Eva bit her lip as if it would hold back the tide of furious words building in her throat. Has there ever been a single man in all the world that has ever been a grown-up? she thought as she drained the rest of her glass in a huff. She slammed it empty back down on the counter hard enough that Will’s gaze flickered up to her.
“Some dogs need to be put down, all right,” she muttered, as she swiped her book from where she’d left it on the counter and walked away from Will. She nearly bumped into Charlie coming in from the back with a roll of tape and his makeshift handwritten sign.
Charlie made a surprised sound, and then frowned. “Where are you going?”
“I’m fucking off,” said Eva in a dark tone, trying to move around him. She could feel Will’s eyes on her back, and it made heat rise in her body—this time more of the angry type.
“What?” said Charlie, confused.
“I’m going to the house,” said Eva impatiently. “Just leave me alone.” She pushed past him.
“Keep your phone on you. I want to be able to check in!” Charlie called as she weaved out the back door and into the meadow.
Eva didn’t reply as she stalked through the forest meadow, completely ignoring the view in a way she hadn’t before. She stormed up the porch stairs, made a beeline for the kitchen and a bottle of iced tea, and then holed up in her borrowed master bedroom. After lying on the cool sheets for a few minutes, watching the curtains dance in the breeze, Eva felt her anger mostly dying. Every minute, Will’s hurtful words pulsed less and less loudly in her mind.
What the hell is that guy’s problem? I didn’t do a single thing to deserve being talked to like that. Why would he risk himself to help us in a lethal situation and then turn around and treat me like shit afterwards?
Eva was so tired of men. She felt like they were an alien species she couldn’t comprehend. Sure, she had grown up a little shy and socially isolated, but she was a smart woman, totally capable of overcoming those things to find friends, boyfriends, and eventually, a husband. The friends, she kept and kept well. But the men never seemed to follow the same rules. Laura always told her it was because men were intimidated by her, and the thought always made Eva howl with laughter. But Laura held the line, insisting it was Eva’s brains and fire that caused her trouble. Weak men are afraid of strong women, she would say.
But she never felt like Rick had been afraid of her. No, quite the opposite—in her mind, Rick loomed like a monster who had never been afraid of anything. She was the one who had been afraid. The man who proposed to her was strong, sweet, and supportive. The man he became when he was finally her husband was none of those things. Rick kept her tired and frightened, alienated her from her friends and family, and even made it hard for her to hold down a job with his incessant and jealous fits when she had to work late. When she lost that job, the net only drew in tighter, and Rick had kept her from finding employment, insisting she remain in the apartment as a housewife. Under his full control, Rick tormented Eva psychologically and emotionally until she couldn’t sleep or eat, until she felt like time had lost meaning and she had already died.
Laura was the only friend who refused to let Rick push her away. She never ignored a call or text from Eva, and frequently risked herself to try and intervene. Like many abused women, Eva resisted help for years, refusing to see the truth of her life and too afraid to fix it when she did. But after Rick cut off her ability to communicate with the outside world by destroying her phone and laptop, Eva finally realized the danger she was in. Laura and Charlie had worked together to establish an escape for her. Eva would never forget the looks on their faces when they saw her after months of no visits under Rick’s controclass="underline" malnourished, exhausted, bruised, utterly spent. She had never seen Laura look so frightened before or since.
Eva hated that she understood what a trapped animal felt like, that she would never be able to fully shake off the darkness which Rick had shown her existed. For months after she left him, Eva couldn’t even stand to walk by pet stores, because the urge to compulsively rescue every single animal there would overwhelm her until she was crying in a puddle of fabric on the sidewalk.
She spent the last two and a half years with Charlie, trying to heal. And her misunderstanding of men was not confined to her romantic entanglements; Eva had never quite understood her big brother, either. Smart, sweet, attractive, and driven, Charlie had nonetheless never shown much interest in any of the sort of connections Eva enjoyed so much. A few girlfriends in his early twenties fizzled out unceremoniously, and then he just seemed to stop caring about it altogether. In a lot of ways, he reminded her of their pa and his deep work ethic, only taken to a greater extreme.
Living with Charlie was basically like living by herself, with an occasional man stopping by to leave empty milk cartons in the fridge and piles of dirty clothes on the bathroom floor. If he wasn’t at work, he was working on his own projects. Eva still felt a bit isolated, but never for long, and never like she felt before. It might have been lonely, but Charlie’s place was stable, quiet, and peaceful. He made enough money that he didn’t care when she went back to work. She lost herself in the pages of her books, still too tender to rejoin the world at full strength, but longing for connections regardless. Connecting with book characters had never been difficult for her.
And then Uncle Owen had called, and led to this: Eva, lying on some strange lumpy mattress, trying to figure out why she couldn’t stop thinking about the handsome, rude stranger who had just saved her life and then bit her head off. Remember when life felt monotonous, like, a week ago? she thought to herself with a sarcastic laugh.
Eva sighed and reached for her phone on the night table with the ugly doilies. She texted Laura to see what she was doing; she told her developments had unfolded. Eva’s phone started ringing not ten seconds after she sent the text.
“Developments!” said Laura as soon as Eva answered. “I figured something good must have happened when you had to hang up on me like that.”
“I’m not sure if ‘good’ is the word,” said Eva. “But it’s not boring.”
“Should I get popcorn?”
Eva laughed. “No, just shut up and listen. So, you’re not going to believe this, but our bar just got… like… hassled.”
“What, like, by some Fifties biker gang in leather jackets? Did you chase them away with a broom?” said Laura.
“Seriously, they were shoving customers out the door and threatening them.”
“Holy shit, Ev! Are you guys okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine. But there’s this guy… this other guy…”
She heard Laura’s laugh through the phone speaker. “Oh, I can already tell this guy is gonna be good.”
“He just kicked the shit out of them,” said Eva. “Remember that one time we were at Morningside Park with the Cicero brothers, and Tony kept prodding at that skinny nerd from Ms. Locusta’s class?”
Laura gasped, “Oh, and then that guy just came up swinging out of nowhere like he was Van Damme and made Tony look like a total bitch!”
“It was like that with this guy today. Just quiet, and then suddenly, pow,” said Eva. “He broke one of their arms and chased them off.”
“That’s incredible!” said Laura. “What the hell kind of storybook did you walk into?”
Eva laughed, “I knew you were going to say that.”
“Seriously, though, are you okay? Did anyone get hurt? I assume you called the cops.”
Eva froze, biting her lip. “We’re okay. But cops, well… things are apparently a little more complicated than that. This guy, Will… I don’t know who he is, but he says those assholes are going to come back, and he wants to stay and take care of them. He says he’s seen it before. The cops won’t help until it’s too late.”