"The princess closed her eyes for the last time, thinking of all the evil monsters who had been cruel to her and caused her heart to shatter. But, evil creatures, no matter how demented they are, never get the last word. The angels, always nearby, swooped down and carried The Glass Princess back up to heaven where they put her broken heart back together, never to be hurt again. The princess opened her eyes and smiled her beautiful smile and laughed her beautiful laugh. And it still sounded like the tinkling glass bells, just as it always had. The Glass Princess was home at last."
With her words, memories come slamming back so hard and fast that they almost feel like a physical blow. Suddenly I'm up on a roof, crying in the arms of the bravest girl I've ever known and feeling the only love I've ever felt, the only comfort I've ever had. I want to fall to my knees because her voice brings back not only the memory but also the feeling of those moments, and my longing for her jumps tenfold. I need to get the f**k out of here. How am I going to handle all this? I feel intoxicated with memories, drunk on emotion.
Evie makes her way back through the crowd and as she's talking to an older woman with bleached blond hair and ridiculous hot pink, stripper shoes, I walk around the tree and make my way to my car. As I'm walking, it becomes clearer than ever that I'm never going to get over Evie – a distressing thought when I consider that she may never be mine again.
I get in my car and sit there staring out the windshield for several minutes until I feel some emotional equilibrium return. Then I pick up my phone and call the funeral home and make an addition to Willow's headstone. "The Glass Princess" will be added below her name. I think Willow would have liked that. It says she was loved.
CHAPTER 4
Dr. Fox walks into my hospital room and smiles in greeting. I raise my eyebrows at him. He's not supposed to be here until Thursday and it's only Tuesday.
"Getting uglier by the day, I see," he says.
"Ugly is only a state of the soul, old man." I grin my best sore-ass face, broken nose grin. "If I'm getting uglier, you might want to look into another line of work."
He chuckles and pulls a chair up next to my bed.
I still have a splint on my nose and deep bruising under my eyes, and the inside of my mouth hurts like a bitch from where they went in to do more repair work on my cheekbone and my jaw. And I have another surgery scheduled for next month. But my arms are out of the casts, thank Christ. I can at least brush my own damn teeth.
My leg will be in a cast for another month and my ribs still need some healing time, but then I can start some physical therapy. I can't wait. I can feel my strength both growing and withering by the day.
I would have been sent to the rehab facility by now if the rod in my leg hadn't gotten infected. The whole ordeal is extending my stay but I don't really care. For the first time in eight years, I feel like I’m claiming back a part of who I am and if checking out of life for a while helps me do that, then maybe it’s not a bad thing.
"Something came up on Thursday and so I thought I'd drop by today for twenty minutes or so if you're free," Doc says.
I raise an eyebrow. "I'm pretty much free, like… all the time, Doc."
"Right." He chuckles again. "Then I guess a better question is, feel up to talking?"
"Yeah, sure. Actually, I've been thinking about what we talked about last time. About me putting Evie on a pedestal in my mind. I've been thinking about whether or not that's the case and I guess I came to the conclusion, that, yeah, in some ways I always did and I do now. But I think my reasoning behind it is valid and so I don't know if it's a 'pedestal' so much as she just deserves the respect. She always did."
"Okay, but you talk about who she is in present tense as much as past tense and you haven't seen the girl for eight years."
I sigh. "Yeah, I know. Maybe it's wishful thinking… maybe it's just a gut feeling. I don't know."
"Well, tell me what you've been going over."
I gather my thoughts for a minute before speaking. "Do you have any idea how brave it is to continue to wear your heart on your sleeve, to stay tender, when you've experienced the kind of lives me and Evie did? When you're surrounded by vultures, do you know how much courage it takes to walk around every day with a sensitive heart ripe for the picking? To continue to love? Shit, the easier thing to do is to turn hard. It's the route I went. It's the route most of the kids I grew up with went. I mean, how did she do that? I just… I always felt so proud of her for that. And so murderously protective." I laugh a humorless laugh.
Dr. Fox studies me for a minute. "It's always easier to build walls. You're right about that. And yes, it's remarkable that she was able to retain the sensitivity she did, and I hope that's still the case. But what I meant when I said you kept Evie up on a pedestal was that you seem to be under the impression that you weren't worthy of her."
"Because I WASN'T worthy of her."
"If you trusted her so much, wasn't she the one who was most qualified to decide that?"
I consider this for a minute, wondering for the millionth time, what DID she see in me? All those years ago, I showed her my true self more so than I had ever shown anyone. More so than I've shown anyone up to this very minute. I had never held back with Evie because she made me feel safe in a way no one in my life ever had. I CRAVED that. And she had never turned away. Not once.