been able to finish what we started the night we were interrupted.

Sighing, too anxious to sleep yet, I decide to read to help quiet my mind. Turning to the nightstand, I’m confronted with Gavin’s fifty-two letters. I know I shouldn’t. I know those letters won’t lull me to sleep.

But I can’t resist. Only two, I promise myself.

Wiggling the first and last letter free, I run my fingers over the first one he ever wrote. I hate the fact that I’m not the first to read them. They were supposed to be between me and Gavin. My father had no right to violate my privacy.

I scoff. At least he did one thing right. He could have burnt them all. Yet here they are, sixteen years too late, but here, nonetheless.

Dipping my thumb and forefinger into the envelope, I pull out a single sheet of paper folded in half.

And hesitate. The boy who wrote these is the man now trying to get some sleep in my spare bedroom.

Written in his first year of incarceration, there’s a good chance the words on these pages might hurt.

But he didn’t try to hide them or ask me not to read them.

Unfolding the sheet of paper, my gaze instantly drops to the bottom of the page.

Where a sketch of disembodied eyes stare at me.

My eyes.

The graphite pencil’s attention to every detail makes them unsettlingly real , almost mesmerising.

Even more unnerving, is the expression in those eyes. There’s no ambiguity whatsoever. I’m staring into the past, into the utter hatred that consumed me back then.

It appears those vile looks I lasered at him in court hadn’t gone unnoticed. They’d impacted him. I’m holding the proof.

He’d had seen me.

He’d understood me.

And he’d captured it with astounding precision.

Closing my eyes, I take myself back to those days in the courtroom, the days I spent spewing my hostility at a man who never deserved it. I imagine the reverse, if it were him looking at me like that. It hurts. I’d caused him so much pain without saying a single word.

I stay in that courtroom and try to remember how he’d looked at me. My stomach drops as I see him in that dock, staring at me. I’d forgotten how he took every opportunity he could to latch his eyes on me. Every time I turned my glare on him, he’d already been watching me.

Pleading. Desperate for me to see the truth no one believed.

Then I remember the only time he spoke in that courtroom. Directly to me.

I didn’t do this. I didn’t take her from you!

Determined not to cry, I swallow over the lump in my throat, and read.

Jamie,

I know you hate me. And I don't blame you. You believe what everyone does. But they're all wrong.

I did NOT kill your mother.

Whoever did it is still out there.

I'm scared and alone, and it’s hard to get my thoughts straight right now.

That night, my dad told me he was going to start a life with your mum. That hurt for reasons you can’t understand, but that just makes me human, not a killer.

There's so much you need to know, but I have to get my head straight. I'll keep writing to you. I'll tell you the truth, letter by letter.

But this one is about you and me.

You see, we're connected.

We're both victims of this crime.

And if your mother had lived, we would have met through our parents.

Instead, we've been introduced in a different way. A way that makes you hate me and a way that makes me desperate for you to see the truth.

However it was supposed to happen, we were meant to meet.

I can't get the way you looked at me out of my head. It’s right there, at the bottom of this page, a look I need to release through my fingers, or I think I'll go insane.

One day, I hope you'll look at me differently.

Gavin.

Tears flow over my cheeks as I set aside the paper so I don’t stain it with my tears.

That boy breaks my heart so hard, my chest literally aches.

And worst of all, if my father had given me these letters at the time, I would have torn them to shreds and flushed them down the toilet. I would never have believed a single word.

Fighting back sobs, I grab tissue after tissue, uselessly wiping my eyes and blowing my nose.

With shuddering breaths, I slip the last letter he wrote from its envelope.

And once again, I’m drawn straight to the bottom of the page where my eyes stare back at me. Only, they’re not quite my eyes.

They seem to be what Gavin imagined they might look like if I were happy.

He was close, but since he never once saw me happy, this sketch doesn’t have the accuracy he captured in my hateful expression.

Then I read his short letter.

Jamie,

As I’ve said many times before, I have no idea if you’re getting these letters, or if you’re reading them and ignoring them, or if you’re throwing them away unopened.

I think I’ve said all I can. And I can only presume you don’t believe me.

I won’t write to you again. I promise.

Gavin.

P.S.

Beneath the sketch of my inaccurate smiling eyes, he’s written …

The thought that one day I’ll get to look into your eyes and tell you the truth—and that you’ll hear me—helps me to keep working toward being someone you can believe in and trust. It helps me go on. You give me purpose.

Even back then, his soul was beautiful.

And his words devastate me. I bury my face in my pillow and let loose. To think that my hatred helped him survive, gave him something to stay alive for in the hope he could make me see the truth, rips at my soul.

This man. My God. This man.

As sobs wrench from my throat, a flash of memory comes to me.

Sitting across from him in that Restorative Justice meeting, he wanted to know if I got his letters.

When I’d told him no, something flickered in his eyes.

Later, he’d told me he’d been determined to make me hear the truth in that meeting, but when he’d seen the rawness of my pain, he’d done something else.

That must have killed him. All those years, hoping against hope that he’d finally be able to tell me what really happened, and he gave up that opportunity.

For me. He gave up his purpose for me. He’d wanted me to feel like I had closure by making me believe he’d finally taken responsibility for my mother’s death.

But what I hadn’t realised, was that he’d given up a piece of his soul to do it.

I’m not sure how long I cry, but at some point, a comforting hand rubs my back. Surprised, I turn to find Anika sitting on the bed beside me.

As I sit up, she hands me a crumpled wad of tissues. Thankful, I wipe my puffy face.

“What is it?” she asks in possibly the softest voice I’ve ever heard her use.

I shake my head and smile, indicating the open sheets of paper on the other side of the bed. “I only read two … they’re more than enough to confirm what an incredible man he is. Has always been.”

Plucking up his final letter, I hand it to her, calming down as I watch her read.

“Well, fuck,” she says, her own eyes shining. Then she looks down at the page again, her fingers delicately brushing over the eyes staring at us. “They’re like … Wow. I didn’t know he could draw.”

“Yeah, neither did I.”

Anika pulls me to my feet, gathers the letters and places them on the nightstand. Standing there, I watch as she takes my tear-soaked pillow and leans it against the wall, re-arranges the others on the bed, then pulls the covers back.

“Get in. You’re not sleeping alone tonight.”

Exhausted, I do as I’m told. Before I can say a word, she pulls the covers over me, snaps off the lamp and leaves, shutting the door behind her.

Figuring she’s gone to get her own pillow, I close my raw eyes and try to relax while I wait for her to return.

A few minutes later, the door opens and closes. Footfalls stride across the floorboards, then the mattress wobbles as she gets in and wriggles closer.