Free Evie's Knight by Kimberly Krey

neck to look at her. “So you think the only reason I didn’t go further with Tyler is because he wasn’t hot enough?”
    Dim light from the passing streetlamp threw dark shadows across Kelly’s face. “No.”
    “Then what?”
    “Tyler’s a creep. Calvin isn’t. It’s easier to put on the brakes with sleazy guys, that’s all.”
    “Hmm.” Evie didn’t know what to say back to that. She’d been dreaming about kissing Calvin Knight, admiring the sculpted shape of his lips, wondering what it would feel like to have them pressed against her own. She straightened up and cleared her throat, realizing she’d slipped into another daydream about him. Hmm. Maybe I am in trouble.
     
    Dreams of Calvin held Evie in a blissful sleep well into the morning. She stretched, yawned, and pulled the covers over her shoulders before checking the time–just past ten. That meant, since it was Saturday, that the newspaper had been there, waiting on her porch for nearly five hours.
    She forced herself to stay in place, recalling all the times she’d woken up early–her heart racing like a drum–just to look through that stupid paper and see if her mother’s name was printed among the dead. She resented all the time and effort she’d put into the unhealthy ritual, wished she could just break herself free of it. Still, the mere idea of checking the pages had Evie more awake than she wanted to be. She’d get up, but she wouldn’t check the obituaries until she was done running.
    The smell of toast wafted through the stairwell as she climbed up the stairs. Her running shoes lay in the laundry room. As Evie wedged her feet into them, she saw her dad sitting at the table, paper in hand.
    “Morning.” He glanced away from the page. “Heading out to the track?”
    “Yeah.” She eyed the stiff folds of the newspaper, pressed by the sudden urgency to have it in her own hands. What if it was in there, evidence of her mother’s death, printed on those pages and she didn’t even know it? “I’ll, uh, want to look through that when I get back,” she said.
    He nodded. “Okay.” Yet as Evie turned to head out the door, he spoke up again. “You do realize I’m almost finished with it, right?”
    What was that supposed to mean? “So?” She fiddled with her earphones, half-tempted to crank up the music before he spoke up again.
    “So, I’m almost finished looking through the entire paper. And if I saw something that affected you, I would tell you.”
    Her shoulders tensed. “So what?” She glared at the door a few yards ahead.
    “So, maybe you don’t actually need to look it over once you get back.”
    Evie puffed out an irritated breath while striding toward the back door, pausing once she grabbed the brass knob. “Geeze, Dad, that’s great to know. Thanks.” Of all the mornings to bug her about the newspaper–why had he chosen this one?  His stupid comments only made her want to cling onto the sick habit all the more.
    After a satisfying door slam, she blasted the volume on her music and jogged down the back porch steps. The sky, a vast wash of pale blue, showed no signs of the storm promised by the clueless weatherman from Dad’s news cast. Evie found herself longing for the massive clouds to gather in union, unleash their fury on the earth so she could stand beneath and drink it in.
    For now, she had her own storm to deal with. Tomorrow she’d have to commit to a theme for her art project, reveal the momentous event she would let inspire her assignment. And though she’d tried to find something to equal its depth, not one event had affected her more than her mom walking out of her life.
    Evie rarely tapped into those buried emotions, but when she did, a towering flood of hurt and grief consumed her in a way that was almost crippling. It was like piercing a mighty dam with a sharp, well-crafted dagger. Just one pointed thought could unleash the destructive downpour, and before she knew it, she was drowning in the