"Say it again," I order, and she knows just what I mean, chanting, "Leo, Leo, Leo," as I lay her down, and she wraps her legs around me. "Make love to me, Leo," she says, her eyes looking deeply into my own.
I pause briefly when I see the look on her face. She wants this but not because she knows she can forgive me. She wants this in spite of the fact that she might not be able to.
I lower my head back to her breasts, kissing and sucking them until she’s writhing and rubbing herself against me. I know her body almost as well as I know my own now and I give her what I know she loves. She whimpers, arching her back and offering herself to me as I continue to worship the rosy peaks, focusing on one and then moving to the other.
"Please," she begs, "I need you."
"My Evie," I breathe, leaning off of her and undoing her jeans so that she can help me as I push them, and her panties, down her legs. Then I bring my hand back up between her legs and move my finger slowly against her swollen nub as I return my mouth to her breast. I move my finger on her in matching rhythm to the pulls I take at her breasts, and very quickly, she’s panting and breathing my name again, "Leo."
A bolt of pure arousal surges straight to my cock, and I jerk at the strength of it, feeling my balls draw up tightly to my body. I’m in serious danger of coming simply from touching her, hearing the sounds she’s making. We’re speaking in the simplest language, without using a word.
I plunge one finger inside of her and she’s slick with desire, practically dripping. I bring my thumb back up to her swollen clit, and her leg falls to the side, making sure I have plenty of room to pleasure her.
She opens her eyes to watch me with heavy lids, and gasps out another moan as I continue to stroke my fingers in and out of her, rubbing my thumb in circular motions. Watching her face is almost too much and I feel myself impossibly grow harder.
I rub and thrust with my fingers, watching her face and changing tempo just when I think she’s about to fall off the edge. I draw out her pleasure so that when she comes, she comes harder than she’s ever come before.
"Leo!" she begs, when I slow the tempo again. She raises her hips to claim her own pleasure.
I add another finger and pick up the pace like I know she likes, rubbing and thrusting rhythmically now. She moans and at the sound, so do I. I can see by the expression on her face that she’s right there.
"Come for me, Evie," I growl and her body tenses as she arches up off the couch, crying out my name over and over again.
I pull my own jeans off and as she’s opening her eyes, I flip her over. The need to claim her feels primal, almost animalistic. I don’t think, I just feel, acting purely on instinct now.
I pull her up and position myself at her entrance and plunge in as we both moan together. I begin thrusting, slowly at first but then faster as I say her name, and she answers back, "Leo, Leo, Leo."
I hold her hips for leverage and watch myself move in and out of her, shiny with her juices.
I grunt on every thrust. Evie is my world right now – the smell of her, our combined sounds, the feeling of her tight heat around me.
I hear her breath turn to pants and I reach around her and press my finger to her clit. She bucks beneath me, throwing her head back and thrusting her ass into me so that I go as deep as I can possibly go. My own climax explodes, so intense, it looks like fourth of July sparklers are being lit behind my eyelids.
I take several more strokes, drawing out the pleasure and then I stop, laying my head against her back as we both catch our breath.
After a minute, she starts sinking to the couch and I catch her, pulling out and turning her over as we cling to each other.
I sit up, bringing her with me and placing her on my lap, our naked, sticky skin against each other, our breathing slow and steady now.
I lean back and take her face in my hands, finally able to say the one thing that I’ve been longing to say for eight, long years. "I love you, Evie."
She gazes at me and I go on, "Whatever you think about what I'm about to tell you, you have to know that. I've always loved you. I've never stopped. Not for one second in eight years."
CHAPTER 28
We clean up quickly and she’s back on the couch next to me. We both seem to be in a little bit of a daze over what just happened. It was like our bodies took over, claiming something from each other that was necessary, but that we both knew wouldn’t change the situation at hand. It’s still in front of us. The first question she asks me is why I changed my name. I pause before starting. Here we go.
"Lauren asked me if it would help me to get a new start if I started going by my middle name, and of course, my new last name. I said no at first, but after that first week, I agreed. I wanted to become someone else – truthfully, I wanted to escape myself. Of course, a name change can't do that, but it seemed like a start at the time. I registered for school as Jake Madsen and no one has called me Leo until now." And it feels right that Evie be the first one to use my real name, as if I’ve been hiding behind Jake Madsen for eight years. Maybe somehow, unconsciously, trying to keep the real me safe, tucked away. I realize now though, that Evie is the only one I need to be completely exposed to, and the one that I’m the most terrified of being exposed to. It doesn’t justify my lie, but it was the motivation behind my dishonesty. Fear. Hers is the only judgment I really, truly care about, the only judgment that can flatten me completely. I’m beginning to think that maybe there’s a chance that I’ll be okay when it comes to my past and all the demons that I’ve carried around for as long as I can remember. But will I survive it if Evie deems me unforgivable? God, I don’t know.
With fear in her eyes, she asks me what happened that first week. And that’s how I start telling her my story, filled with secrets and shame, and mistakes and maybe, just maybe, some redemption. From that first flight to San Diego, to the flight back to Cincinnati.
She listens to every word I say, her expression going from horror to pain, to anger, to sorrow – my Evie, her emotions right there for me to see. She doesn’t know how to hide, or maybe she doesn’t try. But either way, the beauty and strength in that is even more apparent to me in the midst of my own story. I had hidden in every way possible. But in the end, the demons had found me behind every effort anyway – they’re industrious like that.
I tell her about that terrible day in the basement of my new home in San Diego. The horror on her face is devastating and I almost decide I can’t go on. But I pull it together and I go on anyway. I owe it to her. But my own shame is scalding me from the inside, burning me alive. I’m reliving it as I tell Evie about the moment that affected us both, the moment that changed our course, maybe forever. That moment wasn’t just about me. It was about her too. I take responsibility for that. She calls Lauren a pedophile, and maybe she’s right. But I cooperated. Even if she manipulated me, I played right into her web. I accept that. I have to.
I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve looked at Lauren’s actions in a new light since talking to Dr. Fox. And he’s helped me understand why I played the part that I did. But I still haven’t been able to let go of the searing shame that the memories bring. Maybe it’s the last piece of my puzzle. I’ve made some peace with my past, allowing me to let go of some of the pain, and I’ve told Evie the truth now. Maybe Lauren is the one thing that I need to let go of before I can fully heal and be that complete man that Dr. Fox talked about. Why does it still feel like such an impossible feat?
"You didn't think you could trust me enough to tell me?" she asks softly, a sob making her voice hitch, and my heart squeeze painfully.
"A million times I thought about how I could explain to you what happened. I needed you so desperately; I thought I would die of the longing. But what was I supposed to say? I couldn't even make sense of it myself, much less try to explain it to you. I was just so deeply ashamed.
"And eventually, I considered the longing for you my penance for being me, someone who destroyed the people he loved. The thing I c
ouldn't get around was what my silence must be doing to you."
I pause for a minute, considering my words, listening to my own heart. "Eventually though, I convinced myself that being apart, you had a fighting chance. I figured I was broken and that some people can't be fixed, or if they can, it's only by love so big it destroys the fixer. I couldn't destroy you any more than I thought I already had, Evie. I convinced myself that knowing the truth about me would have hurt you more than leaving you alone."
When Evie looks at me with empathy in her eyes and holds herself back from touching me, I know it is more a testament to her innate kindness than that I’m worthy of her forgiveness.
Telling Evie all my truth is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s the hardest thing I will ever do. To sit and look Evie in the eye and explain to her what a wretched person I had been. I had turned into everything that I had always promised myself I would never be – a coward, a user, a liar. I had turned to the very thing that had hurt me so much as a boy, numbing myself with substances instead of facing my own pain. And as I reveal myself to her, I wonder how she’ll ever be able to love me again, if she'll ever be able to love me again.
When I tell her about my accident, she grabs my hand and squeezes it, and it’s almost too much. I put my hands back in my own lap, knowing I don’t deserve the comfort.
I tell her about my dad’s heart attack, about Dr. Fox, about all those months lying there self-reflecting, wanting her back in my life so badly, it was a physical pain.
I tell her about following her, about blurting out my lie and then letting it continue. I cringe. I’m sickened by my deceit, but at the same time, a part of me is not sorry that it gave us the chance to find out who we are together before having to deal with all the issues my identity would have immediately brought up. I’m not sure how to reconcile these conflicting feelings, and so I don’t try. I just confess. I confess it all and I don’t hold back.
"I almost told you so many times. I was almost sure you realized who I was the night I drove you home from our first date and we sat in the car forehead to forehead, just exactly like that night I first kissed you on our roof."
She studies me quietly, looking sad and thoughtful for a few minutes, before saying, "I've always been good at pushing things aside that I didn't want to think about, good at losing myself in my own head. It's why I'm good at making up stories, I think. Being able to escape to a dreamland was a survival instinct for me. Maybe I did that with you too. Inside I knew that there was something I wasn't allowing myself to think about. I let you lie to me because the lie felt good. I admit that now."
God, that’s just like Evie, trying to take responsibility for pushing the knowledge of who I am to the back of her mind, but I reject that. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t, but this is not on her. I’m the one who lied.
"I won't let you take responsibility for any of this. Maybe you made some unconscious choices, but you can't blame yourself for that. I made all the conscious decisions. I'm the only one at fault in this situation. I understand that you need space to digest it all. But please, please, Evie, I can't lose you again. I'll never survive it twice. Can you at least try to forgive me? To understand why?" I choke out.
She pauses, and says quietly, "I don't know. I just need some time, Leo. You've just caught me up on eight years of life… a really fucked up life… for both of us." She laughs humorlessly. "Can we… can I have some space to think? Please?"
She’s sat here and listened to my whole fucked up story, and gone through every emotion it brings up, right along with me. I’ll give her whatever she needs.
I feel emotionally exhausted, numb, terrified that she won’t be able to forgive me. But I’ve stepped back on to the right path – I know I have. I feel it. Now, I just have to pray that she’ll join me, that it’s her path too.
As I’m about to open her door and walk out, perhaps for the last time, I say quietly, "Your gift with storytelling, Evie? It's not about you getting lost in your own mind, or living in a dreamland. It's about the beauty of your heart. It's about being able to rise above even the worst of situations. It's one of the reasons I've loved you every single day since I was eleven years old." I want the last words I say to her to be words of love.
I open her door and walk out, closing it quietly behind me.
CHAPTER 29
I spend the next couple of days in a state of quiet desperation. But I make it through the days without trying to numb the pain in any way. Instead, living with it and processing it the best I can.
I go to the gym, I bury myself in my work, and I come home at the end of the day, exhausted from all the emotions I’m dealing with, but feeling a glimmer of satisfaction for holding it together. I take this as a sign that I’m healthier than I was and I allow myself to feel a small shred of pride. I don’t know exactly what the difference is this time. Maybe it’s the time I spent with Dr. Fox, maybe it’s that there is a peace in finally telling the truth. Maybe it’s that Evie, whether she wants to move forward with me or not, didn’t look at me with disgust or hatred. Hurt, yes. Disgust, no. The relief in that alone is humbling.
My plan hasn’t changed. I’m going to fight for my girl. But I know instinctively that fighting for her means giving her the space to process everything I’ve told her.
**********
A few days after my talk with Evie, I head to the airport bright and early for some business in San Diego. Preston and I hired a new Vice President of Operations for the California office and I want to be there to welcome him. It’s not a mandatory trip, but getting out of town will help me distract myself for a day, and stop pacing in front of my door, wanting to run to Evie.
As I’m waiting for my flight to board, I listen to my messages. There’s one from a number I don’t recognize and when I listen to it, it’s Lauren.
"Jake. I need you. I’ve been arrested. Falsely, of course. These incompetent people have taken me to jail, Jake. This is unbelievable! I need you to bail me out–" Shocked, I listen as she seems to put her hand over the mouthpiece and talk to someone. Then she comes back on the phone. "Jake. Just please, get me out of here. My arraignment is on Monday morning. Book a flight! I can’t even fathom that I have to spend the night here. Have the money ready, honey. I’m at the San Diego central jail."
I stick my phone back in my jacket pocket, frowning and completely confused. Arrested? For what? I can’t believe she called me of all people. Or, I guess I can. I look up, suddenly realizing that first class boarding has started. I grab my bag and head for the plane.
When I touch down in San Diego, I head to the rental car counter and am quickly in a car, pulling out of the lot. I Googled the police station while I was waiting and so I dial the number now. After being switched around to several lines, I’m connected to a Detective Peterson.
"Detective, this is Jake Madsen. Lauren Madsen is my mother. I got a message from her that she’s been arrested–"
"Yes, Mr. Madsen," he says solemnly. "I’m the lead detective responsible for the sting operation that led to your mother’s arrest."
"Sting?" I ask incredulously, laughing a humorless laugh. "That sounds serious. I thought she might’ve had a few too many glasses of wine and got in her car."
"No, Mr. Madsen. I can’t really give you any more information over the phone, but if you’re close by, I’d be happy to meet with you now and explain the details of your mother’s case."
I pause. "Actually, I am. I don’t live in town anymore but I happen to be here today. I can head there now if that works for you." What is this about? Do I even care? No, not about Lauren. But curiosity has the best of me now. Plus, what if this somehow affects the court case she has against me?
"Right now is fine." He tells me he’s at police headquarters at the moment, and gives me directions and we hang up.
I call my office and tell them I’m going to be a little later than I thought and head to meet Detective Peterson. What the hell can this be about? A sting operation? T
he only sting operations I’ve ever heard of are drug related, or those ones I’ve seen on Dateline where the reporter surprises the guy who’s set up a date with the underage girl he met online – the steering wheel jerks in my hands and I veer a little too far over into the lane next to me, an angry horn blaring and jolting me back to myself. A cold dread settles over me. Oh, fuck. No. No way. No fucking way. It couldn’t be, could it? I blank my mind and drive the rest of the way to the police station.
When I get there, I ask for Detective Peterson at the front desk and after five minutes, a tall, middle aged man with thinning blond hair and tired looking eyes comes out and shakes my hand.
"Mr. Madsen. I’m sorry to be meeting you under these circumstances. Please, follow me. There’s an empty office back this way."
I nod and follow him through the station, thinking that I was lucky to avoid this place on many occasions during my teenage years, but not for lack of trying. All the underaged drinking, driving with way too many drinks in me, stupid, stupid fuck up. I feel the shame spearing through me at the brief flashes of memory.
He shows me into a drab little office on the far side of the station, the bright blue California sky outside the one small window a startling contrast to the dull box we’re sitting in.
He sits down behind his desk and I take a seat on the brown vinyl chair in front of it. There’s the famous poster of the kitten with the "Hang in There" tagline. Something about it strikes me as funny and I almost laugh, but catch myself.