“That’s enough, Eva.”
My father’s voice is sharp, edged in that way it gets when it’s coming down with extra heavy hand from the pulpit.
I shut my mouth, but it doesn’t stop the fury from raging inside of me. It doesn’t stop the overwhelming, oppressive feeling that I’m being sold to this man.
And it’s nothing I want.
He’s nothing I want. He’s nothing that sparks me, and marriage and love and all that should spark, right?
I want to say “not like Rowan,” but I know that’s a completely silly thought, considering what we are.
I’m inexperienced, not naive.
“Well that was lovely.”
We’re back at the house after dinner, stepping through the backdoor into the kitchen and flicking on lights.
“Yes, it was,” I say quietly.
My father starts to shrug off his jacket before he stops, glancing at me and then my mother. “Look, I need to swing by the Center. Chastity? Why don’t you come with me, and we can let Eva and her mother talk for a bit.”
His eyes linger on me, and I try to smile, but I can’t seem to manage much.
“Yes, of course Pastor Ellis.”
I want to roll my eyes as Chastity follows my father back out the kitchen door. It’s almost like she’s the daughter he should have gotten.
“He’s a nice man,” my mother says after the door shuts. “Milton.”
I nod. “He is.”
“Very successful business he has.”
“Yes, it is.”
We’re quiet for a moment before she speaks again. “God does have a plan for us all, Eva.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“Hey now,” she smiles, her hands cupping my face, “I was even younger than you when my father introduced me to your father.”
“You mean arranged for you to marry someone you didn’t know.”
“Well, clearly he knew what was best.”
“Are you happy, Mom?”
Her brow wrinkles. “Well of course I am, honey.”
“No, Mom, I mean really happy? With your life?”
“I have a good man for a husband, one who brings the good word to people every day and one who leads me like a husband should.” She smiles. “And I have an angel of a daughter who I love very much, Eva. So, yes, I’m happy.”
“Did you ever want more?”
“That’s not for me to want, honey.”
I frown. “Why?”
Please don’t say God has a plan, please don’t say God has a-
“Because God has a plan for all of us, Eva.”
I shut down. It’s not the faith that throws me off — I have nothing against her or anyone having that. It’s the blind, willfully ignorant type of faith. It’s thinking my father is the man who can “lead her like a husband should”.
“I think I’m going to go for a walk,” I say it before I can stop myself, and I know what it means.
“Oh, well, bring a jacket honey. I think I’ll go to bed.”
I hug her. “Goodnight, Mom.”
“Goodnight Eva.”
We separate, and I start for the backdoor before I stop and turn back to her. “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
She smiles. “I love you too, sweetheart.”
And then I’m out the door, heading where I shouldn’t; every footstep taking me further from the path others are laying out for me and closer towards damnation.
Sweet, agonizingly beautiful damnation.
Chapter Thirty
Rowan
The bar crowd died as soon as I relieved Jade tonight, which is giving me a mix of emotions. On the one side – to the businessman side who owes money to fucking everyone, it sucks. But the worn out, mentally exhausted side of me is relieved.
No customers might mean no money, but it also means I can sit here behind the bar on my phone playing Words With Friends with Silas while I sip a beer, instead of dwelling on what the fuck I’m doing with Eva.
Eva who is presumably meeting up with her soon-to-be fiancé. Or husband. Or arranged marriage, or whatever the fuck he is.
But whatever it is, it’s eating at me. It’s eating at me in a weird way I’m not used to, since I never let things with women “eat at me”. Besides that, the whole point of getting mixed up with her in the first place was to just have fun, right? The whole ridiculous premise of “teaching her” things for the guy she’s set to marry? It’s bullshit, and we both know it.
But that was there from the start — an end point. An expiration date. The impetus for getting involved in the first place was the ending, which did not involve me. Which, under normal circumstances, would suit me just fine.