Page 135 of Chasing Hope

“Desperately,” I say with bated breath.

Evie slides off the board, moving out of the water toward our towels. She peers around, finding that we truly are alone before facing me. There’s strength in her gaze, a quiet determination that frightens me.

As she straightens her spine, dread fills my stomach.

Because I have a feeling that her next words are going to be my undoing.

Pulling the paddleboard to shore, I make to approach her but she holds up her hand. “I-I need space to say this.”

My feet stop abruptly. “Okay.” Her complexion then turns a shade of green, her hand moving to her stomach as she avoids my eye. Evie licks her lips a few times, swallowing thickly as if she’s trying not to vomit.

Now true fear encases my body.

It runs through my veins, my heart pumping with it, and my mind fills with endless scenarios about what could make her look visibly ill while she tries to express whatever has been eating away at her.

But I never could have pictured what Evie whispers next.

“When I was little…”

My heart sinks like an anchor tossed into the depths of the ocean.

Evie’s bottom lip trembles, tears flowing down her cheeks. She wipes them away, turning her head to the side as if she’s trying to conjure up strength before facing me fully as she bares her soul.

“When I was little,” she repeats, trying to go on despite the waver in her voice, as if she hasn’t spoken in weeks. “There was a monster that I was afraid of.”

Memories flood my mind, of all the times I’d find her crying in her closet or the moments she’d come into Caleb’s room, sobbing and whispering about the floating head man.

“The floating head?”

Evie visibly flinches.

“Yes,” she rushes out. “That wasn’t my imagination. It was just my mind’s way of trying to make sense of something so horrible.” She takes another deep breath, the tears flowing with abandon now. “He, um…was a monster. A very real monster.”

It takes a moment for my brain to realize what she’s saying, a moment for her words to land. When they do, they don’t land gently. They implode like a grenade.

No.

Evie’s chin quivers. “He would come into my room?—”

“No.” The word slips past my lips as everything in my body locks into place.

She closes her eyes, her hands fisting at her sides. “I used to call it floating. Whenever he came into my room, I’d float away so I never had to feel how badly he hurt me. The next day I wouldn’t even remember what happened. I now know it’s because I dissociated.”

My head is shaking, my throat burning with the urge to scream. Every word coming out of her mouth slices my heart like a whip.

“Um…” She tries to go on but I’m not the only one trembling.

I want to touch her, I want to hold her, cradle the little girl that I didn’t protect, the one that everyone failed. How didn’t we know? Why didn’t anyone notice? Why didn’tInotice?

I realize now why she couldn’t have me near her as she talked.

She can’t be touched.

Because…

She gasps as a sob breaks free. “He would come into my room and force himself on me.”

The words rip from her chest, and the moment they’re out in the world, there’s nothing stopping the bile rushing for my throat. Turning to the side, I vomit all over the sand, and even when my stomach is done emptying itself, I can’t stop dry heaving.