“Yeah! Coming. Hold on a second.” She said rushing from her bedroom to the door.

“Hi”

“Hi,” he said pecking her on the cheek.

“What are you doing here? I thought we were going to meet at Rodi’s for dinner.” Evangeline moved aside to allow John entrance into her apartment. He took his jacket off and sat down on the couch.

“We need to talk, and I did not want to do it in public.” The look on his face was serious.

“Okay,” she replied in an unsure tone. He never wanted to talk. This must have been serious.

“Sit down, would you please?” he asked her in a hushed tone.

The sound of his voice, the quietness of his voice scared her. What did he want to talk about? All sorts of things went running through her head. The look on his face really scared her. “Okay, John what is this about?” she asked.

“Umm, I do not know where to start so I am just going to say this, I want you to listen and be patient with me. Can you handle that?”

“Yeah I think I can.” She reached for his hands and found them, but as he started talking he slowly released her grip.

“Natalie kissed me, and I kissed her back.”

The words burned her ears; it traveled through her ears and into her soul. She could feel tears starting to sting her eyes, she tried to hold them back but it was not working. Before she knew it a single tear was rolling down her face. Her stomach started to do twist and turns uncontrollably. Her hands were shaking. John tried to reach for her hands but she pulled them away. She slowly scooted away from him on the couch and started to stand up.

“You did what?” Her voice was calm but it was trembling with pain, disbelief, and anger.

“Earlier today, Natalie called me over to Llanfair. She said that she had some information about the Killing Club Murders. I went over to see her and she started saying that she made up the information just to get me over there. I started to leave but she grabbed me and told me that she still loved me and that she never stopped loving me and then she kissed me. I do not know what happened Evangeline. One thing led to another and before I knew it we were kissing. I knew it was wrong at the time, but I just could not stop myself from kissing her. It was like someone else took over my body and was making me do these things. ” He started to move towards where she was standing.

She was trying hard to listen to what he was saying, but his words just went in one ear and out the other. She could see his lips move but she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. She started to shake her hands out to help control her self from losing control.

“You kissed Natalie? You kissed Natalie?” she just kept repeating his words over and over again.

He walked closer towards her and stood inches from her. She backed up from him. He reached out to her and touched her cheek.

“Get your hands off of me!” she yelled at him. “How could you do this? I trusted you! Then you go and break that trust. Didn’t I tell you she still had feelings for you? I told you on so many occasions John. But you refused to believe it. John we were in a committed relationship, and you acted like I didn’t even exist.”

“I know, I should have listened to you. It just didn’t seem logical for her to still have any feelings for me. I guess I really am clueless.” He said the last part with a small laugh trying to help lighten the situation.

“Are you laughing at this?” she was pissed now. John had made a mistake trying to lighten the mood.

“No, no I am sorry I shouldn’t have laughed.”

“Get out!” she screamed at him. Her voice was so loud she could feel the tension in her vocal chords tighten up.

“Evangeline….” John stood there staring at her in disbelief. He couldn’t, no he wouldn’t leave not like this. He had to make her understand what he did; the only problem was he didn’t understand it himself.

“Get the hell out now! I don’t want to talk to you, I can’t talk to you. “I can’t do this anymore John. I have been so patient with you and given you so much of myself and you just threw it back in my face. John just get out now before I call security and ask them to escort you out.”

“Evangeline, please wait, we need to talk about this.”

“I think you have said everything that you came to say. Get the hell out of my apartment now and don’t think of coming back.” She swung the door open and waited for him to leave. She looked him straight in the eye, willing him to leave her now.

He slowly walked to the door and stopped when he reached it. He turned back to look at her face. The look on her face conveyed more than she could have thought possible. She was angry, hurt, betrayed all in one face. When he stepped out into the hallway the door slammed in his face. If he were a few inches closer it probably would have hit him square in the head.

When the door slammed he heard her start yelling and cursing his name. Evangeline rarely ever cursed, and now she was using the words with his name attached to it.

He sank to the floor and placed his hand on the door. “Why?” He thought to himself. How did all this happen? How did he just lose the best thing in his life? Tears started to pool in his eyes but he held them back. He sat there for a while listening to her yell and scream and he thought he even heard things shatter against the wall there was nothing he could do about it, being as he was the one that had made her so angry in the first place. After she was attacked by the racists at the train station he had promised her that nothing would ever hurt her again. How was he to know that he would be the one to hurt her and make her cry the way she was doing now?

After about 15 minutes of sitting on the other side of her door listening to her yell and curse his name she stopped. It sounded like she had pulled herself together and then she turned of the lights off and headed towards her bedroom. When he saw the lights go out he did the same. He pulled himself off the floor and slowly walked down the hallway to the elevator and then to his car and finally back to his apartment. He walked into his apartment and her scent hit his nose like a ton of bricks. He could smell her perfume all over the place. He didn’t even bother to turn the lights on as he walked into his apartment. He sat down in his chair and thought back to everything that had just happened to him

“Was kissing Natalie and then telling Evangeline about it the right thing to do?” he thought to himself. “Of course McBain it was the right thing to do. You can’t lie to the woman in your life. It was the right thing to do. I just didn’t know she would react like that. Why McBain did you have to kiss her. You should have listened to Evangeline when she told you about Natalie in the first place. Damn it, Damn it McBain.” He stood up and paced around the apartment.

He went to the kitchen to grab a beer. He looked down in the fridge and found the leftovers of the dinner they had made together the night before and decided to heat it up. While he was waiting for the food to warm he saw her picture staring at him from across the room. He walked to his night stand and picked it up and gently stroked the picture. She was more than he thought he deserved. He couldn’t understand why she wanted to be with him. He thought to himself, “Maybe I kissed Natalie and told Evangeline to drive a wedge between us.” After their visit to her parents house he had been thinking how different they actually were and how she could do better. Evangeline tried to reassure John that he was the one she wanted to be with, and no one else could compare to him. When the microwave went off it startled him just a bit and he went back to the kitchen to retrieve the meal.

When he finished the meal and two beers later he was back at the police station diving into the Killing Club murder case. This was his way of getting his mind off of Evangeline.

Evangeline stood in her living room and asking her, “Why did he do this to me?” She couldn’t come up with any logical explanation of why John would jeopardize what they had to kiss Natalie of all people. She picked up a cheap vase and hurled it across the room cursing John McBain’s name over and over again. She calmed her self down and headed to her bedroom. She had been in the process of getting ready for dinner when John came knocking and spilled his guts and all but ended their relationship in all of three little words. She cleaned up the clothes lying around her bed and floor. She slipped on her pajamas, slipped in Sleepless in Seattle and slipped into bed. She fell asleep watching the movie because she was so exhausted from her day and her blow up with John.