The Fateful Heart 2

Evaline expected a short and simple answer, but suddenly, James spilled details about his personal life. This caught her off guard, but she did her best to listen and follow along, piecing the pieces together. Putting the pieces together. Filling in the blanks.

There were parallels to their story at the beginning, but they diverged greatly after. She wondered how much they diverged, or if they ever converged again.

She wondered how much he changed.

"Did you go to military school afterwards?" she asked, hoping that a guess would push him to continue.

After... after what?

“Yes,” he said suddenly, like the answer was simple. But it wasn’t.

He didn’t know how to begin to say it.

“There was no wedding,” he blurted. “They filed papers. We moved in. That was it.”

And then.... it hadn't even been a day. His quality of life improved drastically, but he didn't want it. He didn't appreciate it. All he'd wanted was his father back, even if it meant he'd starve.

He pursed his lips together, taking in a slow deep breath.

There was only one person who knew the whole story. Three who were involved. Four he left behind. Two he really cared about.

Why should he tell her? She was going to leave, anyway, wasn't she? Wouldn't telling her put her one step closer to being sent home? What was the point of opening up and making another friend if that friend was just going to be ripped away? That hurt too much. He didn't know if it was worth it. He didn't want to explain.

But he was tired of dancing around it. Tired of hiding. If he held it back forever - it was bound to come up eventually, and he would either have to lie or deny ever telling her the truth outright. Those options sounded worse.

At least, this way, he was saying it out of his own volition.

The pause that followed grew agonizingly long by the time James finally pushed through the bog of his mind and decided to just say it. He felt himself falling farther and farther away.

He didn't have the energy to cry. He didn't deserve to mourn this. It was his own fault.

“I ran away.”

The words were whispered hoarsely.

“I ran away to go become a soldier, and I will regret it forever, for the rest of my life.”

James answered Evaline's question, but there was a long pause afterwards, and she wasn't sure if he was going to elaborate or not.

She'd let him fill in the holes if he so desired, and her mind went to work to piecing his story together. There was the goblin raid, and his father died, which shattered the life he knew. At only eleven years old, James was the one who was providing support and lifting his mom and sister up, even when he was just a child. As she had predicted, he didn't have a childhood, and she could now understand why he romanticized the days before. The days before his life changed.

Suddenly James continued to talk, but this time, he shared very little; he shared that he ran away.

His mother remarried, and he was not expected to provide support anymore. It should have made his life easier, but she could understand why he wouldn't accept this change. He wanted his life to return to normal. He wanted his father, not some man he barely knew. He must not have wanted this new normal, and at eleven, she could understand why running away was an option. She could understand why he would regret leaving a life behind thinking he would create a better one.

But it did make her think. There were likely pieces of the story she didn't know yet, but she had the advantage of knowing one thing.

"The memory you showed me from our first day together," she said softly, thinking back to the day she used his memory power on him for the first time, and she helped him remember Larrel.

"Was that when you ran away?"

James closed his eyes again.

Part of him wished he hadn’t shared that memory. Part of him was glad that he did. He couldn’t decide.

“Yes.”

Evaline laid still, letting his one-word answer absorb into the story she already knew about James. He didn't seem like he wanted to share, but neither did she, and she was too tired to think of empty words to make him feel better for something that happened ten years ago.

It wasn't that hard to think of some words of comfort, though.

"It wasn't your fault," she said, a little less hushed this time. "You were eleven. Just a kid."

She paused, not wanting this topic to end in fear that it would turn back to her.

"How did you get in military school?" she asked.

"Yeah," James said, still hanging onto the words that preceded the question.

"Just eleven." And he had to live with the consequences of his eleven-year-old actions forever.

There was another long pause as he came back to the question hanging in the air, trying to figure out how he wanted to say it. He hadn't told anyone... ever. Not like this.

He could feel the line drawing nearer in the horizon. The one he didn't want to cross.

"I fled to the capitol, lied about who I was, and enlisted."

Evaline wondered how far she could push, but she didn't really spend much time on this thought as it exhausted her to think about thinking.

"Tiberius Hemming," she said, although it was more of a question. She just didn't have the rest of the words to ask it.

She thought about what to really ask James, and that alone took so much effort. Evaline wanted to not be as blunt with this part.

"Why military school?" she asked.

James wanted to sigh, but he was too tired. Breathing normally felt like a labor of its own.

"I knew if I enlisted, I'd be taken care of," he said plainly. "I didn't have many options that offered that kind of stability and an escape. And at the time, I thought I'd be doing something noble."

Surely James would figure that she'd remember that memory he shared the very first day together, right?

It was almost too ironic that she was referencing a day they were trapped in a cave from bad weather when they were once again trapped in a cave with bad weather.

"How did you find out about that?" Evaline asked blandly, trying to gently fish the words out of his mouth.

"Heard about it at work," he said, hating how awkward those words sounded coming out of his mouth in reference to his eleven-year-old self. But it wasn't a lie.

This was getting to be a bit annoying, but Evaline found that she still had a tiny sliver of patience left.

"Who'd you work with?" she asked blankly, but there was a small uptick of irritation in her voice.

Surely this question would help him realize that she already knew the answer.

James had been staring at the ceiling the whole time, but at the question, he finally turned his head just enough to look at her. He didn't know if his face revealed anything at this point but exhaustion, but he knew what he felt behind it.

He was begging her to understand.

"You know," he said. "That second or third day we were together when we were still complete strangers and you told me about your powers... it's my own fault that I didn't ask more questions. But I also didn't even know what to ask. I didn't know that you would see and feel everything I was thinking and feeling on that day. I just thought you would see my little sister. I thought I was going to see her. That was all that I wanted, but I misunderstood. If I had understood..."

He paused, and he swallowed.

"I just..." he stopped again, pursing his lips.

"Call me dramatic all you want, but I can't even bring myself to say his name."

Evaline had been staring at the blank wall across from her, but when James turned just enough to look at her, she glanced at him to gauge his expression.

He looked pained.

And when he went on about that day she saw that first memory, it took all of her willpower to not blurt out, "So this is my fault now?" because she did want to understand him, and she did want to try... even though him deflecting like this was not helping.

It wasn't like she was any better, though.

But at the very least, James admitted that this man in his life existed. That Carter existed.

At least, indirectly. She knew he knew, and that was good enough.

"That's okay," she said, understanding how saying a name out loud was painful. "Pretend he's not a person, but just... an event in your life. We don't have to say his name out loud."

She paused, wondering just how bad of a person Carter was if it traumatized James this much.

"Did he play a role in your wanted status?" she asked, deciding to cut right to the chase.

James swallowed again, and he looked back up at the ceiling, his face turning somber, though the pain was still clear in his eyes.

"Yes..." he said quietly. "He did."

Evaline paused to hear him elaborate, but he didn't. Once again, she asked herself how far she was going to push, but she didn't really care to answer that.

"What role did he play?" she asked, purposefully asking a question he couldn't simply say yes or no to. She sighed.

"If you don't mind sharing," she added quietly.