Judge
I KNOW HE’S THERE, close to her, touching her like she’s his. She’s not. She’s always been mine—and she always will be.
Her mother hired him, invited him into her home, and I am confused by it. I don’t understand why she picked him. Why didn’t Mrs. Tilling place an ad? Why didn’t she ask Eva’s friends? I could have been there every day. She’d see how life should be then. She’d understand my love for her, my need for her. I could touch the cuts on her skin, marks that no one else has put on her, like symbols of our connection. If I study them, I wonder what they’ll say. What messages are written on her skin for me to read?
The Lord is mysterious, and I don’t even begin to understand his ways. When the glass carved her face, I didn’t think to wipe away the blood to find the messages that the Lord might have left there. He carved the commandments in stone tablets. He spoke through a burning bush. Perhaps, Eva’s skin is the parchment on which he wrote our own private commandments.
I can’t let Nathaniel Bouchet taint her. I can’t let him study the messages the Lord has left for me on Eva’s skin. The more I think about him being alone with her, the angrier I become. I’d hoped that she’d be only mine by now, but she hasn’t come to me or called me. I was very clear. I sent her the flowers, the cicada, the words etched into Amy’s skin.
And that was all after I gave up Amy. I sacrificed her. I left so many clear messages for Eva, and yet . . . here I am without her. I don’t understand. I lower my head to my hands and listen for instructions. I don’t know whether Eva is testing me or not. I don’t know what to do.
I flip through the pages of my photo albums. One of these girls will be the next choice. I study them, look at their faces as they were captured, and I wait for inspiration. I need this next message to be the one that makes Eva come to me.
Carefully, I touch each face, waiting to feel something, hoping for clarity. Beside me, on the dresser beside my bed, Eva watches from a picture frame my grandmother gave me. It’s one of those heavy Waterford crystal ones. She likes those. She told me that someday I could use it for my wedding picture, but for now, it holds a picture of my bride-to-be. I keep it in a drawer when I’m not home, but every day, I open the drawer, take the picture out from between the pairs of folded and pressed boxers, and position it so I can see Eva while I study. She inspires me. Sometimes, I confess to her when we are alone in the dark. I tell her the things I’ve done that shame me, and I know that in her own bed she is forgiving me. When she meets my eyes and smiles as she passes me in the halls of our school, I know she has forgiven me.
And I forgive her.
I forgive every time she lets someone else too near her; I forgive her weakness for not coming to me after the first time I knew she loved me too. I forgive everything. I always have.
Bouchet, though, is not something I can forgive. I saw her face when she offered herself to him at Piper’s party. Like a virgin to an altar, she walked up to him, and he cast her away. I thought it meant that he knew that she was not for him. Now, though, he stands at her side like a lover or a servant. He doesn’t have the right to be either one. I can accept Grace walking at Eva’s side. She is no threat to me. She could even be a part of our new life. He cannot.
He’s trying to break the seventh commandment, and he is breaking the tenth. The Bible is clear that “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” Eva might not be my wife in law, but in my soul she is. It is my duty and my right to protect her.