The Long Term Plan (With Short Term Fixes)

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He was halfway across the Atlantic then, when he called her to see if Courtney had arrived. Evan had since gotten dressed, albeit her de La Renta nightgown wasn't much better than nudity, despite its floor length.

She threw open the doors of her twin balcony. The rain was harsh and biting. After she let it out, her hair coiled around her neck and clung numbly to the exposed skin of her chest and shoulders. The weather only worsened the farther Noah was from Eden: from home and Evan. Long Island never saw storms more fierce than those after a departure.

In the best of ways, Noah made sure Evan truly believed she was untouchable, but without spoiling her. He took care of her, that's all, showering her with everything she could ever want and more: it was as if she wanted for nothing these days. She never minded all this. Nonsensical it was, yes, but it was adorable and tolerable indeed. Noah put her up on this pedestal the day they'd been married, and it seemed to her that she'd have yet to step down. In Noah's mind, she never would.

The weather brought her down from that pedestal. That habit of his heart was why she stood on the balcony every time a storm hit Long Island. The little liquid bullets of rain would beat senselessly on her back, still stinging her skin through her thin clothes. She was vulnerable and exposed: this feeling, liberation, seemed to be the only thing she loved then.

Brimming beneath the clouds ahead of her were stark shocks of lightning. The storm wailed, thunder claps surrounding her as she closed her eyes. The noises were so deafening, Evan didn't hear Jacob open the doors to the balcony and join her. When she felt his hand fall and rest over hers on the railing, she turned her head tiredly, unfazed.

"Great morning, huh?" He was wearing a gray bathrobe, Noah's spare, and his hair was spiked up. He'd just had a cold shower to cure his hangover.

"I guess," she replied dryly, plopping her chin down on her hands.

"You miss him, don't you, Evan?"

She thought about that for some time as they stood there, as it began to pour. She cursed and headed back into her bedroom, but she did not answer his question or those that followed it. When's she coming? When're you leaving? Are you packed? He knew all the answers, he wanted her to talk to him for Christ's sake. He wanted her to trust him: to love him as a brother, and Noah as a husband, because it would make Noah happier.

Jacob groaned and slammed the door shut behind the both of them. He watched Evan pick up a few of Noah's dress shirts that lay strewn about on the floor. She kept draping them over her left arm. When she'd picked up the last of them (there had been quite a lot actually) she stopped on the side of  he bed opposed to Jacob and began folding them, placing them neatly in a pile.

Jacob sighed. "Why are you doing that?"

Again, Evan couldn't find an answer within her, but she spoke: "I... I don't know why. I just felt like I had to."

"The housekeeper is coming later this afternoon, you know."

Evan choked a little when she looked down at the shirts. She sniffled and tossed the rest in her arms all on her unmade bed in defeat.

"I know, I know. I just... I don't know. I don't know why I did it, Jacob."

"You miss him." This time it wasn't a question, but a statement. No, no one had put him up to taking over as Evan's impromptu at-home therapist, but she was his sister after all. Jacob desired a denial or an affirmation intrinsically. He had to at least want what was best for her.

"Do I? I dunno." She let out a pathetically empty laugh, full of sympathy and pity. "You've never cared about anything that doesn't have to do with your brother's best interest, even if it's me, Jacob. So, what the hell?"

"Sweets, you are his best interest: entirely. Don't you know that?"

"O-Of course I do."

Jacob walked over to his sister and sat her down on the bed. Taking her hands, he shook his head and sat beside her. "Can I ask you why?"

"I already told you why I did it."

"No. Why you..." He couldn't bring himself to look at her.

"I guess I felt everything back then. Every nerve ending in my body was eternally burning with a fury to outshine the sun and... it got to be too much for me."

"So, what? You... turned it off?"

Evan laughed again, genuinely this time. "I'm better this way," she insisted a moment later.

"Evangeline—"

"One day, I woke up numb entirely. I felt nothing. I feel nothing and it's better this way."

"Why," he demanded, squeezing tightly on her hands with his own.

"I can't answer that," she whispered. "You need to leave."

"Evan, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"Courtney will be here any moment. I'll go over the new hires with you later. On the plane, at the airport, I don't care. Just go. Please."

"He loves you!" he exclaimed, as if hearing it would flip that imaginary switch inside her brain and reignite the fires in her nerves. Jacob was desperate. Evan hung her head.

"I know."