Divided (9 page)

"Okay."

He disappeared, carrying two saddle bags, and while I could see his outline move toward the tree, I couldn't make out much else. I could hear him moving around up there, but had to settle for staring at the stars instead of staring at Dev.

It wasn't long before he was walking back to me. "Okay, you can come up now." He took my hand and pulled me toward a ladder then had me follow him up. When he helped me up through the small trapdoor, I was greeted by a bunch of LED candles glowing softly around a small covered deck area. Attached to the deck area was a house with a wide, open doorway. Inside, more LED candles glowed, and a large sleeping bag was spread out on the floor. He even had a mini-radio playing soft music.

"What do you think?"

I turned back to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. "It's almost perfect."

"Almost?" His mischievous smile told me he'd already guessed where I was going with this as he ran his fingers through my hair.

"There's too much talking going on for it to be perfect."

The low growl of his voice did strange things to my stomach and forced my heart to kick up its heels and dance a bit. "I think I can fix that."

I was partly expecting another gentle kiss, but I think we both lost all sense of gentleness. His lips practically pulsed with energy. The thrill of my tongue meeting his made me feel sort of drunk as the world swirled around me.

It didn't take long for his hands to wander beyond the zippered hoodie I was wearing. He unzipped it and slid his fingers toward the hem of my shirt, pulling it up so that he could touch my skin. In response to his overwhelming desire, I managed to get his jacket unbuttoned and tried to get it off him, but it seemed to be stuck. When I had nearly succeeded in peeling his jacket back to his shoulders, I felt something fall out of his pocket.

He bent down to pick it up at the same time I did. "Evie, don’t."

I was confused by this, but my fingers were already grasping the envelope lying on the floor. Confused, I looked down at the envelope to hand it back to him. It had my name on it and—was that—

He snatched the envelope from me and tried to quickly put it back in his pocket, but my brain had already made the connection between the tiny scrawl on the envelope and Harm's handwriting.

I tried to grab for it again, but he held my wrists. "Hey, that's for me. I know Harm's handwriting. He wrote that for me."

"It's not time yet. First I want to—just wait a bit."

"Are you hiding things from me? It's for me, why can't I read it?" I had meant to sound angry, but at this point, I was just confused. Was there something Harm felt he needed to tell me that Dev didn't want me to know?

He tilted his head and placed his hand on my cheek. "Okay. I guess it's as good a time as any."

My forehead creased. What did he mean by that? As I opened the letter, he stood behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist. Before I could even finish getting the envelope open, he pulled my hair to the side and touched his nose to my skin, following a path from underneath my ear, slowly down to my shoulder. Goosebumps flooded the surface of my skin, and I nearly put the letter down.

Evie,

First off, I love you, kid, and you can't imagine how much I miss you. I wish I could make everything better for you and safe for you. I've gotten two of your letters, but my mail is being strictly watched. I've sent you twelve letters, but I can bet you haven't gotten any. Just remember to please stay safe. Be the intelligent girl I know you are, and always remember how much I love you.

Okay, now down to business. I wish I'd put my foot down and stayed with you in the Bay Area. You would have been safe. But, as I've said many times, it doesn't do any good to "what if" your way through life. What's done is done, now we need to adapt to what's being thrown at us. So this is me trying to adapt.

Vaughn is a good guy. I admit it. He's a damn good leader. He needs more patience at times, but he looks out for others, including me. I had a really hard time liking the guy to begin with. It was even harder after I read your letter explaining everything that had happened between you two. But they had him locked up for months. He wasn't sleeping and stopped talking to anyone. When they finally let me talk to him, he looked almost dead. I kept thinking about you, and if you were in a similar state, I'd want anyone and everyone to help you through it. So I told him stories about you and brought him a picture of you. I wanted to hate him, but he's so damn in love with you that I couldn't help but like the guy. I constantly give him a hard time about how his eyes light up when he talks about you, but no joke, they really do.

I've got some pretty high standards when it comes to you and the guy you're with. I've analyzed every word, every move Vaughn's made looking for something that would keep him from meeting that standard, but I've got nothing. I know you're thinking you know he's a good guy, but I had to write it all down to remind myself that I know it too. I had to justify it to myself so I can actually say what I can't believe I'm going to say.

This world we're living in, and the world it's going to become, isn't what Dad could have imagined. It isn't what I ever imagined, and it’s completely opposite of what I hoped you would have. But I recognize that the hopes and expectations I've had for what you'd have in life need to change. Which is why I can do this—why I'm comfortable saying this.

For the words Vaughn is about to say to you, I have given my permission.

I love you, Evie.

Harm

What a cryptic letter. I had no idea how to react to it and read the last line several times. What did he mean he had given permission? I turned around in Dev's arms, confused, my mouth parted in question, but it all became frighteningly clear. Dev got down on one knee in front of me, taking my hands in his.

"Evie."

Oh my God
, I screamed in my head. This couldn't really be happening, could it?

"Baby, you don't have to say yes right now, but I
will
marry you one way or another. I've known that since the moment you ran into me in Leadership class. We may be young, but that doesn't mean we don't know what love is. It doesn't mean we shouldn't jump at the opportunity to grab on to what we've got and hold on as long as we can."

I don't think I blinked. I was stunned. The possibility that he might ask me this—that he had asked Harm and had actually managed to get Harm to give his permission—just never entered into my brain.

"Evie, I love you more than anything in this world, and I'll love you forever, even if you say no. I just—I've wanted to ask you for—the words have been choking me just for too long. Please… baby, will you marry me?"

Part of me nearly laughed. I couldn't process it all. He let one of my hands drop as he reached into the pocket of his jacket. Sparkling at me was a beautiful diamond mounted on a delicate silver band. I could feel my hand start to shake.

"They may not allow us to talk to our families, but they do pay us for putting our lives on the line. There's only ever been one thing I could think of spending that money on—that was worth what I was being forced to give up. You—this—asking you to marry me—is worth it."

It all seemed so surreal and incredible, but I was scared. We were too young, we hadn't even known each other that long, we—we— Fear pressed down on me, but it was all wrong. I asked myself if I was afraid Dev and I weren't meant to be together. But no, that wasn't it. Was I afraid he didn't love me enough? No way. I pulled my hands from his and walked away from him. I paced in front of him, trying to get a hold of myself.

"You look terrified." His voice sounded so sad and depressed as he sat down on the floor in front of me. He watched me pace back and forth for a few minutes before continuing. "You don't have to say anything right now. I just—I wanted to know what it felt like to say the words. I wanted to know how it felt to hear you say yes even if—even if I don't get to do it again."

I stopped abruptly, and it hit me what I was scared of. "No." It was quiet, but I knew he heard me because his face fell immediately. He looked so pale. "You just said you don't think you'll get the chance to ask me again. You don't think you'll survive, do you? Well you've asked, so at least you can scratch that off your bucket list. But I'm not saying yes so you can race to your death a happy man. That's not fair to ask that of me."

"Evie." His tone was pleading, and I didn't want to hear it.

What was he thinking? Did he really think I was just going to say yes and fall happily into his arms just so he could die with this memory? Seriously?

I lifted the trapdoor. "I can't believe you would bring me here and—"

"No! I didn't—I don't—I mean no." He stood up and walked to me, closing the trapdoor and pulling me into his arms. "I wouldn't ask you to marry me like that. I don't—I'm not ready to die. I'm not ready to lose you. I want a long life with you. I just—" He pulled back and hunched down a bit to try to look me in the eye, but I kept my gaze fixed on his chest. "Look at me, baby."

I was still angry and hurt. He proposed out of fear of dying. How flattering, and as someone who loved him intensely and deeply, it broke my heart and petrified me all at the same time. But he put his finger underneath my chin and tilted my head up until I looked him in the eye. It was completely strange how blue his eyes had become. They were the striking color of the sea that I had first fallen in love with, only now there seemed to be such intensity to that blue sea.

"Evie," his voice sounded different, less wavering. He seemed forceful even. "I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I want to know that every other guy that meets you is aware of that. I want something of mine to be with you at all times even though I can't be. I know that sounds crazy, but I want it. I want you. We don't have to actually get married today, maybe not even soon, but someday I want us to get married. To me, that's what this ring is saying—that someday in the near future, we'll be together again, and we'll be getting married and starting our very long life together."

I tilted my head at him, trying to figure out how I felt about this. Was he just saying this to get me to say yes? No. He'd never lied to me before. He'd withheld information for my safety, but he never lied to me. But what did it mean for me to say yes? He would be leaving in hours, and my stomach knotted itself up remembering that. Being engaged meant I would marry him. I had no intention to be engaged multiple times in my life. Was I ready to commit to this?

I thought about Gabriel and Evelyn—they'd tell us we're too young. But staring into his eyes, that connection we had practically pulsed with every beat of my heart. There were no doubts in my mind that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. And if I didn't doubt it, deep in my heart, then why was I allowing the opinions of others to scare me away from what I knew was right for me.

"I have a condition," I said firmly.

"I'm listening." The corners of his mouth turned up a bit, and I could tell he was forcing back a smile.

"If I say yes, you have to promise you'll come back to me."

His smile took over his face. "I have no problem with that."

"No. You don't understand. You have to promise that from this moment on, you come first. No more saving others while you put yourself at risk, no more putting their needs first—
you
come first." I wasn't sure whether he would actually agree to this or not. I knew him. He was a caregiver. I didn't know if he was even capable of thinking of himself first. As it was, the smile slowly faded from his lips as he realized what I was asking of him.

"You're not being selfish," I said quickly. "You're understanding that I can't be without you. You're putting your safety above everyone else's because you know that's what I need. You have to promise me that, Dev. I can't promise you the rest of my life if you can't promise me you'll do absolutely everything you can to make sure we have one."

"Evie, I can't—"

I closed my eyes. "Then no."

"That's not fair. Harm and Donald and—"

"Gabriel told me to be honest with you. He told me to tell you what I'd done to myself. I—" I had to let go of his hands and look away. I was embarrassed to tell him how weak I was, but he had to know—he had to understand what it meant for him to ask me to further tie myself to him. "I shut down just like you did when they locked you up. I couldn't— I stopped eating, not on purpose, but I just couldn't care anymore. I tried to pull myself out of it, but I just kept thinking about you and where you were. I didn't even know if you were okay or still alive. Sonya and Gary tried everything. When I passed out that day—" I shook my head, unable to talk about that moment. "Gabriel and Evelyn put me in the hospital." I glanced up at him to see how he was taking this information. He was shaking his head, and he looked like he was going to be sick or cry. "Dev, I—I just—couldn't function."

He walked away from me to the other side of the tree house deck. Maybe I shouldn't have told him? Was he mad at me? Was he disappointed?

I moved in his direction, but stopped. "I tried to be strong. I did, I just—I'm sorry, with losing my parents, and Harm being away then you—I'm just not that strong."

He didn't say anything. He just kept his back to me. Maybe he didn't want to marry me anymore. Maybe he thought I was something else. Maybe he thought I was strong enough to be with him and was now realizing that I couldn't be?

"I—um—I understand if you don't want—if—" I didn't even know what to say. I couldn't bring myself to think that he wouldn't want to be with me anymore.

"Okay," he finally said quietly. What did he mean by that? Did he mean he didn't want to be with me? "I promise. Your safety comes first, and I understand now that that means my safety has to come first, too."

He turned to face me, and I could see the tears gathered in his eyes. "But you have to make the same promise, even if it means force-feeding yourself. I can't keep my head in the game out there if I'm worrying about whether you're in some hospital somewhere. And I understand, baby." He took several steps toward me. "I can't count how many times I've wanted to give up—how many times I've just wanted them to go ahead and k—" He took a deep breath in. "But I haven't. I won't give up, and you have to promise you won't either, no matter what happens." He placed his palm against my cheek. "I love you too much, baby."