Scott Kellerman

I don't know what 'Dublin' means, but it hangs in the air like cigar smoke as soon as he says it. For the first time since he opened the door, Macklin's looking her right in the eyes, instead of through the same glazed over stare he's been wearing. This time, it's Evangeline's head that dips down, wordless as she looks at the wet doormat.

"Who told you?"

Macklin doesn't answer. My guess is that she either already knows who told him, or the answer doesn't really matter.

"I didn't tell you because I knew what you'd say, Eric."

"Evie," he sighs, exasperated, "you have to go!"

"But I don't! I don't have to go!"

Macklin closes his eyes, then takes a deep breath. "That's the thing, though – you do."

A whimpering noise leaves her lips, but he keeps on going before she can say another word.

"You can't just turn down an opportunity as amazing as Dublin. A whole new city you've never been to, thousands of people you've never met – a world-famous program that you were accepted to, Evangeline! Now tell me that isn't what you want."

"I don't want it," she says in a heartbeat, pleading as a puppy, her wet hair sticking to her back. "I don't want any of it if it means I won't have you."

The sound of her voice wobbling as she shakes her head desperately breaks my heart, and I can't help but want to hug her; tell her how far away she should stay from arseholes that make her beg in the rain; tell her that if I was in his shoes, it would never be like this.

Macklin huffs like he's in some sort of turmoil, and runs a hand through his greasy hair.

"What if I stayed, E?" Evangeline sniffles, gripping his folded arms. "What if that's what I want?"

"But it isn't, Evie."

"Well, how do you fucking know what I want to do!" She shouts hoarse-voice, and my anger's bubbling so high that my ears start to burn. But Macklin's as impassive as ever.

I wonder if he thinks she's buying it – this piss-poor 'I'm so heartbroken that I'm emotionless as I push you away' act. I hope to God she isn't.

"I know what you can do, Evie! I've seen it. What you'll be capable of without me, us, standing in your way."

"But all I want is 'us'... Why won't you listen to me!"

He starts to move her hands away from his, peeling her grip off like a pest's hold. I recognise it. I can feel it in the cold, damp midnight air – heartache; the beginning of the end.

"I... I've got to go, Evangeline," he says, his voice heavy with 'regret'.

"Go? What, that's it? You won't even listen to what I'm saying because you've decided we're not worth fighting for?"

When he doesn't answer, she lowers her voice to murmur something I can't hear, but suddenly they're kissing. She holds his face as their lips lock again and again, the kiss deepening each time, as though a deep enough kiss can reverse time, can change his mind. In spite of all his protests, the greedy bastard doesn't refuse her. His fingers are splayed across the back of her neck as he pulls her closer, tight jawed as he breathes her in, craning his neck so their lips meet.

Obviously, I look away. Eventually.

Under rainfall in the dead of night, it's all so intense, so intimate, that I couldn't keep watching even if I wanted to. But the sound of her whisper calls my eyes back to their entangled forms.

"Eric..."

"I can't think right around you, Evie," Eric whispers, his forehead against hers as their murmured words drift into the air. "You're my weakness."

"And you're mine, E. That's love."

She runs her thumb back and forth across his cheek as she breathes it like a prayer, but he stills her gentle hand with his.

"I know.

But it's not enough."

I do my best not to imagine the hurt in her eyes when she drops her hand from his cheek, and stands back with slumped shoulders, indifferent to the full force of the rain, but I can't help it. I see her face in my mind's eye – drained of all colour as the hurt wounds her like a freshly-sharpened knife.

"What..." Her voice breaks, squeaks, and I know she knows the answer before she's asked the question. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying what needs to be said, Evangeline. We have to stop... this – seeing each other," Macklin says, and his hand's already returned to the door, ready for his exit.

"You don't mean it, E. I know you don't. You need time – fine. I'll call you and we can just, we can talk about it, and we'll be okay, I know we will."

"Don't call, Evie. I mean it," he says in a trembling exhale, his cowardly eyes avoiding hers. "Don't call or text or come by, or..."

He's halfway inside when Evangeline presses her hands against the slowly closing door with a fighting persistence. But Macklin only lets her prop it open out of pity – her push is tired and weak.

"Eric, please," she says in croaked sobs that don't belong in her sweet mouth, "tell me what you need me to do and I'll do it. Just tell me what you want."

"Go home, Evie. Go to Dublin."

And with his goodbye looming as densely as any last words ever did, Macklin shuts the door, letting her fall to the floor against it, her bare knees reddening in earnest on the straw welcome mat.

I feel my fists balling, and myself fighting the urge to charge over there and scoop her up – find her somewhere dry. Maybe I will.

But Evangeline's not finished yet, even if Macklin is. She slaps the red door with her palms, and I watch her desperation burn into indignation while her thumps grow weaker.

"Eric. Eric!" She screams. "Come on, please! I know you're there, so open the goddamn door!"

How did you get here, Evangeline? How does a girl as brilliant as you end up falling apart on some prick's doorstep, whilst he pretends you don't exist? This isn't where you belong...

"What," she shouts, letting out a chesty cough as the cold night air starts to get the best of her, "you think you're some sort of saint for dumping the 18-year-old by the roadside when you're done with her, telling her to follow her dreams like you give a shit? You think being with me makes it hard for you to call yourself a good man? This doesn't make you any fucking better!

God, you're a coward, Eric Macklin."

She sniffles, and somehow, I think this bitter, unanswered tirade is making her feel ... better. For the moment, at least. "And you're the worst kind, 'cause you walk away from love. You don't fight for it, or try harder to save it, even when it's the best fucking thing that ever happened to you!"

Evangeline stops short, hesitant. Regretful, maybe? She perches herself on her heels, her forehead against the door.

"To me," she murmurs, with a light, emotionless laugh. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Maybe it was nothing to you. Maybe I'm nothing to you."

With the tips of her nails, she traces a sign, a symbol, a cross maybe, over and over on the door.

"I know you're there," she says again, only this time it's a broken plea. "Talk to me, Eric. Please."

Silence.

When she finally turns around and I can see her face clearly, she looks outwards and down the hill into the darkness. Her tears have trickled and left a brazen trail of black – eyeliner or mascara or something – as though the red-rimmed eyes they fell from are full to the brim with heartbreak.

Fuck you, Macklin. Fuck you for making her hurt like this, fuck you for leaving her out in the rain, and fuck you for letting her feel so alone.

She's still staring into the night, like she's looking for a sign, listening for a sound, anything to give her hope, and although she isn't saying a word, I can feel how badly she's been bruised. Which is why this is such a spectacularly fucked up time for my calf to cramp as violently as it decides to.

I try to suck it up, I really do. But disarming me in the way that cramps tend to, the pain shoots through my leg, and I let out a forceful yelp, jumping out from my hiding place behind the low wall.

"Ow, shit!"

Evangeline sets her sights on me fast as a flash, with a squinting stare that's intense as it is unmoving. At first, I stand dead still, cramp be damned. It's dark. Maybe she can't see me. Maybe she thought it was a ... fox?

She mutters under her breath as she moves in my direction, still peering into the dark for the sound's source. I almost let out the breath I'm holding, thinking I'm off the hook, until she juts out her neck, and I know without a doubt her eyes are boring right into mine.

"What the hell? Scott?"