Sheffield wrapped his arms around Evelyn's waist, and their bodies pressed against each other. "Evelina, have no fear. I'm right behind you."
Biting her lower lip nervously, Evelyn nodded.
"Miss, mister! Would you like for me to take a picture of you two together? Only twenty bucks for one," a man shouted to them, standing by the elephant and pointing to his camera.
"Sure. Take a few," Sheffield said with a grin.
"All right!" the cameraman said gladly.
"I don't like taking pictures," Evelyn muttered.
Never once in her whole life had her pictures been exposed to the press. Carlos was a protective father.
Evelyn thought that Sheffield would ask the cameraman to leave. But he didn't. "Rest your head in my chest. Then, nobody will see your face," he suggested.
She didn't reply, so he leaned forward and blocked her face. "You're here on a trip. You're supposed to relax and have fun. No matter what you were like in the past, nobody knows you here; you can be yourself and live the way you want. Even though it is only for a few days, you can be happy."
'Live the way I want… I want freedom, ' Evelyn thought bitterly.
The cameraman didn't know what the two were talking about up there. But since Sheffield was blocking Evelyn's face, he couldn't take a satisfactory picture from any angle. After reshooting several times, he started yelling impatiently. "Dude! Don't block your girlfriend. If I can't get the picture right, what are you going to use as a memento of this moment?"
"I'm not his girlfriend!" Evelyn explained hastily.
But with the elephant being so tall and her voice so low, only Sheffield could hear her.
He burst out laughing and leaned back to reveal her face so that the cameraman could take the picture. "Evelina, I don't have a girlfriend. If you want—"
"I don't want anything," she declared firmly.
"Do you have a boyfriend?" he queried. If she did, that would be a problem.
Evelyn didn't answer his question.
He took her silence for a yes.
He loosened his embrace around her waist and moved back to keep a distance between them.
But Evelyn grabbed his arms tightly. "Don't move away. The elephant is still walking."
"I know. But I don't like stealing another man's girlfriend." He had principles.
But he didn't know what was going through her mind. She hadn't answered his question because her heart was hurting. It was painful to think back about her relationship. "Sheffield," she called after taking a moment to calm herself down.
"Hmm?"
"Do you know why I came here?" Too many things were bottled up in her chest.
She needed an outlet.
"To feel better?" he asked. He could tell that she wasn't happy.
"Yes. I was diagnosed with clinical depression."
Sheffield grabbed on to her clothes, but still didn't hold her.
"I want to go there. Is that okay?" She pointed towards a path.
Sheffield told the man leading the elephant to take that road.
"My family is worried about me, so I won't go back home until I feel better. But I don't know how to find the happiness that I am missing." She looked ahead, at the long path in front of her.
"If you agree, I can help you," he offered.
Evelyn shook her head. "We can be friends, but we can't date. I'm 29, and you're—" Before the next word slipped out of her lips, it dawned on her that he had never told her how old he was. She paused before he could figure out that she had checked him out. "You look younger than me. I don't want a May-December romance. That will be exhausting."
She wanted to be with someone her age, so that she could be taken care of. Sheffield was three years younger than her. Evelyn assumed that if they were together, she would have to look after him. She didn't have the energy for that kind of a commitment.
If he were as mature and stately as Matthew, then she might have considered going out with him. But he was nothing like that.
"Do you want to know what I'm thinking?" he asked.
Evelyn nodded.
"If you don't have a boyfriend, then I'll chase after you. And if you do have one, I'll steal you away from him." It was love at first sight. When he had first met her, one look and he felt like he had found his finish line. The goal of his life.
When he had asked her if she had a boyfriend, she had remained silent. At that moment, he had flinched.
But right now, he decided not to be a coward. He felt that she was trying to make him believe that she had a boyfriend so that he would stay away from her.
"You know nothing about me, except my name. You're being impulsive," she argued. Even the name she had told him was fake.
Sheffield wrapped his arms around her waist once again. "I know what I'm doing. We can try to learn more about each other. You know where I work. You can come and see me any time after we get back to Y City."
Things weren't progressing as Evelyn had expected. She had thought that Sheffield would have backed down by now.
But on the contrary, despite knowing that she had a boyfriend, he continued to pursue her. 'It doesn't bother him at all that I have a boyfriend. He is indeed a playboy, ' she thought.
Evelyn wasn't much of a talker. Sensing that he wasn't planning on giving up, she decided to remain silent.
Sheffield, however, was a chatterbox, and being by her side made him even chattier. "Why are you depressed?"
Evelyn gave no answer. He didn't fixate on the question.
"I'll be here for about two weeks. What about you?" he asked.
"I am not sure." She never thought about her return. Her father had told her that she could stay away from all the noise for however long she liked.
"I can keep you company while we're both here. Trust me, I will be a better companion than your zombie-faced bodyguard. I'll take you wherever you want to go. What do you say?" Maybe it was because of his experience of overcoming obstacles, or maybe he was just feeling sorry for her, Sheffield wanted her to be happy.
And he was confident that he could put a smile on her face.
'Zombie-faced?' she laughed on the inside. "I'm surrounded by zombie-faced people. That's probably why I'm depressed," she said, only half joking. Her father, her brother, Tayson, her ex-boyfriends. Every man who was close to her was the stern type. Her mother was an elegant woman. Evelyn was relaxed only when she was around Terilynn.
"That is exactly why you should spend more time with me. Laughter is the best medicine," he continued to convince her.
By now, they had made a full circuit and was back to where they had started. Sheffield helped Evelyn get off the elephant.
As soon as she climbed down, the man leading the elephant said to her, "Miss, the elephant likes you. Do you want to kiss him?"
'Kiss the elephant?' Evelyn looked at the huge animal in shock. She looked into its eyes and it seemed to her like the elephant was smiling at her.
'Should I?' She felt stumped.
