For All the Evers

  “I know, my boy. It’s good to see you too.” Desta patted him on the back. “Can you listen to an old woman? One last time?”

  Lad looked from Desta to Fallen. “Depends on what it’s about.”

  “I wonder if you can hear me. Or if the part of your mind that’s not well any more makes decisions for you here, too.” Desta paused and stepped back to look at Lad again. Then she motioned for Burt and whispered to him. He nodded and walked over to the side door.

  Desta addressed Lad again. “You’ve believed your whole life that, one way or another, that room was your destiny—no matter how many times I told you it wasn’t, that you had a choice. You still have one. Stop trying to force love, Lad. Stop trying to win something that isn’t a contest. Do you see this girl? She doesn’t love you. That is not a reflection on you. It just means this isn’t right. But you have to be worthy of love, open to give and receive it. When that happens, the woman for you won’t have to be tricked into marriage. She’ll arrive early and run down the aisle to you.”

  Fallen felt a new wave of respect for Desta.

  “How can you say that?” Lad countered. “Look at what you have with him.” He pointed at Burt. “You’ve conquered death to be together, and you found each other through the room. That has to be superior.”

  Desta shook her head. “I did all I could to save you from this.” She waved her hand around the beautiful church. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m crazy about Burt, but not being with him all this time? It was torture. I missed him. I missed being a real family. You can have those things, Lad. You could even have children. Leave that hotel. Sell it. Get rid of it. Never think about room 514 again. Will you do this for me?” Desta hugged him again.

  Lad hugged her back. “I’ll try, Desta. But I don’t think I can live without her.”

  He turned his gaze in Fallen’s direction, and she had never felt more like a piece of meat. She was something he wanted to win, not a person.

  “That’s the crazy talking, honey. And I don’t know if you can fight it, but I sure hope you do.” Desta patted his cheek again. “I’m leaving soon. I love you. And I believe in you. Your parents’ fate doesn’t have to be yours. Let this girl be with the man who loves her. Who she loves.” Desta turned, stepped back, and nodded at Burt.

  Maybe because Burt was older, or maybe because Desta had some sort of dream mojo, but the tuxedo guard stepped aside and let Burt open the door.

  Fallen put her hands on her heart when she felt it lurch at the sight of Thomas.

  He was waiting with his hands against the doorframe, and he looked up from his feet straight into her eyes.

  Fallen stooped, picked up her bouquet from where Burt had dropped it, and handed it to Desta.

  Desta whispered in her ear when she came in for a hug. “Run for it. Burt and I will hold him off. Think of a river with warm rocks and pretty flowers.”

  Fallen turned and faced Thomas as Lad reached for her. She picked up her dress and bolted for the door. Her veil slid off completely as she moved toward Thomas.

  Lad started losing his mind behind her. His inhuman wail echoed in the church, and the pain in his howl brought reflexive tears to her eyes.

  Thomas stepped toward her, only to be stiff-armed by the tuxedo guard.

  But Fallen knew he would win the scuffle. He was experienced at hand-to-hand combat. He put the man on the floor without even taking a swing.

  Fallen again picked up her heavy wedding dress and ran toward Thomas’ extended hand.

  Lad yelled, “No! She’s mine. We’re married. We just got married! You can’t take her.”

  Fallen looked over her shoulder and saw Desta and Burt holding Lad by the shoulders and chest.

  “Are they okay?” Thomas asked.

  Hearing his voice was a balm, even in this tense situation.

  “He won’t hurt Desta; he loves her.” Fallen felt mostly confident of that.

  “Let’s go.” Thomas led her through the door as the tuxedo guy started to get to his feet.

  Once outside, Thomas pulled her into a hug. “Take me somewhere, dream girl.”

  Immediately she painted the scene Desta had described in her head. The genius of the suggestion was revealed when she and Thomas were suddenly hugging in a place she’d never actually been to before. It would be very hard to track them here, she imagined.

  “Fallen.” Thomas touched her jaw and ran a fingertip across her forehead. “You are beautiful. How dare he try to marry you?”

  She leaned into his touch and lowered her lids. “Kiss me.”

  He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her.

  Fallen memorized him with her hands, reassuring herself, as always, that he was real.

  “You look gorgeous, but I can’t see this dress on you one more second.”

  Fallen spun to show him the closure of the dress at her back. She soon felt him kissing her bare shoulder as he struggled with what seemed like tiny buttons.

  “This will take forever.” Thomas told her to brace herself as he took a firm grip on the bodice. He tore it off of her as she laughed and laughed.

  He wiggled the skirt down her hips, and she stepped out of the layers of fabric while holding on to his forearm.

  She wore a strapless bra and a slip when all was said and done.

  “Better.” He went to his knee and took her left hand in his. He slid the engagement ring off, yet again. “I’ve decided the reason this keeps happening is because I never put something here to get in his way.”

  Fallen noticed he had two rings on his own left hand. “Fallen Billow, my beautiful dream girl, will you take my heart? Please?”

  He pulled a shiny silver band from his pinky and perched it at the ready, waiting for her answer.

  “Of course. You already have mine.”

  Thomas looked like he’d scored the winning home run—young and elated. He slid the ring onto her finger and pulled her to sit on his knee.

  “Thank you, love. When I get back home, I’m going to find you in the future. No matter how long I have to wait. Before you, I never thought I would go home. But now I’m going to do my damnedest to get there.” He put his hand at the nape of her neck and kissed her again.

  “Thank you. This ring is so pretty.” She admired his and hers together on her lap.

  “I guessed at the size? How’s it fit?” He watched for her reaction.

  “Great. They have jewelry stores where you are?” As she looked from him to her new ring, she realized it had faint writing on it.

  “No. Nothing fancy like that. I made them myself out of quarters. Is that okay?”

  Fallen ran her hands through his hair and changed his outfit to jeans and a dark T-shirt. Just something other than his uniform.

  “It’s amazing. I love it even more now.”

  “You like putting me in dungarees, huh?”

  She felt her eyebrows come together at his funny word for jeans. “We don’t call them that anymore.”

  “What do you say?”

  “Jeans.”

  ‘That’s a person’s name,” he objected, teasing her.

  She tried to tickle him as a retort, but he had the better of her quickly. A white blanket appeared beneath her as he laid her down amidst the grass.

  The sound of the river was peaceful and the rocks embedded in it looked as warm as she’d hoped they’d be when she’d painted them in her head. But that was nothing next to him. Her nerve endings begged for the pleasure he could give her. Thomas began kissing and nibbling her, and she let her hands roam, enjoying the hard feel of him.

  She was ready for him, ready to make yet another lasting memory. But when his hand drifted up to her breast, she remembered something wildly important.

  “What’s this?” he asked as he traced the edge of her satin bra.

  Fallen looked down and felt dread. There would be no waiting for each other, no finding each other in the future. She pulled on the edge of the bra and rubbed away the foundation with her knuck
le, revealing the words she had written there.

  They looked foreign to her at first; she couldn’t remember what the message was.

  Then he read it out loud once, and then again.

  “KIA May 7, 1945.”

  She remembered then, but her tongue was frozen. All she could do was point to the words and nod, tears coming down her cheeks. She prayed he understood.

  “Is this for me?”

  She nodded again and wiped at her mouth, begging it to work.

  “Killed in action? Me? On the 7th?”

  She nodded again and hugged him to her chest, against the words that condemned him to death. Her mind flipped through images of the Purple Heart, the newspaper obituary, and the horrible telegram from John to their mother.

  “My girl, no. I have plans for us. For you.” He lifted his head and held her face in his hands. “That’s too soon.” Thomas looked off in the distance before sitting up and pulling her from her place on the blanket into his arms.

  She cuddled close to him, putting her face in his neck. She was getting his shirt wet but wanted to be as close to his warmth as she could.

  “Well, shit.” Thomas rubbed her back. “Do you know how it happens?”

  Fallen willed the words to come. “I was told a story. I’m not sure how true it was, but I—”

  Their cuddle session was ruined as the sanctity of the river exploded with pounding feet.

  Lad was headed right at them.

  Thomas scrambled to his feet, shielding her.

  “You’re breaking the rules,” Lad screamed. “You’re ruining the room. There is no sharing!” Spittle flew from his lips, and his eyes bugged out.

  Fallen grabbed fistfuls of the back of Thomas’ shirt, and when he fell, she staggered.

  Thomas landed on the ground, and his eyes closed as if for a nap. Fallen fell to her knees to look for an injury as he started to fade away.

  “No. No. Don’t go.” Her hands went right through him as he disappeared.

  Lad scooped her up by her armpits, and she was too stunned, watching Thomas leave, to react at first.

  Was that it? Was that the last time she would get to see him?

  “Thomas!” She shouted his name at the blanket he’d left behind.

  Lad tossed her over his shoulder and headed toward the river.

  “You little hussy, how dare you break the room? We were going to beat the odds, Fallen.”

  He tossed her in the river, and it was shallow enough that she could prop herself up on her elbows to breathe. He scrambled on top of her and wrapped his arm around her waist.

  “You work for me. I’m keeping you fed. I’m keeping your brother in football. You need me. Why is it so hard to understand that? He’s pretend. I’m real.” Lad looked down at Fallen’s semi-exposed breast, and his eyes widened. He yanked her bra down and pointed at the message she had written on her chest.

  He narrowed his eyes and scrubbed at the words like she was a lamp that could make his wish come true.

  She curled her shoulders and started to hit him, but every time she did, she slipped under the water. In order to stay above water with his weight on top of her, she had no choice but to let him furiously rub at the skin above her breast.

  “Stop. You’re hurting me. This hurts me! Lad!” She could only use words now, but thankfully they seemed to work. He stopped and got off of her, helping her stand so she didn’t have to struggle to breathe.

  “We’re in a dream.” Fallen pointed at her chest and thought about it being clean of pen marks, and it was. “Just picture something, and it happens.”

  Lad tried to help her out of the water, but she swatted him away and staggered out on her own. She wrapped the blanket she had planned to make love to Thomas on around her shoulders.

  “You can’t force love. You can’t demand it just because you want it.” Fallen pushed her wet hair out of her face.

  Lad stood a few paces away and bent over to catch his breath before trying to convince her yet again. “You don’t understand. I know what this room does to people. I was an orphan because of it. I just want to get a girl out of it alive.”

  “That’s not true. Your ex-wife is alive,” Fallen pointed out just as a crash of lightning and thunder announced dark clouds rolling into the sky.

  “Thanks to me,” he scoffed. “She was doomed as well. Never think that the room is smarter than I am. I know its tricks. It thrives on pain. I love her. I loved her enough to make sure she could find her dream man. I live without her every day, and sure, the room is happy that I have to suffer, but she got out.”

  He looked around wildly. “I want to get you out, Fallen. I’m rich. I’m real. You’ll want for nothing. Your dream man is a ghost. He dies. He’s been dead for seventy years. I think the room is cruel for setting you up with him. You think I’m fighting your love, but I’m not. Thomas is the room. Thomas doesn’t love you. The room just makes it feel real.”

  The thunder and lightning crashed again and again, bolts flying every which way like she’d never seen them in the waking world.

  “Look at the sky,” he commanded. “This is what happens when you cross the room. It wins, or it kills you. Come back with me. Come here to me. I’m not the bad guy. I’m the prince. I’m the white knight. Come to me, please!” Lad held out his hand.

  Fallen was sure about her love for Thomas, but Lad was confusing her. Actions were louder than words, right? Thomas had made her happy and proud. Lad had hurt her, demeaned her, coerced her, and attacked her. Still, something didn’t make sense about all this.

  “You’re confusing me,” she told him.

  She didn’t realize she’d knelt on the ground until she spread out her hands to catch her balance. Darkness descended, and the last thing she saw was Lad’s mouth fixed in a straight line as he headed toward her, unbuckling his belt.

  Chapter 24

  End Game

  When Fallen woke, she was already clenched in a ball. She totally expected Lad to attack. Instead she looked around to find she was alone in room 514. She rolled out of bed quickly and found the mirror. There was nothing. Nothing. Just her own eyes searching the surface, looking back at her.

  And then she caught a glimpse of Thomas waking. He hugged the dog on his lap and patted the cot around him as if he were looking for something. He stood, set the puppy down, and punched his own hand it what seemed like frustration.

  And then he was gone.

  Safe behind the fork-jammed lock, Fallen gathered herself for a while. The ring Thomas had put on her finger was gone. She’d almost had to marry Lad. She’d seen Desta! And she’d been able to tell Thomas the day of his death…but what was that Lad had said at the end? Thomas was the room? Like it was alive, like it could trick her into loving it.

  She glanced around at the four walls where she’d spent so much time. Was there something sinister she’d failed to understand? If so, she still didn’t understand it, and what seemed more pressing was the fact that those might have been her last moments with Thomas. What if even the information she’d shared couldn’t change his fate?

  She had no answers, but when she finally felt able, she freed the broken fork from where she’d wedged it and pulled open the door. Mr. Orbit waited for her with a menacing smile on his face.

  “Are we having fun yet?” he asked.

  Instantly her guard was up. She covered her chest with her hand, in the process realizing she was going to have bruises from his harsh scrubbing in the dream.

  “You have really fantastic breasts. I didn’t get a chance to compliment them before.”

  Fallen kept her foot on the door, refusing to back away like she wanted to. She didn’t ever want to be alone in a room with this man again, particularly not this room.

  “I’m in love with you, Fallen,” he told her, though his tone and demeanor conveyed nothing like love. “I know it’s too soon. I just… I can tell.” He tilted his head like telling her these things wasn’t frightening.

  ?
??You don’t love me.”

  “I do. More than Ellen, even. You’ll be perfect. I feel alive when you’re around. In control.” He put his palm against the door.

  “You don’t know what love is.” She shook her head.

  “And you do? Is it what you find here? In this room? Don’t think I don’t know. You’re a slut for this room. You’re a good girl, Fallen. You don’t have to be that way.” He put his hand on his chest earnestly.

  “I would like to go home, please.” Fallen refused to have this argument. He was really having it with the demons in his head anyway.

  “I’m a man of means. I can offer a life to you—to you and your brother—that will hit everything on your wish list. I’ll tick every box for you. Do you know how many girls would kill for this opportunity?” He held out a hand to her. “Being mine can’t be that hard. I’m a great guy. I’m pretty good looking.”

  “I would like to go home.” She locked gazes with him, staying as calm and even as she could.

  “You work for me. I’ll tell you when it’s time to go home.” Orbit stepped toward her, but she held fast, even though his every exhale now fluttered her hair.

  This man had taken perhaps her last moment with Thomas from her. And now, while she still wrestled with having just told the love of her life when he was going to die, this giant man-child was in her face, demanding things from her.

  Fallen Billow got very, very angry.

  “You asshole. Get out of my face. Back up. Move your ass and let me out of this room. You don’t own me. Stop demanding things from me!” Fallen poked him in the chest. “This isn’t how it works. You don’t get to buy people with your money and your privilege, you spoiled brat.”

  He backed into the hallway, eyes bulging and veins in his neck becoming more pronounced.

  She let the door to 514 close behind her.

  “Why am I locked out of this room when you’re in there? What are you doing in there?” He pointed at the closed door and stayed way too close to her.

  “Why don’t you look at the camera footage?” she taunted.

  She was sick of cowering before him. Thomas had one week to live seventy years ago, and even though that didn’t even make sense, it was killing her.