A Way Back Home | Adopted by Gerard Way (Book Two)

Good Luck, Evie (34)

I wouldn't be able to stop pacing even if I wanted to. It's like I've suddenly been filled with the perpetually anxious energy of my thirteen year old self, having been compelled to pull my bed away from its place against the wall so that I can walk circles around it. It's easy to ignore the eventual dizziness that comes with doing such a thing when there's so much on my mind to distract me.

My day went downhill the moment Emerald left through the front door, just as I knew it would.

"Help me with the dishes, will you, Evie?" Gerard called from the kitchen when I was still gazing out the window after her car that had long since driven away.

He then left to deliver Lindsey a plate of pancakes; breakfast in bed with all the toppings. When he came back, I was too busy washing silverware to notice, too in my own head to hear whatever it was he'd asked next.

"Uh, Eve?" I jumped when he placed a hand on my shoulder, causing hot soapy water to fly everywhere. Bubbles land in his hair.

"Shit, sorry!" I immediately snatched a cloth from the countertop and rubbed it in his hair with shaking hands.

He took it from me. "On second thought, maybe I don't need you near hot water and very breakable dishes."

"Don't forget the knives," I mumbled while taking a seat in one of the chairs around the table.

"I don't think I'd even trust you around knives on a good day, knowing how clumsy you are."

He finished washing the dishes a lot faster than he would have if I was still trying to help, then suggested we watch TV. It was a desperate attempt to keep my mind off the inevitable: The date that was already tomorrow. So, on came The Office UK, Fawlty Towers, and even some classic Doctor Who, and any other British TV show he could think to put on. Gerard doesn't watch TV often, but when he does, it's often some British stuff he might've watched as a kid.

I mostly stared at the screen, a blank expression almost never leaving my face. I ate when I was handed food, and I answered in a monotonous voice when anyone spoke to me. Nothing they said could make it better, and they knew that. Nothing has felt real all day, like maybe I'm actually asleep. I'll wake up tomorrow morning, and instead of getting ready to go to the courthouse, my mother will never have even considered reentering my life.

In a perfect world her memory wouldn't even haunt me.

Just as I begin to feel like my knees might give out from my relentless pacing around my bed, I give up. My head is spinning when I finally sit down, and I lay back, letting my body melt into the mattress, watching the world go in circles around me until I squeeze my eyes shut.

I don't bother raising my head when I hear my bedroom door open slowly, and then my bed dip first on my right, then on my left.

"Hey, Kiddo," Gee says. He doesn't acknowledge the fact that my bed is not where it's supposed to be.

"How are you doing?" Lindsey asks, brushing some hair from my forehead. Usually I would explode at that question. Isn't it obvious how I'm doing? The answer, plain as day as I haven't cracked a smile since this morning or taken care of myself in much, much longer?

I settle on humming something that could be interpreted as, "I don't know."

"It's getting late, Evie," Gee says gently. "You should try and get some sleep."

That's when I start to panic. Because if I fall asleep, the nightmares will come. And if I fall asleep I don't know what I'll see, who'll be dead next, or what song will be ruined for me because that's the one that was playing the moment my world gets turned upside down again, and again. And if I fall asleep tomorrow will come so much more quickly.