Bent not Broken (213 page)

“Yeah, I think I understand. I have some things in my past, granted, nothing overly traumatic, but you know, just things I prefer to
leave
in my past for one reason or another, and I put those things in a special category called ‘things I’ve decided never to think about again’.” She laughs a quiet laugh.

I smile. “Yeah, something like that.”

We’re both quiet again for a minute or two and then I say, “The thing is, I think a part of me did recognize him, something visceral, something more instinctual. I just didn’t question it enough because truthfully, I didn’t want to. Maybe I did know and chose not to admit it to myself. I’ve always been good at shutting things out that felt unpleasant to me,” I say sadly.

“Everything was just so intense with Jake… Leo… whatever. Jeez, this is like one of those crazy soaps where people are suddenly coming back to life all over the place.”

I rub my sore eyes and Nicole looks at me sadly. “It came in handy for you for a long time.”

I nod. We are quiet for a minute and Nicole is furrowing her brow. “What was Leo’s full name, Evie?”

I reach back into my mind for a minute. Obviously I know his first and last name but do I remember his middle name? And then my eyes widen and I whisper, “Leo Jacob McKenna.” I drop my head to my hand. “Am I completely blind?”

“No, everything seems clear now that you know the truth. You were… caught up. It’s not difficult to understand. But he owes you an explanation. He needs to tell you what the
fuck
happened eight years ago and why he’s been lying to you about who he is now. Then you decide if you can accept what he has to say.”

I feel the weight of the situation again and tears spring to my eyes. “I’m gonna lose him again, aren’t I? Either that or I’m gonna have to let him go. I don’t know if I can do it twice. I don’t know if I’ll survive it again.”

“Okay, don’t panic. Let’s just take this one step at a time. Mike will be home at five. We’ll have a nice dinner, just the three of us. We’ll have wine. You’ll stay here with us tonight. You’ll feel better in the morning, and then you can decide when you’re ready to let lion boy have his say.” She winks at me.

God, I’m so lucky to have her. Friends are the family you get to choose for yourself. It’s never been clearer to me that I’ve made very good decisions in this category.

After dinner and catching Mike up on the twilight zone that is my life right now, we crack open a bottle of wine, and I actually giggle a time or two at their attempts to make me laugh with stories of their adolescent love fails.

As much as Mike and Nicole have been successful in distracting me, I know I’m going to have to face reality in the morning, so I borrow a pair of Nicole’s p.j.’s and turn in.

I climb into bed and turn on my phone. There are fourteen new calls from Jake/Leo. There are four text messages basically begging me to call him, and one voicemail. With shaking fingers, I listen to it.

“Evie, God, I… please call me. I’m going crazy here. You ran and I don’t even know if you’re okay. Baby, please just let me know you’re okay. At least that. Even if you don’t want to talk to me… or, even if you don’t want anything to do with me please just let me know you’re safe. I went by your apartment and you weren’t there and it’s late and I… please be okay.”

A tear rolls down my cheek. What am I going to do? I type in a quick, two word text message to Jake/Leo:
I’m safe.

I wait for a couple minutes but there’s no response. I turn off my phone again and fall into a fitful sleep.

****

The next morning I wake early and Nicole and Mike’s house is quiet. Not wanting to wake them, I write a quick note and sneak out the front door quietly. I catch the bus to my apartment and let myself in. I linger under the hot water, shave everywhere and when I emerge, I feel refreshed and ready to face the day, whatever it may bring. I dress in a pair of favorite jeans and a demi sleeved, cowl necked green sweater that is fitted around the hips and is belted at the waist. I pull on my short brown boots and pull my hair back into a messy bun after I’ve partially dried it. I put on mascara, a little blusher and some lip gloss.

It’s been weeks since I’ve done a proper shopping trip and so I leave my apartment in search of coffee. I walk to a Starbucks about twenty minutes away and forty-five minutes later, I’m caffeinated and have even eaten a half blueberry muffin, and feel semi-human.

I turn the corner to my apartment and immediately, I spy Jake’s dark silver BMW parked out front. I walk slowly down the block, and he’s in front of me before I even make it halfway there.

He looks like hell, like he hasn’t slept a wink and I can’t help it, I want to soothe him. He has his hands in his jeans pockets, and he is looking at me, a look of longing and uncertainty, his gorgeous face a mix of insecurity that hits me right in the gut. That look, I realize, the one that made my heart beat faster in my chest right from the beginning, it’s all Leo, my uncertain boy.

I know he has lied to me, and I know that I should distrust him right now but I can’t help it, my heart is screaming at me,
your Leo is back! He’s right in front of you! Go to him! Your beautiful boy is here. HERE!

And the love that engulfs my heart is so overwhelming that I almost fall to my knees right then and there.

This is not good.

I want to be standoffish. I want to play cool, calm and collected. I want to remain detached until he explains something to me that will melt my heart. I want there to be nothing he can say that will melt my heart. I am pleading for him to say something that will melt my heart. I am a mess.

And so I run.
Again.
I try to dash around him, I try to run fast and hard to the safety of my apartment. I try to escape my confusion and my fear, and yes, the love, but Jake steps to the side easily and scoops me up from behind. I fight him, but he’s too strong, and he carries me to the door of my building, and he growls in my ear, “Give me your key, Evie,” and like an obedient child, I take the key out of my purse, and I hand it to him.

Where is Maurice when I’m actually being manhandled?

He opens my front door and then he carts me inside like I weigh no more than a sack of rice. He uses the same key ring to open my inner apartment door, and then he sets me down inside, closing it behind him.

We stare at each other, him breathing harshly and me glaring, for several seconds.

Finally, he drops his head and runs his fingers through his hair.
Oh, God don’t do that!
“Evie, we need to talk and we need to talk now.”

“Why do you get to decide when we need to talk? Isn’t it my call,
Jake
? Or should I call you Leo? Do you go by both? Please, clue me in here.”

He closes his eyes for a minute like he’s really just too tired to deal with my shit. And isn’t
that
priceless! “Evie. Please. Can we talk? Will you listen to me? This has been hell on me. Please. I just want you to tell me you’ll
listen
to me – really listen to me.”

“Hell on
you
? Oh, please, Jake. I don’t want to make things harder on
you
. Please, sit down. Can I get you a beverage? A foot rub?” I glare at him.

He sighs as if he is barely tolerating me. “Sit down, Evie. Now.”

I want to rail at him. I want to tell him to suck it. But, instead, I do as he says, sinking down on my couch while he continues to stand above me.

Finally, he exhales and runs his hand through his hair.
Again! how many is that now? He’s trying to kill me.
He drops down on the couch with me, but at the other side.

“If you need something, go get it now. We’re going to talk and this could take a while. Get what you need to make yourself comfortable, and then plant yourself on the couch.”

I stare at him for a several seconds and then exhale as well. “I’m fine, Jake… Leo. Please, let’s get this over with.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, massaging away a headache that hasn’t even started yet.

He moves closer to me now and suddenly it is all just too much for me. The smell of him, the look on his face, my emotions, and I bring my hands to my face and I sob. Jake/Leo doesn’t say a word but I hear him moving closer, and suddenly I am on his lap, being cradled in his arms, and his face is buried in my hair.

My hands come away from my face and I choke out, “I
waited
for you! I waited and waited and you just disappeared. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive. I didn’t know if you had just decided to start a new life and written me off or
what
! And still I waited. And truthfully, even though I didn’t even admit it to myself, I was
still
waiting until the day you walked back into my life, calling yourself by another name! I never stopped waiting for a boy who threw me away like I was nothing!”

I’m sobbing and choking and practically hyperventilating now, but Jake/Leo just pulls me tight against his big body and rocks me, whispering sounds of comfort against my hair.

And how is it that this man can comfort me for any of this? He’s the
cause
of these tears. And yet, I cling to him anyway.

After a few minutes, my sobs subside and I turn my face up to his. There are silent tears running down his cheeks as well. I take my thumbs and I wipe them off. Then my hands are on his face, my thumbs sweeping across his brow, his strong jaw, his cheekbones, down his nose, my eyes sweeping along with my fingers, taking in every part of his manly face, but finally seeing the boy that was there once too,
letting
myself see the boy that maybe I knew was there all along.

My hands still and I gaze into his deep brown eyes, and then suddenly, somehow, we’re kissing. His tongue is in my mouth and we’re moaning, and when he drags my sweater over my head and pulls my bra down and teases my nipples with licks of his tongue, I gasp out his name, “Leo!” A deep, satisfied growl comes from his throat, and suddenly I’m on my back and he’s over me, demanding, “Say it again.”

“Leo, Leo, Leo,” I moan out, reaching for him and wrapping my legs around him. “Make love to me, Leo.”

I don’t know what he’s going to tell me about why he broke his promise to me, why he’s been lying to me. I don’t know whether I’m going to be able to forgive him or not. But, whatever happens, I want this, I want him,
my Leo
, with me crying out his name,
at least one time
.

He goes back to my breasts, pressing reverent kisses around my puckered nipples before suckling them one by one into his mouth. I am writhing and rubbing myself against the hard erection I feel through his pants. I am on fire, every nerve ending strumming with my desire for this man.

“Please,” I beg. “I need you.”

“My Evie,” he breathes, leaning to the side, pulling my jeans and panties down, and dipping his hand between my thighs, moving his finger against my swollen nub, and returning his mouth to my breast.

He begins moving his finger in matching rhythm to the suction at my nipple and I bend one knee, letting it fall against the side of the couch, giving him more access.

I breathe his name, “Leo,” as he replaces his finger with his thumb on my swollen bundle of nerves and slips one finger inside me and slowly moves it in and out, adding to the sweet pleasure. He’s playing my body like an instrument and I’m drunk with arousal, heady with need. All rational thought is gone.

I open my eyes, my lids feeling heavy and I gasp out another moan. Leo has come up off my breast and is watching my face. His jaw is clenched with the effort to retain his control as he puts off his own pleasure to give me mine.

His fingers rub and thrust, constantly changing tempo, keeping me on the edge until I’m crazy with the need to come. “Leo!” I beg, my hips surging upwards to claim my own satisfaction from his hand.

He adds another finger and picks up the pace, rubbing and thrusting rhythmically now. I moan loudly, and breathe out, “
Yes
.”

Leo moans too, and then the only sounds in the room are my panting breaths and the slick noises of his fingers pumping in and out of me.

“Come for me, Evie,” he growls. And just like that, my body tenses and I arch up off the couch, intense waves of ecstasy flowing through me. I cry out his name and hear his zipper, and then he is flipping me over, and his hands are on my hips as he drags me up so that my ass is in the air, and he plunges into my dripping sex on one loud moan. I’m not sure if it’s his or mine or both.

Up on his knees behind me, he begins thrusting his hips, moaning my name again and again, and I answer him, “Leo, Leo, Leo.” My brain is cloudy with passion but somewhere at the back of my mind, I understand that even though we have made love dozens of times, we are reuniting here and now as Evie and Leo, and I want to cry with the intensity of it.

He continues to thrust rhythmically, holding my hips steady so that he can pound into me, and it’s primal and almost rough, his cock hitting my cervix with every drive. I feel another orgasm building in my core as I listen to the rhythmic sound of his thighs slapping against my ass.

His breathing becomes labored as he continues to pant out my name, his thrusts becoming harder and faster, the scent of our combined sex filling the room.

He reaches around my hip and presses his finger to my clit, and I spiral straight into another climax, throwing my head back and thrusting my ass back to meet his thrusting cock. He growls and moans, and his strokes become slower as he glides in and out of me leisurely, drawing out his own orgasm.

He stops and lays his head against my back as our breathing slows.

We stay this way for long minutes, until my legs give out and I start sinking to the couch. He pulls out and catches me around the waist, turning me over. We cling to each other. He is leaned slightly to the side of me so that I can take his weight. Finally as our breathing returns to normal, he sits up, pulling me with him, and placing me back on his lap again. He leans back against the couch and takes my face in his hands, looking deeply into my eyes. “I love you, Evie,” he says quietly. “Whatever you think about what I’m about to tell you, you have to know that. I’ve always loved you. I’ve never stopped. Not for one second in eight years.”