Hawk: A Stepbrother Romance Part 39

I look over at her.

"Do you understand what you're risking by approaching me this way? If my father finds out I've been talking to you about any of this, you could be ruined. Permanently. Your husband, too."

"Is he going to find out?"

"Not from me."

I open my email client and type up a quick email to human resources. Quick and to the point.

"What was that?"

"I just tripled your salary."

"Are you going to send Tiny Tim a goose now?"

I snort, and then break out laughing. Oh G.o.d, I haven't laughed in years. Alicia stares at me.

"Oh my G.o.d. I'm She-Scrooge." My laughter quickly melts into sobs again. "How did this happen to me? I don't want to be this way."

"What way to you want to be?"

"What are you, my therapist now?"

"No, but I have three girls. The oldest is in college. I've seen worse than this."

I blink at her a few times. "Really?"

"A sixteen year old's boyfriend freakout is a force of nature."

"I never had a boyfriend until I was... older than that."

"Your stepbrother."

"Yes."

She s.h.i.+fts in her seat and shrugs. "You want to tell me about it."

"Stop saying questions like they're statements."

"That was a statement," she sighs. "You do want to talk, you're just trying to find the words."

"I haven't had a real conversation with another human being about anything but my work in five years."

"I can tell," Alicia says, dryly.

I give her a look.

"My daughter looks at me like that when I say something she knows is right."

I look at the computer again. I have more emails.

An urge strikes me. I open the browser, navigate to Twitter and type my name in the search box.

I suck in a deep breath when I read what I see. There must be thousands of tweets. I glance at Alicia and bite my lip, and scroll through the screen.

There's a hashtag.

"I have a hashtag," I blurt out.

#EveDestroyedMyLife Trembling, I click the link.

For the next twenty minutes, I sit in silence and read, my face a still mask. The tweets go on forever. This only started yesterday.

I had 19 years of seniority and a pension. #EveRuinedMyLife I snap the computer's screen down and stare at the door, trembling. Then I get up.

"I need to get out of here."

"You're in your pajamas."

I look down at myself.

"Go take a shower and change."

I am not used to be ordered around, at least by anyone but my father, but I do as she says. My shower turns out to be half an hour standing under the hot water followed by brus.h.i.+ng my hair and dressing in the only casual clothes I have, an ancient sweatsuit at the bottom of my bottom drawer, which I don't remember even putting there. I don't have sneakers, either. I don't care; I put on a pair of slippers and make a mental note to buy some sneakers. When I step outside, Alicia is waiting for me.

"Should I have the car brought around?"

"Do you have a car?"

She nods.

"Let's take yours."

I feel strange walking out of the house, down the path that winds around the back to where Alicia and the other staff park. Her car is a boxy minivan. The inside smells strongly of fabric softener for some reason. I sit in the front seat next to her, and she starts the engine and looks over at me.

"Where would we be going, then?"

I sigh. "I want a cheeseburger."

"What kind?"

"I don't know. Pick one."

Some twenty minutes later, I find myself sitting in her minivan while she wheels it around the curving drive-through lane of a McDonalds. She stops before pulling up to the speaker.

"What did you want, hon?"

"A quarter pounder."

She orders, pulls up, and I realize I have no cash on me. My G.o.d, I'm making her pay.

"I'll pay you back," I say, as she pulls into a parking s.p.a.ce facing the road.

She pa.s.ses me my food and I spread the paper open on my lap.

"You don't have to pay me back. It was nine dollars."

I peel the top of the bun off and use a napkin to wipe it clean, leaving a thin layer of mayonnaise-ketchup-mustard mixture soaked into the bread, then settle it on top of the patty and take a bite.

"If you'd said something I'd have ordered it plain for you."

"I like it this way."

She eyes me while she chews. "You mean you like to order it and then peel everything off."

"Yes. They just put too much on."

"Okay."

Every bite is like torture. The food is fine, the memories are not. It's like every bite tries to stick in my throat.

"Evelyn," she says.

I put the half-eaten burger on the paper in my lap and thoroughly clean my hands with a pale yellow napkin. I fold the burger in the paper and stick it back in the bag, and take a long pull on the soda she bought me.

"Thank you for lunch," I say, barely more than a whisper.

Alicia says nothing else until she b.a.l.l.s up the wrapper from her fish sandwich and tosses it in the open bag. She reaches for the key, to start the van.

"Wait."

Her hand sinks back to her lap. I stare straight ahead.

"This is what happened."

Chapter Seven.

Evelyn Mrs. Vanderburg placed the folder in my hands.

"You've done very well, Eve."

My face lit up in a smile so hard it hurt. This was a strange week. I was saying goodbye to my tutors. A dozen admission letters rested in two neat stacks on my desk, behind Mrs. V. Of all my teachers, she was the one I loved most. For the last four years, all through high school, she visited three times per week to instruct me in mathematics. I missed a few points on the papers she handed back, but I didn't care. I was excited and full of fear at the same time, my stomach doing backflips.

Today I would be saying goodbye to a fixture in my life. When you are eighteen years old, four years is a long time. In all those years of instruction, I'd never seen Mrs. V wear anything but an ankle length dress, usually b.u.t.toned to her neck. She looked like she belonged in a Victorian period piece, except for her big oversized gla.s.ses, more practical than stylish. In the years I'd known her, half-moon shaped bifocal lenses had appeared in those gla.s.ses, and her tightly wound bun went from silver to mostly white.

I almost didn't bother looking at the papers. It was a foregone conclusion at this point. The paperwork had been filed, and I had my diploma, the equivalent of an honors track diploma at a regular high school. Deep down I've always suspected that every homeschooled student earns a perfect grade point average, but I know I earned it.

"Have you decided where you'll be going?"

I blinked a few times and glanced at the letters.

"I'm not sure yet." My voice was tiny then, soft, barely more than a whisper.

"You have quite a selection to choose from." The note of approval in her voice makes my pride swell.

She took my hands, and cleared her throat, but she was becoming choked up. I felt my eyes burn in return.

"Students like you are the reason I wanted to become a teacher," she told me, with a wistful sigh. "I worry about you, though."

"Why? Did I do something wrong?"

She smiles and pats my hand. "No, sweet girl. You did nothing wrong. You are a kind, sensitive, well mannered young woman and you are very intelligent, and, if I may say so, quite beautiful. Just look at you blush."

I was blus.h.i.+ng.

"Be very careful," she said, a note of warning in her voice. "You're very trusting. Soon you'll be on your own, with no one there to look out for you but yourself. You have to be very careful, especially about young men."

I nodded. "I know. F-father talked to me about this."

She let out a long sigh, released my hands and folded her own in her lap.

"Eve, normally I would not say this, but what will he do, hmm? Fire me? Your father is not always right. I want you to be cautious. He wants to control every aspect of your life. In truth, I think you'd have prospered in traditional school. A private inst.i.tution, perhaps. You are very intelligent and learn quickly, but there are some lessons only people your own age can teach you, and you've been deprived of them. I don't know why."

She cleared her throat.

"I'd ask you not to repeat any of this. I depend on recommendations in my line of work, you understand."

I nod. "Of course, I'll keep anything you say in confidence."

"'Be careful' doesn't mean 'stay away from every boy'. You're intelligent. Use that intelligence. Trust your instincts. Avoid situations where you can be taken advantage of. Promise me, though, that you won't shut people out. Make some friends. It may take you a while to learn how. Don't wall yourself off. A life lived alone is not a good life."

I nodded again. "Thank you, Mrs. V."

She scrubbed at her eyes with her fingers.

"You know, I have to leave now."

"You could stay for dinner."

"I don't think your father would like that, dear. No," she sighed again, and I realized she was beginning to choke up. "I need to go. I have an appointment this afternoon, anyway."

I stood up and walked her to the front door of our house. At the door, she shocked me by throwing her arms around me. She hugged me. I stood there rigid, unsure what I should do. She held me by the shoulders and gave me warm smile.