Page 41 of Until Tomorrow (Love Doesn’t Cure All: The Ashwood Duet #1)

Eva

He didn’t listen. Of course, he didn’t.

Two days after our fight, a neatly wrapped package showed up at the condo while he was at work.

It wasn’t unlike Logan to send me random presents.

He always encouraged me to spend the money he made, but I always saw no need to do so.

There’d been a time when we counted pennies to make things work, and that left an imprint on me.

Even though we had money, I still budgeted and thought about where everything went. It only made sense to me.

Unfortunately, this gift didn’t sit the same. Inside the neatly packaged box was a stack of sketchbooks in varying sizes and an expensive set of charcoal and drawing pencils. Sitting on top of it all was a note in Logan’s handwriting.

Honey,

Once upon a time, our home was filled with your art—sketches, paintings, and whatnot—and your sketchbooks were everywhere. Not to mention the napkins, the notepads, the printer paper… the old menus. If it could be drawn on, you did.

Our home was full of your creative spirit. I haven’t forgotten that. And if I’m being honest, I miss your creative chaos. Our home was better for it.

Please know that I’m not saying you have to do anything.

I know I upset you by talking about it, but I want you to know I suppor t you.

If you’re truly upset about them, I’ll return them.

Just know, even if you don’t deem your talent “useful”, I believe in it.

I believe in what you create. And I believe that the world is better with your art in it.

If you need a reminder of just how incredible your art is, go downstairs in our storage unit. I’ve saved everything you created for our old house.

I love you.

I c losed the box and sighed, blinking back tears. Leave it to Logan and his sweet nature to make this all the more painful. I didn’t want art supplies. Maybe I didn’t want art supplies.

I just wanted answers. What was I supposed to do with myself? How the hell did you figure out your purpose? Not even at my age. Just in general. I felt so lost. And while his gift and letter were sweet, it didn’t help. It was just a reminder of all the things I used to be.

Which was apparently something Logan had kept over the years.

I chewed my lip as I debated going down there. On one hand, I needed to track down Rhett to give him his jacket back. But stalker work was needed because I had no idea where to find him. I really should’ve just given him my number when I gave him my name.

On the other hand, I wanted to crawl into a sad little hole with cereal and mope.

I had list after list of all the possible things I wanted to do, but nothing seemed to…

stick. School, job, new career, different school, book club—that last one was Elliot’s idea.

I wanted to make friends and meet people, but who was I to these new people?

What kind of person did I present myself as?

“Fuck it,” I muttered.

I was going downstairs.

Grabbing the keys we kept by the door, I marched my mopey ass straight to the elevator.

The basement had a storage unit for every condo in the building.

There weren’t many, and the hallway was stupidly tiny.

Logan and I had dozens of boxes locked up in ours—things that didn’t fit with the life we’d created.

Like me. I sat in the hallway surrounded by open boxes, rifling through old pictures.

Our wedding, our first apartment, our first house.

Back when I had purple peek-a-boo hair and wore vintage rock t-shirts.

Back when Logan wore out his clothes until they had holes, and I would sneak new clothes into his drawers.

Elliot was in so much of what we had, but he hadn’t changed.

No, he was the same sunshine puppy dog always.

He’d never compromised a single thing about himself—not even when he made the move to Boston with us.

How? How did someone do that? Wasn’t that just a part of growing up?

Hadn’t Logan and I just grown up? Made the sacrifices and changes needed to be an adult?

But wasn’t Elliot an adult too?

I groaned and flopped back against the gate.

Why did this have to be so hard? And confusing?

And frustrating? And exhausting? So exhausting.

I was exhausted. It was so easy to want to fall back into our routine—into the things we were comfortable with.

No one said growing and figuring yourself out would be so difficult.

That phrase, ‘ nothing worth having comes easy, ’ popped into my head. What a load of crock. I wanted this to be easier. I wanted a neon sign with clear answers to guide me.

True to Logan’s words, there were boxes full of my art. How had I not known he’d saved all of this? There was everything from my actual paintings to the stupid sketches I did on napkins while we butchered cooking together. Why had he saved everything?

Emotion clogged my throat while I slowly went through everything. It was so much—so much of me shoved into a storage locker. How was this fair? The woman I was in all these memories wasn’t who I was now. Not even remotely.

And so I sat there, in the basement of our building, crying over old memories because what else was I supposed to do?

Somewhere amidst my tears, my phone vibrated. I shuffled through papers and tried to find out where the hell I put it in my mess.

ELLIOT : Do you know how sad it is that I show up to visit my favorite feisty diva and she’s not here?

I debated letting him think I wasn’t home and just ignoring him. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to join me. But it was Elliot. If I couldn’t have a royal meltdown with Elliot, who could I have one with?

I’m in the basement.

ELLIOT : Are we murdering people down there? Hiding bodies? What am I walking into if I go down there?

I debated lying to make something up—maybe send him running in the other direction. But who was I kidding? It was Elliot. The weirder it was, the more it’d draw him in.

I don’t know.

ELLIOT : Are you okay?

I don’t know.

ELLIOT : Elliot to the rescue! Here I come… once I figure out where the hell your basement is…

Elevator down, take a left, then a right.

I stared around me helplessly as I waited for him to show up.

“The ease with which you could murder someone down here is astounding.” Elliot’s ridiculous commentary announced his arrival long before I saw him. “No cameras, low lighting, and so many storage units to hide bodies. It’s even stupidly cold down here to slow decay. It’s disturbing really.”

Swiveling on the floor, I stared up at him pathetically. Every ounce of humor disappeared from his face when he saw the tears.

“What’s going on, short stuff?” he asked gently. I said nothing as I watched him shuffle boxes around to sit next to me. “Talk to me, Eva.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out as I broke down crying again. Elliot was quick with the save, scooting closer to wrap his arms around me. He stroked my hair as I buried my face in his neck for comfort.

“This whole adulting thing is hard, isn’t it?” he whispered.

“ How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Never lose yourself in everything,” I elaborated. “You’re always so sure of yourself. You’re always just… Elliot.”

“That’s because I never gave a fuck what anyone but you and Logan thought of me,” he said. “Within reason, obviously. I can’t have my boss knowing I practice my future stripper routine on the poles at the firehouse.”

I snorted and shook my head.

“But at the end of the day, I am who I am,” Elliot replied. “You can take me or leave me. The people who are going to love me will do so because I’m exactly who I am. They don’t need a censored, dumbed-down version of me. I am enough just like this. You two taught me that.”

“We did?” I frowned. When had we taught him that?

“Yeah. Through all my bullshit in life—being gay in a small town, almost failing out of high school, becoming a firefighter, my book shit—you two have never wavered. You just roll with it and keep supporting me. You’ve made me realize that shit is a standard relationship thing—any kind of real relationship.

If you can’t take me as I am, you don’t deserve me. ”

“Oh.”

“Tell me what’s bothering you, Evie. Please?” he asked. “I’m awful at this guessing game thing. It’s like… did you murder someone? I could see you murdering someone.”

“I think I murdered my younger self,” I admitted. I pulled away from him and wiped my face with my sleeve. The smudges of mascara on the edge of the fabric didn’t bode well for what I looked like.

“Ouch,” he replied. “That was darker than I expected. Is that why you’ve got all this stuff out?”

“I…” And I had to tailor this whole thing so he didn’t know about Rhett.

“Logan found some doodles I did on a napkin recently, and… he got excited about them. More than I did. And he sent me art supplies and told me the world needs my art, but I don’t see it that way. I outgrew my art because… because…”

“Because it doesn’t fit with the rich magazine lifestyle you two made for yourselves?” he finished for me, leveling me with a look that told me exactly how he felt about the whole thing.

“Something like that,” I muttered. “People expect certain… appearances and behaviors.”

“ Most of the people Logan works with are stuffy asshats who wouldn’t recognize real talent if it hit them in their Botox-filled faces,” Elliot retorted. “Why do you care what they think about your home or your hobbies anyway?”

“Because…” I faltered.

“Because why?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know, okay?” I exclaimed.

“They’re his coworkers! This is his career.

I see how they look at me, like I’m not enough for him.

Like he can do better. The talk of designers and new skin treatments and diet pills…

it’s always there. News flash, Julia! I like my hips the way they are! ”