Hidden Away

Twenty-Two: Confronting Memories

I stopped before I could go up another step. I could hear my heart drumming against my chest and I was sure Evan could hear it too. Evan was on a step that was a couple above from the one I was on. I stared past his shoulders, not wanting to look him in the eyes.

"Do you need anything?" I asked in a bored tone, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

"I don't need anything, Norah, but we need to talk."

"I'm not talking." I went up the rest of the stairs, purposely making contact with his shoulder. "Not right now." I mumbled as I passed him. I hauled my bag the rest of the way upstairs and around the corner until I reached my room. I opened the door and a small grin tugged at my lips when I saw the room was left exactly how I had left it before we left for the coronation. I dropped my bag next to the door and walked further into the room, taking a look around just to make sure everything was in its place.

"Norah, stop ignoring me." The small grin that I had quickly diminished when I heard him once again.

Without turning around I spoke. "Do you not realize I don't wanna talk?" I asked, annoyed. "I'm not in the mood to hear any more of your excuses or apologies or whatever possibly else you want to talk about."

"I don't care if you want to talk or not. We need to talk whether you like it or not. You can't keep ignoring the situation." He kept pressing and pressing the subject and no matter how much I didn't want to talk to him, I knew I had to in order to try and at least restore some of what we had. Although there wasn't a single chance everything would go back to exactly how it was before, it would be nice to at least try to make amends.

I turned around and made eye contact with him, challenging him to say the wrong thing; to ruin the chances of anything we have could have left. "Talk then. Say whatever you want to say and get out."

Evan opened his mouth to speak but closed it right away. He was thinking of what to say, keeping my silent challenge in mind. He knew how slim of a chance I was giving him to say something that could fix all of this. "It was never my intent to hurt you, Norah." I scoffed.

"You did a hell of a good job, now, didn't you?" I said with all the sarcasm I could possibly input in my words.

"Can you just—" He paused, taking a deep breath. I could tell I was frustrating him. Good. "Can you just let me talk without all the extra sarcasm? This is serious."

"I can't take you seriously after that joke you pulled the day we left. I mean, kissing me? You couldn't have possibly been serious when you did that." The more I spoke, the more anger seeped out of me in the form of words.

"Norah, please just—"

"You lied to me for two years, Evan. Two years. All you thought about was yourself when you found out." I took an angry step towards him, jabbing a finger in his direction. "You didn't even think about how I would feel to know the truth and finally be able to be with my family again. All you cared about was you, what you wanted, how you would've benefited, and how good you would've had it if I didn't know." Whatever space was between us was now gone. My finger was pressed against his chest and our faces were inches apart. He was taller than me, but there wasn't a huge difference. He did have to look down a little in order to maintain eye contact with me.

He placed his hands on my shoulders, gently pushing me back before things became out of control. I wasn't sure how long I had until I completely let all hell break loose within me; until I lost control of my emotions. "He threatened me. What was I supposed to do, Norah? Risk both of our lives? Our happiness?"

I turned around and my hands went to my forehead. "You're acting like what you hid from me is a minor detail, Evan!" After taking a couple steps, I whirled around and dropped my arms. "You're acting as if I wouldn't have severed my relationship with Alec to help you." I jabbed another finger in his direction. "As if I wouldn't have dropped absolutely everything I had just to know what my life could've been like. As if I didn't care about you enough to get you out of the situation you were in!"