13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

F or most of the drive to Reno, Eva fumed.

Fuming was better than breaking down, which she had been tempted to do the moment Jack called yet again to make her life harder. Kicking her out of the relationship hadn't been enough. No, he also had to go back on his promises. And he hadn't stopped there. The bastard didn't even have the grace to give her time to adjust. Her fingers ached from how hard she clenched the steering wheel as the familiar highway signs heading into Reno passed her by.

Considering she'd been away for almost two full weeks, the sight of the place she'd carved out for herself as a home should've filled her with relief, with warmth. Instead, her stomach curdled the closer she got .

All that was left here were soured memories. Her friends hadn't reached out. Besides, most of them were ones she'd met with Jack or through him, so they made their stances clear. Eva hadn't bothered keeping up with older friends from home when she moved, wanting to spend as little time around her parents as possible. She didn't regret it, though. Most people in that town hadn't been for her. Instead, she'd cultivated a whole new home in Reno.

Which had just gotten torched to ashes.

Eva got off at the exit she knew by heart, one she'd traveled the whole five years she'd been dating Jack. They'd been on a fast track to forever—talks about proposing and everything—until they'd added Sienna into the mix. And Jack hadn't been the only one smitten. Eva had fallen just as hard.

Sweat coated her palms as she drove down roads she remembered better than she wanted to. The moment she made the turn onto what used to be her street, her heart thumped so hard it drowned out whatever grating music poured from the radio. Some shit from the "oldies" station that made her feel old, even though she was twenty-eight.

Seeing Jack again would be a gut punch either way. Seeing Sienna might hurt even more. Eva pulled into park in front of the house, pointedly not looking at it. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, breathing in and out slowly, trying to stave off the panic attack. Why she insisted on doing everything by herself, she didn't know.

Maybe because she was a control freak.

Or maybe because she didn't believe anyone would truly help.

Her entire childhood, Mom had hammered in the point—that Eva couldn't get anything right, that she wasn't pretty enough, that her outspokenness wouldn't win her a husband. Well, Mom had predicted the future on that front because after five years, Jack had dumped her like hot garbage .

She sucked in another deep breath, trying to control her nerves. The image of Pixie at the boba place filtered into her brain: the bright, open expression, her genuine laughter, enhanced by the hazy halo of late night and interior lighting that had lent the space a dreamy buzz.

The first tendrils of warmth curled through her, her nerves settling for the first time since she started the drive. Something about that woman was pure magic to her system, and Eva wanted to soak it in for as long as possible. She wasn't the type of person anyone picked for forever, but she'd take whatever brief moments she could get.

Let's do this.

Eva pushed out of the car, the door creaking. When she stepped onto the front walkway of the two-story single house, she wrinkled her nose. All the little yellow and red marigolds she'd planted had already started to wither. Weeds were overtaking them, and the rest of her garden would be in the same shape. She finally looked at what had been her home, but the previous warmth and energy had vanished.

After Jack's announcement, she'd realized even if she had stayed, she wouldn't have felt welcome in this town. Not after all the hurt that had occurred here, after all she'd lost.

The question that left her with was where to go next?

She and Micah had been closer growing up, but they'd drifted when he'd returned home while she had stayed in Reno, only visiting on occasion. If she'd understood he'd been as miserable as she was, she would've dragged him out of there. However, if their parents had taught them anything, it was to fend for themselves.

Eva dipped her hand into her purse for the key but stilled. Jack had probably changed the locks, and she didn't have the heart to find out. Instead, she rang the bell.

The heavy pound of footsteps reached her ears, and her shoulders started drawing up on instinct. The door swung open, and in the middle of the frame stood a person she once thought she knew so well. Whenever a breakup occurred, it was like the fairy dust of the relationship that colored them in magic got blown away. Even when she and Jack had fought while they were together, she could still see those parts of him she loved.

However, the man who stood before her today looked tired.

He'd once been charming with sandy blond hair swept to the side, a lopsided grin, and similar meticulous care to his appearance that she put into hers. Now, the color of his hair was like dishwater, his grin nowhere in sight, and he'd missed a button on his button-down. A frown line dented his forehead, and his loafers looked more weathered than normal. All the attraction that had fueled her for years had reduced to nothing, and that was a small relief she could claim.

"I started packing away some of your stuff," he said, not bothering with niceties.

She gritted her teeth. Guaranteed, he put things in some willy-nilly nonsensical order that would make her possessions harder to find.

"Most of the furniture is mine," Jack said.

Eva lifted her hand to cut him off. "I just want my belongings. The house stuff I contributed on or we bought together can stay." The unspoken was that she didn't have anywhere to move bulky items regardless—no new house or even storage facility because that would require knowing where she was going to land. When she'd moved in with Jack, the house had been fully furnished, but she'd added her touches. Of course she'd take the paintings she'd had to fight with him to put up, a few of the older houseplants she'd hoped survived, and the rest she'd brought with her when she moved in. However, the other stuff? More cluttered memories of their time together she didn't need.

"Going to let me in?" She lifted her brow, holding on to her resolve by a thread .

Jack huffed out a breath and stepped back. Eva walked through, doing her best to pretend he wasn't there. She ignored the burn of his gaze at her back as she headed straight to the staircase. He'd probably ousted most of the stuff from what had been their shared bedroom, but she'd be going over it with a fine-tooth comb.

A few boxes sat outside the bedroom, and she peeked inside one. Her collections of hardbacks were crammed in, some bent at the sides. Her hands balled up on instinct. This would be a challenge from beginning to end, but the more time she spent inside the house, the more she realized she couldn't have kept it anyway. No matter how much she'd tried to make her imprint here, this place had always belonged to him.

And just like the glitz had faded with him, it had also faded over the space that had once been her home.

She stepped into the bedroom, which was a mess. The bedsheets were rumpled, the bookshelves empty, since she'd owned most of the books there. Jack was one of those special flowers who "didn't read." Which should've been a red flag. All her tabletop gaming things—the bags of dice she hoarded, the DM's screen, and books she'd kept on the shelf under her nightstand—had all vanished too, presumably into one of the boxes. When she opened the closet, a few of Sienna's dresses hung next to hers, which lobbed a punch into her gut. Eva glanced around the room. At least Sienna hadn't fully moved in yet.

Small blessings.

If she wasn't living here full time yet, there might be a chance Eva could get out of this excursion without seeing her. Handling Jack and the house was bad enough, but if she added anything else to the stack, she'd topple over.

A heap of flattened boxes had been laid out on what used to be her side of the room. She'd brought some, but truthfully, she'd need more. Eva kneeled in front of her nightstand and opened the drawer. The sight of all her belongings glaring up at her made her eyes burn. Her throat tightened, and her vision glossed over as she reached to the side and folded up a box. Slowly but surely, she began to empty out the contents of the drawer.

She was uprooting her life in Reno, but she didn't know where she'd be planted.

Hot tears dripped down her cheeks, and her shoulders shook, but she continued going through the motions of packing up. Her heart clenched hard, and each breath she took in was strained. This was what she'd needed to keep from Micah and Pixie. She didn't want a soul to witness her breakdown.

If no one could love her at her best, they'd never want her like this.

Her fingers grew numb as she silently cried, trying not to make any noise to alert Jack. She needed this privacy right now, the quiet to try to place each individual item from decks of playing cards to the jewelry she'd kept in boxes in the upper drawer to the rose lotion she liked best that she'd been missing these past few weeks. Each item fit differently in the box as if she could somehow reconstruct pieces of her life in this cardboard frame.

She's too difficult. It'll be a wonder if she ever finds someone to love her.

Eva wasn't supposed to overhear her mother—it had been a conversation in the other room—but sixteen and impressionable, she hadn't been able to forget those words. When she and Jack had gotten together and their relationship was good, there had been this triumphant "fuck you" to her mom deep in her bones. However, when both Jack and Sienna left her, any composure she'd clung to had evaporated .

The hot tears dripped down her face, blurring her vision. Her shoulders began to shake, but she kept on moving. She hadn't fully cried since everything had happened. This was inevitable. She'd known that, and something about packing up her former life ripped the remaining seams that stitched her together. Her heart spasmed in her chest, the ache intensifying.

She had a trajectory, but the forest she'd planted had gotten razed to the ground. Now she needed to find somewhere new to grow, to flourish.

If only she knew where.

***

After hours and hours of packing up her belongings and hauling the boxes to her car, Eva was down to cursory checks.

She didn't want to return to this place unless she had to.

Sweat glued to her skin, and she reeked from the sour scent combined with the dust and grime kicked up by unearthing all her belongings. She needed a shower—water, fire, she wasn't picky—just needed to scorch the remnants of this day off her skin. Jack hadn't offered to help once. No, he'd made himself scarce. She wanted to be pissed about it, but him not being around made her life easier.

The room looked torn over, but she hadn't bothered putting things back in their places. Petty? Sure, maybe a little, but not as shitty as he'd been.

Eva's phone buzzed, and she pulled it out, glancing at the screen. Pixie.

She expected a text message, but a picture loaded instead .

It wasn't in the finished stages yet, but the surrealist painting was all dark purples and blues, twisting with deep black, evocative of shadows. Eva clutched her phone, emotion welling to the surface. As if she hadn't already cried a bucket of tears. However, this wasn't more pain. No, she knew the intimacy in this picture all too well, one that felt personal in a way most paintings didn't.

Granted, it helped if you were sleeping with the artist.

The more she studied it, the more she noticed the curves of the blackened shadows, the almost figure-like quality of them. Her heart thudded a little harder. It was a bit egotistical to believe this was inspired by their stolen moments together in the velvet dark, but something about it viscerally transported her there. As if this was Pixie's way of reaching out, like she was thinking of her. Eva's throat tightened.

Just being at Pixie and Micah's apartment for two weeks had made Eva aware of how protective Pixie got over works in progress. She didn't let anyone into her studio, and she didn't even hang her paintings on the walls of her apartment. No, the talented woman had them on display in different venues across the country. The only reason Eva had seen them was that she'd scurried down some winding Google rabbit holes.

So Pixie sending her an unfinished painting did mean something.

Eva grasped on to that truth with all her might.

She went downstairs, the steps creaking, ready to drive to her motel for the night. The door opened, and Jack walked back inside.

Their eyes locked, and she pressed her lips together, giving him no emotion.

"All of my belongings are out," she said, her tone as dead as their relationship. "If you find anything else of mine, send me a text, and you can mail it to my new address."

"I'm sorry this was all so sudden."

This was the most of an apology she'd get from him for going back on his word, so she nodded. She didn't owe him any wishes for the future, and she didn't bother with them. Part of her wanted to know what Sienna was doing, if she was in the process of completely replacing her, but her self-preservation kept her from asking. If all he was going to say was they'd been waiting to cut her out of the picture, she would slice herself to ribbons.

"Good-bye, Jack," she said, walking past him to the door.

She didn't look back, no matter how strong the urge. She might not be in love with him anymore, but no one wanted to feel forgettable.

Even if she was.

The air had cooled significantly with the night, which pasted the remainder of the sweat to her skin. She opened her car, slid into the driver's side, and sagged into the seat. Today had crammed the stress of a month into a single day.

Her phone buzzed, and she snatched it up, desperate for any serotonin she could cling to. A text followed the painting from Pixie.

The title is Welcome the Night .

Eva's mouth dried a little, and the memories from their previous night together ignited a flame in her—maybe small and barely hanging on, but today, that was enough.