While sitting in his office finishing the paperwork on a case John allows his mind to wander back to the last conversation that he had with Evangeline.  She was in her apartment, after release from the hospital from the gas poisoning, and had just returned from a rehab session at the hospital.  

“Why are you here John?”

“I wanted to see how you were.  I’m sorry that all of this happened to you.”

“Thank you, but still why are you here really?”

“I wanted to say again how sorry I am that things didn’t work out between us.”

“Why, John that was years ago?  You didn’t really want things to work out between us because you really didn’t want us together anyway.  You wanted someone else.”

“That’s not true.  I really did care for you.”

“We’ve had this conversation before I really don’t want to have it again. But since you started it let me ask you, did you care for me when every time your ‘perpetual victim’ called you left me to run to her? Did you care for me when you left me to burn and rescued her instead?  Did you care for me when I stayed around to give to you information about your father’s death and ended up blind?  Did you care for me then?  Well I don’t need that kind of care John.”

“Evangeline, I am sorry.”

“John, yes you are sorry and pitiful and a coward. You would rather walk around in your cloud of misery.  You would rather settle for mediocrity when you could have excellence. Excellence is what you could have had with me.  But you didn’t want that.  You just wanted sex. But how can I blame you when I offered it to you willingly?  Silly of me to think that because I fell in love with you that you would in turn fall in love with me.  Well I am silly no more.  The relationship with Chris was a direct result of my needing to hear the words, ‘I love you’ and that blinded me to seeing that I never should have been anywhere near him.  He still had major issues from his time in prison and his unresolved feelings for someone else.  Why do I end up with guys with unresolved feelings for another woman? I told you once, what I need is someone who will love me in return.  You are not that man and you can’t be for anyone until you love yourself.”

“I thought that you said that we could be friends Evangeline.  Didn’t you say that? We can still be friends can’t we?”

“I lied John.  I can’t be your friend.  I don’t want to be your friend.  Every time I see you I see your betrayal.  I thought with time it would change but I guess I lied to myself too.  Goodbye John.” 

John had not seen Evangeline for months.  He knew that she attended rehab because he asked his brother Michael about her, but he had not tried again to visit her.  He decided to give her time to get better and then he would try again.  He knew that she was still angry about the attack and that probably caused her to react the way that she did when she last spoke with him.  He still wanted to be her friend.  If he was honest with himself he wanted to be more than her friend but she didn’t want that anymore.  He still had to complete his therapy.  After his conversation with Evangeline he decided to get serious about therapy sessions with Dr. Crosby.  He needed to resolve his issues with past events and move on with his life.  He wasn’t getting any younger and he really did want to have a life.  A life with a wife and children.  He had not thought about anything like that since Caitlin died.  But he knew Caitlin would want him to be happy.