On the surface, Evan wanted to have a good time and be the twenty-one-year-old kid that he was. When people really needed him, he was the most dependable guy. What I loved about Evan from the very beginning was that he wore his heart unabashedly on his sleeve. He didn't play games with my heart or my head.
He was gentle in ways you would have never expected a guy like him to be. When the darkness colored my mind, he was with me, bringing with him the light I needed.
His sense of humor, his kindness, his warmth, his courage, and his quiet confidence inspired me. There was only one side to Evan. Through his family and friends, I learned it was the same side he showed everyone. If he was mad, you knew it. If he was happy, you felt it and lived it, and if he loved you, he showed it and you believed it.
When you thought about it, our presence in the world was actually very small. It was our presence in the lives of others that made the world what it was. Every word we said, every gesture we made, every detail connected you to that presence you made whether you knew it or not.
When bad things happened, they happened. There was nothing you could do about it.
You tried to prepare and tell yourself you'd be okay, but the truth was you were never prepared. You had to keep in mind that there was an end to everything. There was a beginning, a middle, and eventually an end, whether you wanted there to be one or not. It was all about surviving it.
"What do hockey players do during the off-season?" I asked, sitting next to him on the couch. Leo, Remy, and Callie were over, all sitting around drinking beer and eating pizza.
Evan cleared his throat, obviously wanting to say something dirty, but he hesitated with his boys around, not wanting to embarrass me.
Instead, he nodded to his bedroom with a wink. As discretely as I could, I got up and walked down the hall to his room. He followed along with me, screams and whistles coming from the living room.
I wasn't sure how long it lasted, two, maybe three minutes, but I'd never felt as desired as I did when Evan clutched at me so desperately, gasping my name over and over again.
He held me there against the wall, both of us panting.
"What is it that they do?" I grinned with a mischievous smile.
"They have sex, Ami. Lots of sex." He chuckled, knowing I wouldn't let it go.
Evan was right. They had lots of sex. Lots. The other thing they did was enjoy some much needed time off. I wasn't working. Evan didn't want me to just yet, so instead we went on vacations. We spent a lot of time with his parents, and then finally, Evan asked if I wanted to go to Oregon for the weekend.
The truth was, I was scared to go back, but I knew eventually I'd need to. I hadn't been back to Lebanon since November. I used to think our small town, buried in the middle of nowhere, had everything I ever needed. It was a place where nothing happened and nothing would change. But things did change.
The hometown hero, that would put this small town on the map for making it big, died in a plane crash, just as his dreams were taking off.
Then I remembered that despite this, despite the tragedy that took my family, despite the brutal attack on me when I was trying to move on, the sun would still rise and set over this small town because it was here where I was born and raised. It was here where that hometown hero was raised, and it was here where I finally realized that just because you ran away from home didn't mean that all of you left.
As soon as I saw my old house, I felt my heart clench at memories I tried to keep hidden.
They were woven into everything I did.
I knew that eventually I needed to go back for closure. That happened late that summer when Evan wanted to come with me.
"So this is Lebanon, Oregon, eh?"
"Yes. Nothing but farms and a race track," I said, trailing off a little when I thought about what else was here. "And a baseball field."
"I'd like to see it, if you want me to."
"The baseball field?"
"Yes," he whispered with a low exhale. "If it gets me a little closer to knowing you, I want to see it."
"You already know me."
He shook his head, scrunching his nose from the cow shit smell that seemed to always settle here. "I know the Chicago you. I don't know the small-town girl who was born and raised in the town. I want to know her, too."
I wasn't sure what his reaction would be, but he surprised me.
I gave him a watery smile as my unsteady fingers wiped away the tears.
"Ami..." he breathed, his voice nearly silent. I stared at him, waiting for him to say something more. "They'll always be with you." His fingers touched my cheek, sweeping the tears away, and then trailed down my neck, over my collarbone to my chest where he tapped right below my locket with his index finger. "They'll be right here, always."
People have told me that my description of my family was bare and that my voice got a faraway tone to it. Maybe it did, I wasn't conscious of it; the memory burned hot and deep. I knew that. When I talked about them, the memory was a very vivid one, to me at least. It didn't feel faraway.