Divided (2 page)

I stared back at my glass, wondering how the characters would look with grape juice behind them. "Alright," I said matter-of-factly.

It was almost funny to see the look of surprise on their faces as Gabriel and Evelyn looked at each other. Sonya seemed relieved—she had been waking me up during nightmares for months without sharing the information with Gabriel and Evelyn.

"Well." Evelyn leaned back in her chair. "I'll make the appointment."

"You look awful, Evie." Gabriel patted my hand. "Why don't you stay home and try to rest a bit?"

I got up from the table, leaving the hideous cartoons there. "I can't. I'm interviewing Miss Troy for the yearbook today."

Sonya's warm brown eyes squinted a little at the edges, and her voice was kind, but unsure. "You can take one day off, Evie."

I shot her a wrinkled forehead of disapproval, but she just shook her head and smiled at me. I couldn't take days off. If I took a day off, I'd have too much time to think about Dev. As it was, I was having trouble concentrating on the more mundane class work.

I dragged myself from the kitchen and got ready for school, trying to avoid really looking at myself in the mirror. I didn't need to see the dark circles to know they were there—they'd really taken up permanent residence. I did what I could with concealer and threw on some mascara to try to make my poor light-green eyes look a little more open, but that's as far as I was willing to go to outwardly impress others. My hair made me sad, though. The lack of sleep made my once rich and smooth long, dark brown hair look dull and lifeless, but that was easily fixed with a ponytail.

At school, I went through the motions of being a student. I did the worksheets placed in front of me, and I took down the notes written on the board, but I was barely there mentally. During leadership class, I had to be a little more stealth with my look-like-I'm-here plan since we were discussing final plans for prom. I'd been a big supporter of prom. I fought hard to have one, but I think I secretly harbored this idiotic idea that Dev would still take me. I'd even mailed my invitation to Harm, who told me he showed it to his "team" during one of our too-quick, too-far-in-between phone calls. "Team" was code-word for Dev as near as I could figure. But I never had anything definite, and I couldn't even bring up anything definite or his already measly phone privileges might be revoked. This was, of course, all due to him being Special Ops and the whole top secret, we're-holding-your-infected-boyfriend-prisoner-as-we-run-all-kinds-of-experiments-on-him, sort of thing.

So I sat there, doodling on the corner of my paper as Ally and Marissa debated balloon colors. Ally asked me about gold, and I told her I thought silver was prettier. She was arguing, and I was about to respond, but then I asked myself why I was bothering. Why was I working so hard to please everyone? And that's the real moment it hit me that I'd stopped being myself, and I'd stopped really paying attention to my own feelings. Dr. Avery would have jumped up with his index finger in the air and said, "There's the pot of gold we've been looking for." He was Irish and had an entire shelf of leprechaun figurines… as I said before, we're all some form of complete loon, Dr. Avery included.

I looked up at Ally and realized out loud, "I'm not going to prom, so what's it to me which color you choose?"

Both Marissa and Ally scrunched their faces up like prunes and looked at each other in confusion. Despite my resolve not to care what others thought, I found myself staring bashfully at the desk. I could have made my "I don't give a crap" statement a little gentler. Fortunately, the classroom phone on the wall directly beside us rang at that moment, and all three of us jumped a little.

Mr. Berg, the best teacher on campus, came over and handed me a hall pass, smiling. "You've won a lovely vacation to our fine office. I have a feeling you won't be returning today, so be sure to pack appropriately, and enjoy the trip."

I nodded in response, threw my things in my backpack, and tossed a somewhat apologetic look on my face as I headed for the door.

It had only been two and a half months since I'd seen Dr. Avery's shiny, bald head; wrinkly, pale pink forehead; and incredibly kind, yet annoyingly insightful brown eyes. He greeted me with open arms and a fatherly smile. "Piper, my dear, how have you been?"

I wrapped my arms around his thick chest. "I'm back here, so obviously, not too good. No offense."

He patted me on the back. "None taken. Come on in, and get comfortable. I want to hear it all from you."

One of the things I always liked about Dr. Avery was that he was honest. He told me the information Gabriel and Evelyn had given him, and what his thoughts were about that information, and then he'd really listen to me. Most of the time, he worked on helping me find my own way back to "okay" rather than trying to throw a bunch of solutions at me that other people had tried.

I spent the next hour telling him about the nightmares, about my job, school, and all the extra activities I was throwing myself into to avoid dealing with the pain of missing Dev. I freely admitted that this was what I was doing, and I admitted that I didn't see another option for how to cope. I felt like I was doing the best I could.

When I'd finished telling him about everything, he stared at me for several minutes in silence. Ironically, when Dr. Avery was really concentrating, his forehead smoothed out, and his face appeared relaxed. It did in that moment and it made me ten times more nervous.

"I always tell you what I'm thinking, you know that," he began. "But first I want to say that if you decide not to come see me again, I'll understand. Please though, don't shut out the question I'm about to ask. Think about it, ask Sonya and Gary what they think about it, and take it all in. Write about it in that journal. Can you promise me that?"

I stared at him, knowing his question would be bad. I wanted to just clap my hands to my ears and ignore him, but I respected him too much for that. Slowly and reluctantly, I nodded.

His voice was clear, but slightly hesitant. "Do you think it might be time to let Dev go and really start living your life without him?"

It took me a full minute to take in the question before my mouth spit out the only answer that would ever work for me. "Never." I stood up and gave him a small smile. "I'll keep writing in my journal. Goodbye, Dr. Avery."

He nodded once and closed his eyes before I turned away from him. In all the time I had been his patient, he'd never once suggested I stop hoping for Dev to come back. He encouraged me to accept the reality that he might not, but he said hope was a powerful emotion in short supply. He said I should hold onto it with both hands and not let go. I liked that thought. So why the sudden change? Was I really in that bad of condition that he would suggest something he knew would make me walk away from him?

I sat in the waiting room as Dr. Avery spoke with Evelyn. I'd always given free reign for him to discuss anything with Evelyn and Gabriel—I didn't have any secrets from them. In this case, however, I was worried that he would tell her to continue encouraging me to forget about Dev. Not that it mattered; I'd never give up on Dev.

The ride home was very quiet and tense. I wasn't in the mood to say anything, but Evelyn kept glancing over at me like I might deteriorate right there in front of her eyes. Just because I was having a tough time dealing with everything didn't mean I was going to lose it again and stop eating. I knew no amount of words would ease her fears, though, so I just had to put her glances out of my head.

After my visit to Dr. Avery, I felt like I'd taken five steps back in everyone's eyes. The furtive glances my way started up again, and the deafening silence when I walked into a room with more than one person in it made a reappearance. But I was really tired. I didn't feel like throwing myself into a hundred things. It hadn't helped before, so I really didn't see how it would suddenly cure me of missing Dev and Harm and the constant debilitating worry I felt for what might be happening to them.

I took a couple days off of school to "sleep," but what I was really doing was staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out a plan to get myself under control. I flat-out knew my worrying wouldn't help anyone. Harm would lecture me about it if he knew I was letting it get the better of me, but I just felt so far from Dev and Harm that it consumed me.

On day three of I-just-need-to rest, Sonya stayed home from school with me, and before I could say no, she'd pulled Gary into it as well. She tried to pull me out of bed several times, but was unsuccessful until Gary got there and simply picked me up in his arms.

"Snap out of it," he commanded like it was a switch to flip.

What did they want from me? I ate three solid meals a day, I responded when spoken to, and I brushed my teeth and showered every day. I was functioning better than before.

"At least talk to us, Evie," Sonya pleaded.

Gary set me down in the chair at my small desk. "I heard what that quack said to you, and it's bullshit, Evie. He's one of my best friends. I haven't given up on him, why the hell should you?"

I looked up at him with surprise. "You agree with me?" I really hadn't expected anyone to be on my side.

His thick dark blond eyebrows shot together, and his nostrils flared just slightly. "You thought
I
would tell you to forget about him? That pisses me off, Evie." His shoved his hand out in Sonya's direction. "And Sonya too? Did you think that about her?"

I stared down at my hands, feeling a little ashamed. Well, it felt like everyone else had turned on me, why not them? But I was wrong. They'd always been there for me. "It just felt like everyone was so quiet around me—like they didn't know what to say to the delusional girl who thinks her boyfriend might come back someday."

"Evie," Sonya breathed out on a long sigh as she sat heavily on my bed. "It's not like he broke up with you. It's not like he chose to leave. Why would I encourage you to move on? But you're right; we're all quiet because we don't know what to say to you. Mom and Dad are afraid to keep your hopes up, and they're really pissed that they have no way to get any information for you. Dad's tried. He's called Red Cross hundreds of times. We all want to give you good news, and we're quiet because we can't. It doesn't mean we think you should give up. In fact, Mom told Dr. Avery he was an asshole and that she'd be posting as many negative reviews of him online as she could."

I laughed a little at that. Evelyn was all over the bad-review-threats, and she always made good on them. Sonya stood up and wrapped her arms around me. When Gary squeezed the life out of both of us, I closed my eyes. I felt so tired and emotionally drained but a little better.

Gary stood up abruptly. "Get dressed. We have a surprise for you today."

I wrinkled my nose. "A surprise?" I didn't like surprises, but I got up anyway and headed for the shower.

"You'll like this one, Evie," Sonya called out before I shut the door.

A half hour later, we were in Gary's truck heading for my surprise. I recognized where we were going, though. "Is the surprise at your house?" I asked Gary.

Gary smiled at Sonya who sat between us. "Close." Sonya nodded at him, and he continued. "I thought it might help for you to talk to a couple people who feel like you do—you know, who refuse to give up hope of Dev coming back."

The puzzle pieces locked slowly together, and I shook my head. "They won't wanna see me, Gary. His parents must hate me."

"What?" Gary laughed. "You really are nuts. Why would they hate you?"

"If Dev had never fallen in love with me, none of this would have happened. The infection in Bishop, Jay, all those deaths, Dev being infected and taken away—it's all my fault."

Sonya grabbed my hand and turned to me. "Have you been blaming yourself all this time?"

I hated the pity in her voice. I didn't deserve it.

She continued in her low, poor-baby tone. "None of this is your fault. Hey, look at me. You didn't make them go in that cave, and you didn't put the infection in there with them. You didn't do this, Evie."

I stared angrily out the window. They wouldn't have been in that cave if I'd just stayed with Jay. All this happened because I couldn't be happy with what Jay and I had. And the worst part, the part that made a really awful person, was that I couldn't bring myself to regret any of it. I couldn't make myself regret everything that had happened because it gave me a few moments with Dev.

"No one blames you, but yourself," Gary said bluntly. "His parents sure as hell don't blame you. They ask about you all the time, but you'll see that in a few minutes."

I continued to stare out the window. My stomach did somersaults in Guiness World Record numbers. Gary smoothly thumbed through his phone to find one of my favorite songs and turned it on.

Before long, we were driving down a long dirt road separated from the open field on either side by a white two-beam fence. I tried to remember details from my last and only visit to Dev's house, but I had been so out of it from Jay's attack that nothing seemed to stick with me. I expected to pull up to Dev's house shortly, but we just kept following the white fence on and on. To the left, a couple horses ran toward the fences, galloping alongside Gary's truck.

Gary reached over and nudged my knee, nodding toward the fence. "Dev's horses know my truck. We're almost there."

When Dev's house came into view, I remembered the warm green of the siding and how it complemented the round logs forming the sides of the home. Beyond the beauty of the actual building, my eyes were drawn to little things. I didn't remember the two metal dog sculptures. They were adorable and made from materials you would find on a ranch like shovels, rakes, and parts that might have been from a tractor. Large pots were painted with different designs and contained bright flowers. There were two large trees in the front with thick trunks. One tree had a face on it, nailed into the trunk, and the other had a large tire swing hanging from an upper branch. The whole place looked so well-loved.