I stopped moving. “I told you. I’ve never done this before.”
He placed his hands on my hips to show me who was in charge and began moving my body over him again. “How much more money would it take to fuck you?”
I jumped off of him. “Stop. I get it. You hate me! You want me to pay for what I did to you. Just call me a whore and get it over with. Then leave.” I walked over to the opposite side of the room, covering my breasts. “This is a losing game, Sevin. You can’t possibly make me feel worse about myself than I already do. I wish it were me instead that died. I wish I were dead every single day. If I had the balls, I would just—”
“You would what?”
I gave him the honest answer.
“End it all…”
He looked like my admission had inflicted physical pain on him.
Sevin got up from his seat and rushed toward me. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever fucking say that!” Pulling me into his arms, he held me tightly. When he looked at me again, it was as if he’d just woken up out of a trance. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. So sorry. Forgive me. Forgive me for this. Forgive me.”
He kept repeating himself, asking for forgiveness.
I ran my fingers through his hair as he buried his forehead into my chest.
“I understand,” I said. “I deserve every bit of this.”
He spoke into my chest, “I’m just so angry at you. I don’t know how to handle it.”
The heat of his breath warmed my skin in the otherwise freezing room. Then, I felt wetness fall onto the bare skin of my breasts. He was crying. I’d never seen Sevin cry, not even at Elle’s funeral.
I held his face into me for several minutes.
“Why?” he whispered over my skin.
I wasn’t able to give him that answer.
“You left me.” He repeated louder, “Why? Why did you just give up?” He wiped his eyes and looked up at me. “You really think I hate you? I wish I fucking hated you, Evangeline. I’d give anything. I wish I could rid you from my heart, but you are my fucking heart.”
Walking over to the other side of the room, he picked up my bra off the floor and handed it to me. He no longer looked angry. Just sad and a little ashamed of his actions.
“I have to leave.”
“Are you okay to drive?”
“I’ll be fine.”
After I put the bra back on, he took off his hoodie and wrapped it around my shoulders.
Holding out his hand, he said, “Give me your phone.” He took it and programmed his number into the contacts. “You have my number now. In case you need it.”
After he left, I sat in the empty room, huddled in his sweatshirt, breathing in his scent, not knowing where things stood with Sevin.
I later hid the hoodie in my dressing room locker so that Dean wouldn’t see it when he picked me up.
Several weeks went by before an opportunity to head to Dodge City arose again. Not having a car was a huge disadvantage but one that Dean carefully manipulated, refusing to let me buy my own vehicle.
I had stared down at Sevin’s number almost every day, wanting to call but not knowing what to say. We’d left things on a very strange note, but in a sense, he’d left it up to me to make further contact. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. I wondered if he told Addy where I was working and if she was disappointed in me.
Emily had made me promise to come see her, so a visit to my parent’s house was long overdue. When Dean announced that he was taking off for a guys’ trip over the weekend, the wheels in my head began to turn.
“So, where exactly are you guys going?”
“Not sure if they decided yet.”
“You said Nelson is going to pick you up?”
“Yeah…why?”
“That means you’re leaving the truck. Can I use it?”
“You can use it to go to work, but that’s it.”
“Why not? I was gonna take a couple of nights off and go to Dodge City for the weekend to see my parents.”
“No. The truck needs new struts. You can’t drive it far until I fix it.”
“I can fix it myself for crying out loud.”
“You think I’m gonna let you touch my truck, Evie? There’s enough shit for you to do around the house anyway. You’ve been slacking this week. I don’t need to be worrying about you while I’m away.”
“I want to go home.”
“This is your home.”
No. It’s not.
“Yes, bu—”
“Are you forgetting that you’d run away from that place when I found you? If it weren’t for me, you’d be out on the street. Where was your fucking family then, huh? They wouldn’t even want anything to do with you if they knew about your whorish ways. I’m the only reason you’re straightened out. Now, you want to visit them on weekends all of a sudden? What a crock of shit, Evie…”