Page 8 of Until Tomorrow (Love Doesn’t Cure All: The Ashwood Duet #1)

Eva

“I stole you Fruit Loops from the station house,” Elliot announced when I opened the door. “And I don’t know what’s more disturbing about that sentence: the fact that we even had them or that I stole them.”

“Both.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “Hi.”

“What do you want, Eli?” I asked with a sigh.

“I was coming to check on you, but from the look of you,” he gestured to all of me, “it’s obvious how well you’re doing.”

I glared up at his ridiculously tall self. Elliot was six-four, but that made him over a foot taller than me. The height difference meant I had to practically crane my head to make eye contact.

“Don’t give me that look, short stuff,” Elliot continued. “You haven’t showered in a few days at least, you have make-up smudged on your face, you’re wearing his clothes, and who knows how many cereal boxes I’m about to find when you let me in.”

“Who says I’m letting you in?” I grumped.

“My never-ending charm for one,” he teased. “But you look like you could use a friend, Eva.”

“Did he tell you everything?” I asked quietly. I had to know how much he knew .

“Nope.” He shook his head. “All he said was that he asked for a divorce. I’m not asking you to tell me anything. I just want to be there for you. Both of you.”

That made it so much harder to be mad at him. He didn’t know he was the whole damn reason Logan asked for a divorce. Well, part of the reason. I sighed in defeat. I couldn’t tell Elliot. I wouldn’t betray Logan like that.

“You’re his best friend,” I told him. “You should be there for him.”

I’d resigned myself to losing Elliot as a part of this divorce. How could he possibly stay friends with both of us? And I knew what he meant to Logan.

“Oh, come on, Evie,” Elliot said, his voice painfully gentle. “You know that you’re my family too. Just because I met him first doesn’t change that, no matter what happens.”

It would if he started dating my husband. But I couldn’t say that out loud either. I swiped the cereal box from him and grunted as I padded back to my living room. Elliot closed the door and followed, whistling as he took in the state of the apartment.

I’d moved all my stuff out of the bedroom. I couldn’t be around the remainder of Logan’s stuff. My clothes were strewn everywhere, the coffee table was shoved aside in favor of a makeshift bed out of blankets, and there were dozens of other little things tossed around.

“Evie,” he began slowly.

“Shut up,” I cut him off. I didn’t need his pity.

“Evie, there are four guest bedrooms upstairs,” Elliot continued anyway. I dropped onto the pile of blankets. “Sleep in one of them.”

“Guest bedroom number one has all of his tennis and golf stuff. Guest bedrooms two and three are full of random things from his brothers, for whenever they visit. And number four is your bedroom with pictures of him and shit in it,” I explained rather pathetically.

I shoved a handful of cereal in my mouth and muttered, “The living room is neutral ground.”

Rather, it was once I turned down all the pictures with him in them. Everything else was practically picked from a magazine. It was a showroom, a statement of an entertainment space. It was meant to impress our social groups.

Elliot stared down at me, hazel eyes narrowing as he considered me.

“When was the last time you ate real food?” he asked instead of commenting on my choices. I didn’t say a word. He wouldn’t like the answer. But my silence did me in. He took the box from me and tossed it on the couch. “Okay, that’s enough of that. We’re ordering from that poke bowl place you love.”

He flopped down next to me, sprawling out and fluffing up one pillow. When he was comfortable, he took out his phone to place an order.

“Tell me how you’re doing,” he said as he did. For all the times we ordered out, he didn’t need me to tell him my order. I wanted to argue with him, but it wouldn’t do me any good. He was a relentless pain in my ass.

“What do you think?” I demanded as he set his phone aside. Rolling, he faced me, and I immediately focused on the ceiling. I couldn’t handle the pity on his face.

“Forty-five minutes until food is here,” Elliot replied. “Which means, we’ve got time to talk. And don’t tell me you’re fine. I know you well enough to see through the bullshit.”

“I don’t know who I am without him,” I whispered, my voice breaking. My eyes burned, but I didn’t bother wiping the tears away. I was so used to crying at this point.

“What do you mean?”

“My whole life is Logan. I’m so wrapped up in him and his life…

his job, his dreams, his… everything. Everything about me is a reflection of what he needed and the people we saw because of him…

my hair, my clothes, my hobbies,” I admitted.

It was the worst realization of this whole thing.

Without Logan, I was nothing all over again.

No friends, no hobbies, no… anything. “And it’s not his fault.

I did this to myself. I don’t know when it happened, but I’m not… me. I don’t know who I am.”

“You’re Evangeline Marie Ashwood,” he replied, but I shook my head.

“Did you know I hyphenated my name?”

“No.”

“Evangeline Marie Cartwright-Ashwood.” When we got married, I couldn’t bear the idea of losing my dad’s name. Logan was the one who suggested I hyphenate or not take his name at all. He said it wasn’t his name that mattered, but it did. At least to me.

“That’s a fucking mouthful.” He chuckled.

“And that’s why I never use it,” I said. “It’s too much of nothing. It’s not an important name—”

“Stop that,” he cut me off. “Cartwright is an important name. To you, to Logan, to me. Without the Cartwrights, there is no Evangeline Marie Cartwright. And I fucking love Evangeline Marie Cartwright. That makes the name important. I don’t give a fuck what your fancy friends think about names with statuses and shit.

They’re all uptight and fake. There’s more to life than that. ”

“I know. I just…” I struggled to figure out how I wanted to put it. “This world… these people… they’re important to Logan because it’s his job, it’s who he has to impress and fit in with.”

“Yeah, well, Logan could do with some self-reflection about the people he tries to fit in with too.” I ignored that comment.

He couldn’t stand most of the people Logan associated with.

Most of them looked down on Elliot for a variety of reasons—the civil servant, blue collar thing being the first. Him being gay didn’t help either.

“I made those things important to me. I made them my life. And I just… I don’t know who I am without all of it.”

“You, my dear,” he brushed the tears from my cheek, “are Evangeline Marie Cartwright-Ashwood. You’re the girl who punched Logan in the face two times and became an Ashwood family legend.

You’re the girl who had wild pink hair and old band t-shirts.

The girl who knew more about old rock bands than anyone I’d ever met.

Who always had smudged hands from doodling in her notebooks and taught herself how to write left-handed in case she ever broke her arm.

You’re fierce and kind and wildly creative. ”

“Am I though?”

“Adulthood fucking sucks, Evie,” Elliot said. “We all lose ourselves from time to time. I don’t know a damn person our age who hasn’t struggled to figure out how they fit in the world. I’m no different.”

“Really?” I raised a brow skeptically. Elliot was one of the most put-together people I knew. The idea that he struggled to fit in and figure himself out was unfathomable.

“Do you know how often I question if I should be a firefighter?” he asked.

“Would I be better off going back to school and doing something less dangerous? Can I make this last? What happens if I get hurt and can’t work?

What’s my fallback? Is this really what I want to do?

The list goes on. I’ve got like… six backup careers lined up at this point. ”

“Oh…”

“While this divorce sucks, maybe something good can come from it. Maybe it means it’s time to figure out how that wild, pink-haired girl with a mean right hook fits in the world as an adult. Maybe it’s time to figure out who Eva Cartwright is.”

But that sounded like such a big thing to do .

Where did that girl end and the woman in me start?

Were they the same? Were they completely different?

Maybe I was this boring woman with no real hobbies, a job that didn’t need her, and no one in my life outside of my husband and his best friend.

Maybe it was the orphan in me that grew up and not the pink-haired girl.

“I’m scared, Elliot,” I admitted. He took my hand and squeezed it tightly for reassurance, but it didn’t help.

“I’d be worried if you weren’t,” Elliot told me with a smile. “Start small. Find a new coffee place. Something just for you. Let it snowball from there.”