Darkness Descending

Chapter Five: Come Together

Eve didn't just roll over and hand the t.v. remote and all her progress to her ex.

She had boundaries. She had conditions.

For starters, he wasn't getting his socks anywhere near her dresser.

Papa's side of the duplex had been empty for years. It took Eve one full year to be able to go through a lifetime of memories and treasured belongings and, after selecting those things — photos, mostly — that she wanted to keep close, she carefully packed the rest away and rented a storage unit in town for the rest.

She wanted a storage unit built on her property, and she wanted to turn the now unused unit — connected to her place via a shared laundry room — into an organized space to keep the things she couldn't stop thinking — even as food was federalized and hunger in the States became for most a shameful memory — would someday mean the difference between survival and certain death.

Donnie could help her with a lot of the projects that were increasingly needling Eve's sense of complacency. And the vacant bedroom would feel like the Taj Mahal to him after years in shared motorhomes and makeshift tents.

The day he'd shown up, he was, she confirmed, meth-free. He had been for 90 days — the amount of time he'd spent in county lockup on what must be his hundredth misdemeanor trespassing charge. When they decided yet again that meaningful mental health help was just too much damn trouble for a county low on resources, they swung the bars open and turned him loose with a monthly remittance schedule for fines he'd never pay and a single bus token, good for anywhere within a 30-mile radius.

It got him within five miles of Eve's front door, and he casually walked the rest in few hours, stopping only to examine some rocks near the rushing river that forked at the neglected road that led up to her place.

Trust, but verify...

Eve called the jail and got his arrest date and release time. It tracked. And, after he peed on command and came up clean — she kept a couple of tests in the back of her closet for moments just such as these — she believed he was telling the truth.

He hadn't used in at least three months. The drug was well out of his system, and, for the most part, he was, she thought, thinking clearly.

She also believed him when he said that, for a week, something in his gut had been telling him he had to get his ass over to her house the second they let him go.

Thoughts of Donnie had been gnawing at her gut, too. She wasn't surprised in the least to see him on her porch. On some level, she'd been expecting him.

In the two months that had since rolled by, much had been accomplished and the bond between them was becoming almost telepathic.

It reminded Eve of the first year they were together. It was the dragon she'd chased ever since... minus the sex.

Sex, she firmly told him, was out of the question. As was "just snuggling" and walking around naked. He would knock before he entered her home — every single time, without fail.

And forget about bringing bitches onto this property.

No one, and Eve meant no fucking one, was allowed to spend more than ten minutes on her land without her express permission. Period. So if he planned on wooing the ladies, he better just keep on walking. This was a no-drama zone, and he was not going to fuck that up for her.

And, as she almost never left her property, Eve assured Donnie, he'd forever regret trying to keep something from her. She'd know, and her revenge would make jail look like a sanctuary.

To that end, he would submit to her drug tests once a week and whenever the fuck else she wanted him to take a leak.

"Zero tolerance, Donald," she told him. "And I mean, zero. Do not make me throw you off this land a second time."