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  “Of course,” I interrupted, swiftly. “I expect nothing less. A couch of your own choosing.”

  Leanna raised an eyebrow. “I think he’s trying to kiss ass, Lexi, but I can’t tell, or is he usually this charming?”

  Lexi shook her head in exasperation. “Both, Lea. He’s both.”

  I flashed Leanna a smile as I went over to Lexi and began to help her put the things away. I wanted nothing more than to take Leanna’s suggestion and get a room, but I could tell Lexi was too wound up for that right now, so I opted to help out.

  Leanna and I conversed easily as I helped Lexi put away the stuff. Leanna was obviously trying to get a feel for me to see if I was good enough to date her best friend, and I respected that. I tried to be as honest as possible even though I normally didn’t do the whole friends and family thing.

  Or I hadn’t for a very long time.

  Not since her.

  The thought of her right now filled my heart with an aching regret as it inevitably did when her face flashed in my mind. It had gotten easier over the years, but it still bleeds when I picked at it.

  At least it was scabbing over now.

  Lexi was glancing between the two of us, her gaze swinging like a pendulum. Her expression changed from surprise to weariness to joy all within the span of a few seconds. She was probably confused because of how well we were getting along.

  “Are you a fan of the Voice, Evan?” Leanna grilled me.

  “My sister is a huge fan, and I’ve seen it a couple of times. It’s not really my thing, but it’s cool.”

  “I appreciate the honesty. Got a favorite judge?”

  “Not particularly, but the maroon 5 guy is cool.”

  Leanna grinned. “Yeah, you should definitely keep him around, Lexi. He knows his stuff.”

  Lexi rolled her eyes. “Because he likes Adam Levine? Also, he’s standing right there, Lea.”

  “So?” Leanna made a dismissive hand gesture. “What are your intentions regarding my best friend, Evan?”

  Lexi made a choking noise in the corner.

  “Right now, I just want to be all over her,” I said, honestly as I gave Lexi a heated look. Leanna made gagging faces at the two of us.

  “Ew, okay that’s way more than I ever wanted to know, and now you two have officially scarred me for life. I hope you two are happy with yourselves.”

  “Very.” I wrapped my arms around Lexi and nuzzled her neck.

  “Alright, sheesh I get it. Just go already, but be safe okay? I doubt you two want any surprises later on,” Leanna called out as Lexi led me to her bedroom, laughing.

  My feet were suddenly glued to the floor, and it wasn’t until Lexi tugged hard that I moved. Lexi grinned as she shut the door to her room and turned to face me.

  “Sorry about that. Lea rarely uses the filter in her brain, and she usually says whatever is on her mind.”

  “That’s okay,” I offered her a weak smile.

  “Yeah, I just feel a little tired,” I responded.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  This was it.

  The moment of truth, and I wanted to tell Lexi. Before one more thing happened between us, reality needed to settle in, and despite my efforts to keep it at bay earlier, I knew it was futile.

  “I need to tell you something,” I patted the space next to me on the bed. Lexi sank down, and gave me a curious look.

  “I have a daughter,” I blurted out before I could talk myself out of it.

  So much for finesse and having the good sense to build up to it.

  I was supposed to think of the words to ease her into it instead it just came out like verbal diarrhea.

  Way to go Evan.

  Lexi stared, her expression uncomprehending. She blinked slowly. “What?”

  “I have a daughter,” I said, slower this time, and I spaced the words out, so that there was no room for misunderstanding.

  “I don’t understand.” Lexi shook her head; a lock of hair spilling forward and falling over her eye. I reached out and smoothed it behind her ear. I let my hands stay for far too long before I pulled it away.

  Lexi watched me do this with a dazed look on her face as if she couldn’t quite believe what was happening. Not that I could blame her. I had a similar expression when I found out.

  “Well, daughters are usually conceived when a man and a woman—” I began jokingly before Lexi shot me a dirty look.

  I grimaced. “Sorry poor attempt at a joke. I was trying to lighten the mood.”

  “I can see that.”

  The silence stretched between us, so thin and so thick, I could reach out and grasp it with both hands.

  “What happened?” Lexi asked, finally, her eyes fixed on a blank spot on the wall.

  “Before I tell you the details, I need you to understand that I’m not that person anymore,” I explained. “So, let me finish telling my story then you can make up your mind about what you want to do.”

  Lexi nodded as she gestured for me to continue.

  I took a deep breath and mentally sorted through the facts in my head. This was it. Last chance for me to back out. She couldn’t force me to tell her the truth, and I wasn’t required to.

  I had never shared this story with anyone before, and there was a reason for it. Besides the fact that it was private, I also didn’t want to be judged for it.

  I was a kid when it happened.

  “I used to be in love with this woman named Sarah when I was in school,” I started. I hadn’t said her name in years, and when I did, it seemed to conjure up an image of her, a tall brunette with the most expressive brown eyes.

  “She asked me out when I was in the eighth grade, and I remember being really surprised because she was completely out of my league, but I said yes. We had a great time together, and I kissed her on that first date. I remember thinking that I had never experienced anything so perfect before, and I knew she was the one for me.”

  I peered out of the corner of my eye at Lexi who was staring motionless ahead with her hands folded in her lap. I wanted to reach out and squeeze her hand to give her some comfort, but I wasn’t sure she would let me.

  “We dated for five years, and we were both really happy together. One day, we were supposed to meet up for a date, but she was late, so I called her, and I was really irritated that she was running late. Sarah decided to—”

  My voice caught in my throat, and I realized that tears were welling up in my eyes. I rapidly blinked them away and coughed to clear my throat.

  Damn, it was hard to relieve the past.

  I don’t know how people did it.

  “She decided to walk to get to me since it was faster,” I said, quietly as I remembered the sound of her voice when she told me, apologetic but determined. “The car came out of nowhere, and it hit her. Sarah never stood a chance. She died on impact.”

  Lexi sucked in a deep shuddering breath as she turned to face me. Her eyes held so much sorrow in their depths as she reached out and squeezed my hand. She left her hand there. “I’m so sorry, Evan. God, sorry isn’t even enough right now. That’s an awful thing to have to live with.”

  “That wasn’t what I had to live with. I mean one minute she was there, and the next she was gone.” I stared down at our hands. “I was the one who was responsible for her death.”

  “You can’t possibly think that,” Lexi said, her tone sympathetic. “You weren’t driving that car, Evan.”

  “Yes, but I was the one who was upset and made her feel like she had no choice but to walk, so she could get to me,” I insisted, my voice layered with the pain of all the guilt and shame I’d been carrying on.

  For years, my demons haunted me, and unlocking that door now was harder than I thought because everything came rushing in all at once.

  “You couldn’t have known, Evan. You can’t blame yourself for that,” Lexi insisted, her eyes boring into me, pleading with me to look at her, but I resolutely refused.

  “Yea
h, I couldn’t have known, but still. Do you have any idea what it feels like to know that you were the last person they talked to, and that the decision they made that led to their death was to please you?”

  Lexi shook her head. “No, I can’t imagine what that feels like.”

  “For months, I wondered around like a zombie, I barely ate or slept, and I kept seeing her face everywhere. I became convinced that she was haunting me, that I needed to atone for what happened, but I had no idea how.” I continued. “I threw myself into the world of comics which once held so much joy, but now held nothing but pain. Sarah was a comic book fan too, you see. She always encouraged me and gave me her opinion about things.”

  A small smile graced my features. “She even helped me nurture my love for action figures even though anybody else would’ve told me to grow up.”

  “She sounds like she was amazing person,” Lexi offered, gently as she removed her hand from mine. I instantly missed her touch, but I understood why she did it.

  Chapter Eight

  I didn’t want to intrude on his memory of Sarah. It felt like it was private and sacred, something I was not supposed to witness nor be a part of.

  In any case, I was still stunned by his confession.

  This entire time I had assumed that Evan was the type who didn’t like to commit because he preferred it that way. No muss no fuss as they say.

  I couldn’t honestly say I got it, but it made sense.

  My entire perception of him had been flipped around.

  He didn’t commit because he’d lost someone he loved.

  Evan was afraid of getting that close to someone again.

  I could understand that.

  “She was, she was one of the best people I knew,” He said, simply. “She saw the best in me all the time, and she was the reason I tried so hard. For a while, after she was gone, I didn’t want to try anymore. I wanted to be cruel and mean because the world had taken her away from me, and nothing made sense anymore, so I was.”

  I could see that it was still hard for him to talk about it. He loved Sarah dearly, and the pain was still fresh for him.

  “I understand,” I whispered. “You were hurting, and you were angry, so you lashed out.”

  It wasn’t much in the way of comfort, but it was the best I could do.

  He craned his neck to look at me, the surprise evident on his features. I had no idea how he expected me to react. Was I supposed to judge him for that? For being human?

  “I don’t know it doesn’t justify lashing out, but I thought I didn’t have any other choice. I swore off women, and I dedicated myself to my comics. For a long time, I tried to outrun Sarah and forget that she ever existed, but she would always find a way to come back to me.”

  Bit by bit, he was revealing pieces of himself that made up the whole. I began to understand Evan a lot better now, but I was still confused. How did his daughter factor into all of this? If Sarah died on impact, how did the baby survive?

  I couldn’t think of a way to ask him without sounding indelicate, so I let him pick apart the threads that made up his story, little by little. When he glanced over at me, he must’ve seen something on my face because he looked resigned before he continued.

  “Three years ago, Samantha, Sarah’s little sister, came to visit. I was surprised when she called me because I hadn’t spoken to Sarah’s family in years. Our conversation was stunted at first, the weight of everything that had happened lay between us after all, and we had lost the only thing binding us together,” He explained, his voice filled with dread.

  I guessed that this was the bit of information he was reluctant to impart.

  He stood up abruptly and began to pace the room as he wrung his hands behind his back. Evan didn’t strike me as a person who worried easily, yet here he was, crippled by anxiety.

  I had a feeling he was choosing his words carefully because he wanted, no, needed me to understand. I was, apparently, the first person he’d ever truly liked since Sarah, and the way I viewed him next was all dependent on what he would say.

  “We agreed to meet up for a drink, and at first, we weren’t really looking at each other, it was harder for me because Samantha looked so much like Sarah, but gradually, we began to ease up when we started talking about Sarah. Suddenly, she came alive again for us, and it was like she was standing right there watching over her baby sister, and her boyfriend. It was the first time in years that I felt truly alive as we reminisced about Sarah.”

  “Evan,” I hated to interrupt his story, but I had to pull his attention back to the present. He was lost in a haze of memories, and he was speaking at a rapid frenzied pace that made it hard to keep up. He blinked owlishly as he gave me a sheepish grin.

  “Sorry, I was speaking too fast, wasn’t I?”

  “A little, but I knew you were remembering, so it’s okay. Take your time,” I offered, gently as I brought my legs up underneath me and placed my hands in my lap.

  I was trying to be as understanding and as patient as possible, but it wasn’t easy. An uneasy feeling began to form in the pit of my stomach.

  “The next few days, we hung out just like old times, and we always found a way to bring Sarah up. At first, I think it was because it was nice to have someone else who remembered her. I could almost feel her next to me in those moments, and I could smell her as if she was pressed up against me. After a while, it seemed like we brought her up to remind ourselves why we hung out so much,” He explained as his hands fluttered anxiously.

  I wished there was a way to calm him down, but only he could fight his demons now. All I could do was be there for him.

  He hesitated as his green eyes raked over me. “A few weeks after Samantha came to visit, she revealed that she had a crush on me back in the day. I was stunned because I had never noticed her not while Sarah was around, and we awkwardly laughed about it, but something changed between us that night. Suddenly, Samantha was no longer Sarah’s kid sister. She was just Sam. The fact that she looked so much like Sarah became a problem because it made me confused. I ached for Sarah then, but I knew she wasn’t her. Sam may have been kind, smart and funny, but every time I caught myself thinking that, I had to actively remind myself that she was Sarah’s sister.”

  He had stopped pacing and was standing directly in front of me. I thought I had an inkling of where this was going, but I kept my face carefully neutral. I was not going to jump to conclusions until the words left his lips.

  Our gazes collided, one pair hesitant, and the other pleading. Each asking for something from the other.

  “It was her last night before she was supposed to leave, and we had a little bit too much to drink. I insisted that she shouldn’t find a cab home on her own, and that she could crash at my house. I made up the bed for her, and I went to go sleep on the couch. We both couldn’t sleep, so we sat up late talking about nothing in general when next thing I know, we were all over each other.”

  I pressed my lips into a thin line and stayed quiet.

  I didn’t know how to process that.

  He was grieving, and I understood that he wasn’t in the right frame of mind as such, but it was still not an easy thing to process.

  “There was a voice in the back of my mind screaming at me to stop, and all the many reasons I shouldn’t be doing this including the fact that she was Sarah’s sister, but she looked so much like her, and I couldn’t help myself.” His voice had gotten smaller, darker somehow as if he was resigned to the fact that he would always be judged based on this.

  I could only imagine how that must feel.

  The first part of the story made him extremely sympathetic, but sleeping with his dead girlfriends’ sister? That part was a bit hard to swallow regardless of how it was dressed up.

  “I know what I did was wrong, and I know there’s no way to phrase it to make it seem justifiable, and believe me, we both felt terrible about it afterwards, but there was nothing we could do. It had already been done.”

 
“I tried to move on with my life after that, and we stopped talking to each other even though it was hard losing the last living link I had to Sarah, but I knew it was necessary. I thought that I had put it behind me until she contacted me a few months after that and told me that she was pregnant.”

  Oh.

  Wow.

  “So, you lost the woman you loved, and in your grief, you slept with her sister, and now you share a child with your dead girlfriends’ sister?” Disbelief and shock tinged my voice, and I was aware of how incredulous it sounded, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “That about sums it up,” he said, weakly as he stood in front of me with his hands clasped behind his back like an inmate awaiting his death sentence.

  “I—wow. Sorry, I just don’t know what to say. How does Samantha feel about all of this?”

  “She wanted to let me know in case I wanted to be a part of the baby’s life, and of course I wanted to be. I thought that someday, we could all be a family together, but I was young back then, and we’ve both moved on. Samantha is happy and engaged. She lives close by, and I get to see Marie during the week. Sometimes she stops by and asks me to watch her when she’s busy.”

  I sighed as I began to sift through what he told me.

  It was clear that he regretted what happened, and that he was trying to make amends.

  “Please say something,” he begged, his green eyes imploring.

  “Nobody deserves to be judged for the mistakes they made for the rest of their lives. Especially not ones we make when you’re young,” I said, finally.

  He breathed a deep sigh of relief. “Thank you for understanding.”

  “I wouldn’t judge you for that Evan. People do stupid shit when they’re grieving. What matters is that when it counted, you stepped up and became a dad. Most guys wouldn’t have done that.”

  “I couldn’t let that little girl grow up without a father. I may not have known how to be one, or what the hell I was doing, but I knew I had to try,” He said, softly as he studied my face carefully.

  “It’s a brave thing,” I offered. “You were young, Evan. We all make mistakes when we’re young. Big or small.”