27. I’m A Liability

EVANGELINE

As I put welcome packages together, I'm still struck with the thought that some women are in such a hurry to leave that they don't even have time to pack necessities. Even though I've been doing this the past few months, I'm still affected. But I feel good. I have a sense of purpose that I'd been missing.

Once the bags have been filled, I sort the clothes. When I get to the box with blazers and skirts it brings a smile to my face, because this is the one thing I can say that I did myself. Bethany was in charge of monetary donations, which went mostly towards rent and insurance. I had the idea to call some of the clothing stores to see if they would be willing to donate professional clothing the women could use to go on interviews.

It"s a wonderful feeling to empower someone to be able to care for themselves, because even though they have the safe house, it's only temporary.

While I hang up the clothes in the storage room, I hear a voice from behind me. "My mother spent a lot of time here." Darren's standing in the doorway, one ankle casually crossed over the other. His dark locks are windswept, and he has a satisfied smile on his face. His shoulders are dusted with snow, and behind him through the front window I can see the snow falling.

"Patty told me."

Darren enters the room, looking around the small entryway and past the stairs that leads to the kitchen.

"What did she tell you?" Darren inquires, shoving his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and leaning over the table.

"She told me how Merrill used to help in the kitchen and serve meals," I smile.

Darren laughs. "She was great at hiring caterers, but cooking herself, no."

I laugh.

"Patty didn't say she was good at it. She said one time, Merrill spilled soup on her pants and had to borrow a pair of jeans from the closet here." I couldn't help my interest in knowing what Darren's mother was like. She seemed like such an interesting woman. I like hearing stories about her.

"I cannot imagine my mother wearing jeans." Darren raises his eyebrows, another laugh escaping his lips.

I finish folding the clothes while Darren explores a little more, looking at pictures on the wall, one of them taken when the house was first opened, and his mother stood on the front steps with the other volunteers.

"I've never been here," Darren admits, his voice laced with regret.

"Why not?" I ask softly.

An embarrassed smile passes over his face. "I guess I always had more important things to do."

"Like squandering your potential?" I tease.

"Something like that," he sighs.

I pull a container from the floor and hand it to him. Reluctantly he takes it and starts stacking the packages inside. When he finishes, I show him where to place it in the storage room, stacking it on the top shelf for me.

Darren reaches down and picks up a small teddy bear that must have fallen out of the bins. He looks at it before setting it back with the rest.

"Sometimes kids don't have time to grab their stuffed animals before they come here," I explain while closing the cabinets and flipping the lock back on. "It doesn't replace what they had to leave behind, but it makes them feel better."

"My mother never really discussed any of this with me," he admits, "but I guess I never really asked. It's not exactly dinner conversation."

I tilt my head in confusion.

"Discussing such things isn't proper dinner etiquette," he attempts to exaggerate how his mother would sound. "Did you ever feel like you were born into the wrong family?" he questions, forcing me to think of just how sad and lonely someone as exuberant as Darren felt being confined to proper dinner etiquette among other things.

"No." I push a stray piece of hair behind my ear. "Although I have wished I was."

Darren stares at me, and the confines of the storage unit are too small to contain our confessions.

"You can't choose the family you were born in, but you can choose the family that you belong in," he says.

"I don't think it works like that."

"Why not?" he challenges.

"Because it just doesn't."

His lips open slightly as if the words he wants to say are trying to find their way out, but then he presses his lips back together before he walks out of the storage room.

"Rori Colton's seat in the Fifth Congressional District is open," he declares, and it leaves me with a prickle of something more to come.

I have a feeling, but I ask anyway. "What does that mean, Darren?"

"I spoke with Rausch, and he's behind me…"

"Rausch?" I widen my eyes. "So you're telling me you want to run?"

"He's someone you want on your side politically," he explains. "And yes."

"Why would you do this?" I ask, and his face falls.

"I thought you'd be happy for me." He pinches his brows together. "Getting my life together and shit."

"I don't know why you would think that." I take my aggression out on breaking down the cardboard boxes to get them ready for the trash.

"Why are you so upset about this?"

"You can do whatever you want, Darren." I tuck the cardboard under my arm and stalk down the hallway through the kitchen where some of the volunteers are getting dinner ready.

Darren follows me into the alley where the trash bins are.

"I thought you'd be happy. I can help people like Ethel, make a real difference!" he raises his voice, and I let the heavy lid fall back into place.

I whirl around. "Is that why you gave me access to the money? I demand.

"Are you seriously asking me that?" Darren growls. "I already told you why I gave you the money."

I know what he said.

"It would be the best thing for you."

"You think I would be better off without you?" Darren levels me with his eyes.

"You of all people know what will happen." I try to walk around him, but he stops me.

We stare at each other, heaviness between us, his hand wrapped around my arm, holding me in place. "They will dig up things that should stay buried," I say quietly.

"That won't happen."

"You don't know that."

He releases my arm, but I stay in place.

"You could wait."

His eyes flare as soon as he catches my meaning.

"I would think you know me better by now," his voice is husky, the heat from his breath catching in the air before dissolving between us. Snowflakes settle in his dark hair.

"When I want something, I take it."

"I'm a liability, Darren."

He takes my chin between his fingers, tilting my head towards his, forcing me to look at him. It's not his hand that keeps me in place, but his eyes, the way he stares down at me as if he wants to either scold me or kiss me.

"You are not a liability, Evangeline."

"Wake up, Darren!" I throw my arms in the air. "You married a prostitute. You can't come back from that. I don't care who you have in your corner."

He grabs onto me tighter. "You have no idea what I'm capable of when it comes to you."

"Darren," I sigh.

He lets go of me, agitation vibrating off him. "I want to do something with my life." He runs a hand through his hair and turns away from me. "I have this last name that has been a burden most of my life, but it doesn't have to be."

His eyes glisten green, and tears threaten to freeze on his lashes until he blinks them back.

"This is something I can do and be really good at. I can feel it, Evan. I can feel it in my bones. Maybe I always have and that's why I ran from it, but I can't run anymore," he says with frustration, an internal argument that is ancient and weary.

I know he's capable of it, and seeing him now, on the verge of becoming something great, just makes it all the more bittersweet because he won't be anything as long as I'm in his life.

"What about the bar exam?" I ask.

"I take the bar next week and I've never been more ready for anything in my life. Do you trust me?" he pleads.

I want to say that I do, but that would be a lie. I can't even trust myself, especially not when he's looking at me the way a man does when he will pull the moon from the sky just to make you smile. But pulling the moon is the stuff of fairytales.

Fairytales I don't believe in.

"You just have to believe in me," he says quietly.

"I believe in you so much that I don't want to be the reason you don't succeed," I try to reason with him, but I can already see that reason won't work.

His expression softens. "Everything depends on passing the exam. One thing at a time, okay?"

I manage to nod my head, but I can't shake the uneasiness I feel inside.

I shiver against the cold and he takes the scarf from around his neck and places it over my head, still holding onto the ends as he pulls me close to him.

"I don't want to do this without you."

Then he tosses one of the ends of the scarf over my shoulder.

Instead of kissing my lips, he kisses the top of my head. I press my face into his jacket, getting lost in the smell of him. It reminds me of the lake house when things felt simple and I didn't have to worry about the future.

I know he would do everything he could to protect me… that's what I'm afraid of.