Evie
“Tilly’ll be back. She always comes back.” Sean’s expression was soft although his eyebrows were raised, most likely at his surprise at just how mopey Evie was being. He twirled his glass around and around on the chipped wood of the pub table.
“She normally tells me more than this, that’s all.” Evie pushed her own glass away. “She only barely stuck with our deal—one sad little text in the middle of the night is all we get? She hasn’t done that…well, ever.”
A few seconds ago, it had been Sean complaining that Tilly was gone and Evie was the one doing the reassuring. Now they’d swapped places: a pattern established at the start of their friendship which had never died.
Sometimes, Evie thought the whole growing up thing was a myth. Here she was, ten years on from uni, and nothing really felt any different. People their age all just revolved around, bumping into each other while repeating the same patterns as before. The only difference was that some of them had mortgages, or kids, or marriages, or a combination of all of those things.
There was another difference this time, though Evie wasn’t going to tell Sean about it. Not right now. Maybe later.
“Yeah, I know. She’s usually so good at giving us advance warning.” The low and sympathetic tone in his voice made it worse. He leaned over and ruffled her hair in the way that only he got away with. “Don’t worry, you’re still her favourite.” Something in his face hardened, a tightening in the dark brown skin around his eyes. “But she always runs.”
“She hasn’t in a while.” Evie swallowed and looked down at her fidgeting fingers, running up and down the condensation on her glass. “That’s all.”
Around them, more tables filled up with people coming in after work. Someone yelled at a game played on a TV, and the clack of balls on a pool table cut through the noise.
Sean sighed and grabbed his beer, taking a long sip. “Yeah, it’s been a while. I wonder what set her off this time?”
Evie reached for her own drink, sitting up only enough to manage a sip, hoping to hide the guilt that was probably lacing its way into her eyes as it was her chest. “Yeah,” she said, glass hitting the scratched table with another dull thud. “I wonder.”
Sean’s lips pressed together, lines crinkling around his eyes, then he grinned. “Evie and Tilly—” oh, no, he was singing “—were acting silly, one dressed all frilly, the other with a glare that was oh-so-chilly—”
Evie made herself laugh, the sound catching in her throat on its way out. She smiled to add some authenticity. The rhyme had been made up in late-night bars in the depths of university. Back when none of them had any of these lines around their eyes, and they still kind of thought that anyone over thirty knew what they were doing, but that was so far away, so who really knew?
“Yes, Sean. I’m familiar with the stupid rhyme you made up. You got it printed that year. Then hung it up all over the place.”
He shrugged and grinned, the dimple that drove people wild popping in his cheek. “Look, you two are you two. Best friends, two peas, birds of a feather and all that. She’ll come back.”
The lump that had been in her throat since the day Tilly left swelled and she swallowed, forcing that smile to be a little bigger. “Yeah, I know. Like always.”
Yet… They were long out of university. Things were changing.
Things had already changed.
Surely it was getting a bit old for Tilly to be running still.
That thought was stupid. What did age have to do with anything? Evie knew that better than most.
Some things stuck. Age didn’t seem to have anything to do with that.
* * *
The first postcard came two weeks later. It almost joined the others in the box Evie kept hidden in her bedside table, only ever brought out to add to the ever-growing collection.
This one was sent from a little town down south, not even that far from Perth, and Evie did everything to resist the urge to head there and search her out. That wasn’t what you did when Tilly ran. You let her go and hoped she was fine, and she always came back, sometimes weeks later, sometimes months.
One memorable time, it was almost a whole year.
A picturesque beach Evie knew well was splashed over this postcard, although the sand looked golden when it was normally a bright, clear white—probably taken at sunset. On the other side was the lazy, clear scrawl of Tilly’s handwriting:
This beach is damn cold this time of year. Especially at dawn with the water on your toes.
But the sunrise is warm.
Take care, not sure when I’ll be back.
I miss you, though.
Love,
Tilly x
Evie ripped it up and jammed it in the bin. That didn’t help. The lump in her throat grew and grew as she crossed her arms and glared out the window. Her nails bit into her palms, her teeth grinding together.
On the table, her phone sat innocently. It was tempting to call Tilly, even if only to yell at her and then hang up. But Tilly would have her phone off. Or wouldn’t answer. Plus, it would break that unwritten rule: Tilly left and they left her alone. She was so present when she was here, and then…nothing.
Evie picked up her phone.
“Sean?”
“Yeah?”
“Come out and have too many shots with me?”
“But of course!”
Regressing, it seemed, was a habit they all had trouble breaking.
Sean showed up with Cal, and they danced, and shouted a conversation at each other when they were able to get a table. Cal pulled her under their arm and gave her a brisk hug, and Evie leaned into it, while Sean looked at them affectionately.
In a quieter moment, leaning in a corner, all three of their phones went off simultaneously.
It was a mass text from Tilly—a completely oddity when she disappeared. Evie’s heart thumped, wondering if something was wrong, but calmed when she read the message:
Hi all! I have a friend in desperate need of someone to look after their dog while they’re in hospital in Esperance (they’re okay, don’t worry). Anyone know of someone who can take a very lovely pupper for a few weeks?
Cal texted back immediately, saying aloud, “I have a friend down south who probably can.” They probably missed the look between Evie and Sean.
Sean rolled his eyes. “Typical, breaking radio silence to help a mate.”
“Disgusting,” Evie joke-replied, joining in on the eye-rolling.
If they joked, it meant they weren’t seething at Tilly.
That was around when she had the second shot. Or maybe it was actually a third? Back in the day, they’d all lost count of their drinks before their eyes started drooping. Now, two shots were two too many. Especially when combined with a gin and tonic.
Inevitably, Cal and Sean decided to bail, and Evie was giddy on the alcohol she’d had. She made eyes at a guy she’d seen here a few times, someone with a ready smile and a shock of red hair. They’d shared a few easier conversations on more sedate nights out, and him being here when Evie was feeling less sedate was something she took as a good sign. It didn’t take too long until she was stumbling into his house and then into his bed.
Evie got back to her own home in the early hours, the sky the milky blue before the sun started to rise, and she closed the door behind her, leaning against it and trying not to sob.
What was wrong with her?
The night before Tilly left flashed behind her eyes and she choked on the hiccough that built in her throat. A sob escaped anyway, bursting up from deep within her.
It felt pathetic, and cathartic, so she gave another chest-aching sob and really did feel a little better.
She even rummaged through her bin and pulled out the uneven pieces of the postcard. That was the last thing she had a hazy memory of doing when she woke up much later in the morning, a headache thudding behind her eyes.
She stumbled down the hallway, cursing her constitution and mornings in general, to see that she’d apparently given up on finding tape and had stuck each separate piece of that ripped-up postcard to the fridge with a separate magnet. Six magnets, six pieces, lining up like a toddler had attempted to do a puzzle. Staring at her.
She promptly turned around and went back to bed. She missed Tilly in the bed with her, the easy way they shared space. The mattress bounced as she collapsed on it, and she pulled the still-warm cover over her head in one movement. She couldn’t even enjoy it too much because life was calling, a day with a full agenda of clients to visit and a pile of reports to address. Rain beat against her window, the light cool and soft, carrying with it the hint of a grey, heavy sky. She let it sink into her before she moodily kicked the covers off her legs and crawled out of bed again.
Mornings were awful.
The postcard puzzle was left on her fridge and she tried to pretend it wasn’t a ridiculously emo thing to do.
She could pretend.
After all, she’d done it for years.
* * *
The second postcard came a month later with a picture of some other beach and the same scrawl. Evie stuck it in the box with all the rest that she’d held on to for all these years but kept hidden for reasons she couldn’t name. She was nauseated for days.
Over ten years of friendship in a box in the bedside table, a testimony to the way one runs and one always waits.
She went out again to a bar for a quiet drink. As her work friends melted away, a woman with a smile like rain caught her eye, and Evie thought why not.
As she’d let herself think occasionally over the years.
But that woman’s kiss wasn’t what she wanted.
God, Evie was so, so stupid.
She managed to politely pull away and walk home, and decided not to go out anymore for a while.
The third postcard arrived two months after the second. Three months since Tilly had left, not that Evie marked it on any calendar. She never had. Didn’t need to. She’d marked her entire adult life by the times Tilly had been gone.
Or that she’d been back.
Or that nervous time in between, waiting for her to leave again.
This one was from Melbourne, the other side of the bloody country. Where Tilly’s family was.
Evie didn’t even read this one, just dropped it on the table, grabbed her keys and jammed them in her pocket. The air outside was humid, heavy in the late spring afternoon sun.
When Tilly had left, the nights were cold. Autumn had long bled out and the frost bit at the car windows of anyone unlucky enough to have to get up that early. A week before Tilly had bailed, they’d sprawled over Evie’s couch, legs flopped over each other and sharing a bowl of popcorn. Evie’s fingers had tasted like butter and Tilly had laughed at something on the screen, the long line of her throat clear as she’d thrown her head back. She’d pushed her cold toes under Evie’s leg and everything, everything, had felt like it should.
And this nausea hadn’t been present all the time, eating away at her.
Shit, she hated it when Tilly left.
* * *
It had all started at university. A shared room. Twin beds pushed into opposite sides of the space, and books that lined shelves or were stacked up on the floor in precarious, ever shifting towers. It had started with Tilly, and her eyes that were so dark at times they could be black: a black hole to fall into, a dark night that wrapped you up and pulled you in. Tilly, who lined her wall with glow-in-the-dark stars and moons and tried to pretend it wasn’t a thing. Tilly, who Evie thought was quiet and contemplative and maybe a touch too serious.
Like Evie was.
That was the first mistake.
Tilly was many things. Tilly could be quiet and contemplative, but she was also the one who was all slow smiles and a laugh that was so loud it caught you off guard. She was sharp wit and jokes that pulled a group in tighter. She was Evie’s reason to get her nose out of a book, to take a night off because not every night was for studying, apparently. She was the taste of tequila and fingers damp from spirits and teeth that flashed in a grin on the dance floor, the beat pulsing. She was coffee ready in the morning with gentle amusement at Evie’s inability to face early days. She was Evie’s books ready on her desk that she’d need for eight a.m. classes, left in a neat little pile. She was post-its with words in Mandarin stuck to every object she was trying to learn, with Evie’s gentle help. She was understanding about why Evie was rusty in a language her mother spoke, and comfort at explanations of a world that English dominated.
So no, Tilly was not like Evie at all.
She was a best friend; the best Evie had ever had.
Their friendship started slowly, an easy building. From the awkward hello, this is my bed and you’re going to be sleeping a few metres away, person whose name I still don’t know. From a shared space and the smell of coffee at two a.m. while cramming for a test or desperately typing out an essay due in seven hours. It started from the moment this girl with the sharp chin cocked her head and took Evie in. There was a trip in Evie’s heart, even then.
The second mistake?
It only took Evie six months to fall in love with her.
It happened accidentally. As all true things are wont to do.
Evie had been buried in the closet and was starting to worm her way out, light splashing rainbow across her cheeks. Sean helped, out as genderqueer and aromantic, and going through a stage of telling everyone to go fuck themselves. She met him—her opposite in everything—in a social science lecture when he needed to borrow a pen. Soon it was Sean and Evie and Tilly, and whatever group they hung out with that evening.
It was one night post-exams and Evie looked up from her drink, Tilly across from her and trying to chat with one of the guys from the Chinese Society in the Mandarin she would never give up trying to learn, and something warm liquefied Evie’s insides and her heart was thudding against her ribs, palpable and aching, her breath catching in her throat. Tilly glanced over and shot her a grin and that was it.
It wasn’t meant to happen.
Sean had got Evie into the Queer Club at uni. Since then, Evie had been stumbling her way out of the closet with all of their support. So she had no excuse: she knew the jokes. The in-love-with-your-best-friend cliché. It never went well.
So, she buried it.
Far down.
And tried not to let it show all over her face.
It was two weeks later that Tilly disappeared for the first time, and a pattern started, one they all fell into.
She came back after a fortnight, a medical certificate getting her out of any issues with classes and her bed with fresh sheets, courtesy of Evie. Shadows loomed under her eyes and Tilly didn’t offer information on where she’d gone, so Evie didn’t ask.
Sometimes she wondered if everything would be different these days if she’d asked.
* * *
Evie and Sean managed to snag one of the window tables in their favourite café, even in the middle of the lunch rush.
“Alright, and how is work?” Sean asked.
Evie pulled the tomato out of her burger and held it out as she reached for the tomato sauce with her other hand. Sean took the tomato without hesitating and slapped it into his own burger. He took a huge bite and chewed, staring at her.
“Good. Fine.” She shrugged. “We acquired some new housing, so some new residents are moving in and joining our group.”
“That’s awesome. How much are you missing working in the houses rather than being a fancy Team Leader?”
She sighed wistfully. “So much. But I also really enjoy the extra responsibility. And I do so much shift-covering that I still get to work with clients in their homes. Today was my turn to take some of the guys from Wattle House to work. Same ones you used to work with.”
“Tell them I say hi.”
“Of course; they always ask about you.” She squirted some extra tomato sauce into her burger. “We just got some new hires, too. One of them has a Certificate III in Individual Support Care for people with disabilities, which is great. All the clients like the newbies, which is the most important thing. Even Darren.”
“Darren likes them?”
Burger finally to her liking, Evie popped the top back on. “He does.”
“Impressive. Darren hates changes to the staff and routine.” Sean stared wistfully at his burger before taking another bite, speaking through his mouthful like an animal. “I miss Darren.”
“He misses you, too. So do the other four in that house.”
“Stop!”
“You could always come back and work with us.” She grinned at him, throwing in a flutter of her eyelashes for good measure.
“You have burger in your teeth,” he shot at her.
“Well, you have mayo on your chin.”
He swiped at it with a napkin and narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t tease me with a job I can’t have. The summer I worked there was the best.”
“Job’s yours if you want it.”
“Evie.” Her name came out in a long whine. “Stop. I would love that, but I should do something with my law degree. Plus sometimes now, after all this work, I get to actually speak in court. Albeit rarely. Mostly I’m in the office.”
“You hate being stuck in an office.”
“Of course I do. Someone ate the chocolate I had in the fridge today. It was the worst. But it could be more terrible. Sometimes I take all my office work up to Kings Park and eat there where no one can steal the tasty things from my lunch.”
“I know, you fill your Instagram with photos of the view. I hate you.”
“You’re just bitter because you’re in your car most of the day.”
“It’s true. I am a sad, bitter crone.”
He eyed her over his burger again. “Missing Tilly?”
Yes.
“No.”
“Wanna come over tonight? Cal’s cooking.”
“I come over most nights. Of course I want to. Especially when Cal’s cooking.”
“Want to go on a date with someone?” He held up his phone, wiggling it, and she knew he was talking about one of the many dating apps.
She shuddered. “No. Thank you.”
Shoulders sagging a little at what he probably saw as a lost opportunity, he put his phone back next to his plate. “Any new postcards?”
Evie put her burger down. “One yesterday. That’s three.”
“I’ve just had one. Though I count myself lucky to get any at all.” He nudged her foot under the table. “Three in what, a little over three months? Someone’s getting spoiled.”
“She’s in bloody Melbourne.”
His burger froze on its way back to his mouth. “Melbs? Whenever she goes there, she—”
“Doesn’t bloody come back for ages.” Her half-eaten burger stared up at her and Evie cast her gaze out the window instead.
The breeze had picked up since they’d sat down, and the water was even choppier. Some optimistic people in the car park were pulling on wetsuits, tugging surfboards out of the backs of their cars. Maybe there was going to be a swell.
She’d never understand Tilly, running from this place all the time. There was nothing more beautiful than Perth, this sprawling city with a coastal life and culture so laid back sometimes Evie thought it’d fall asleep. Beyond the grass of the playground outside, the ocean was lit up as if someone had thrown glitter over it, the slight choppiness catching the sun and glinting at them. The soft whites of the café complimented the ocean view and Evie wished they had more than forty minutes to sit here.
“Evie.” Sean’s soft voice pulled her back. His gaze was probing, dark brown eyes soft and a smear of mayonnaise still on his chin. “Why’s this time hitting you so hard? Last time she left you weren’t like this.”
Last time Tilly had left, she hadn’t turned Evie inside out the night before she fled. Rather, life hadn’t done so.
Rather, neither of them had. Definitely not both.
“Did something happen besides Tilly?”
A whole day of things had happened besides Tilly leaving. Evie chewed slowly, trying to ignore the push of emotions in her chest and ignored the phone with the messages she didn’t want to look at. She forced a smile, although there was no point in that considering how well he knew her. “I’m just PMSing and missing my friend.”
Disbelief was written all over his face, but he leaned back in his chair and let it go. “Chocolate milkshakes?”
“Fuck yes. Chocolate always helps.”
A chocolate milkshake and no more pining.
* * *
Chocolate did always help, and she felt much better about life on the drive to the northern suburbs. The group house was her final stop for the day, and by the evening, the house was filled with the smell of cooking chicken. Darren, one of the residents with whom Evie had worked the longest, carefully tugged on his oven mitts, and pushed his shoulder up to his ear where his hearing aid was slipping. It didn’t do anything, and he tried again, oven mitts held aloft.
“Can I help?” Evie asked. She’d been finding excuses to do things since they’d started cooking, the smell leaving her sick.
He grinned. “Thanks.”
She slipped the aid back on, then leaned back against the kitchen bench, watching as he turned off the oven and pulled out the roast chicken they’d prepared together. Stacy walked in, eyes wide and signing a question.
“Is it ready?”
Evie signed back, a bit clumsily, “Not yet. Soon, though.”
Stacy giggled and reached her hand forward, helping Evie curve her fingers correctly.
“Thank you!” Evie signed.
“It smells so good,” Stacy signed.
“Luckily, as soon as the table is set you can all eat,” Evie signed and spoke at the same time.
“It’s not my turn to set the table.”
Evie raised her eyebrows.
Stacy dropped her gaze to the floor, her smile giving her away.
Evie pointed to the house job list on the fridge.
When Stacy finally looked up, she was still grinning, eyes lit up with cheek.
“Are you trying to trick me again?” Evie asked, unable to hold back a grin.
“Yes,” Stacy signed. She went over to the cabinets and started pulling out dishes.
Ever-honest Stacy. She loved to play tricks but always caved immediately.
Sundays in this house were Evie’s favourite, especially when she could stay for dinner. She just wished the smell of chicken wasn’t making her feel so sick. Roast chicken was usually a favourite but not today. She’d felt nauseated for a while now, but this was ridiculous—
Oh no.
I’m just PMSing.
That’s what she’d said to Sean at lunch. But…
This nausea that never left, and was so much worse at the smell of cooked chicken, something she normally loved.
I’m just PMSing.
Stacy returned for the cutlery and Evie caught her attention. “I actually can’t stay today,” she signed. “You don’t need to set a place for me. Something’s come up.”
By the time dinner was on the table, four of the residents living in this house seated, Evie’s stomach was roiling.
Stacy put down her knife and fork to ask, “Where is Enid?”
Waleed spoke up, angling so Stacy could see his lips. “It’s Sunday. She’s always with her family for dinner on Sunday.”
“I forgot,” Stacy answered.
“Stacy forgot to put a spot for you, Evie,” Darren said, already getting up to get her a plate.
Evie’s head snapped up from where she’d started staring at the floor. “No, no, it’s okay. I can’t stay for dinner today and you all have everything well under control.”
He frowned. “But you always stay.”
“I know, and I’m really sorry. But I have some things to get done.” Not a lie. Plus, officially, this shift ended thirty minutes ago. This group didn’t need anyone to stay over. “But you all enjoy your food.”
Darren was still half standing, frown deepening.
“Next time I’m here, I’ll stay for dinner unless there’s any emergency. How’s that sound?”
He sat, crossing his arms. “Okay.”
Cameron, his best friend, reached across and rubbed his arm. “Don’t worry, Darren. We can play my Nintendo.”
Darren brightened considerably.
With a last wave and a reminder about meds, Evie made her way to her car, gnawing on her lip.
I’m just PMSing.
It only took thirty minutes to drive home along the coast, no peak hour traffic to deal with and one stop at a chemist on the way. The windows stayed down the entire drive and her favourite radio station played some new alt-rock song. She tried to drown out the thudding of her own heart, the way her hands were clammy on the steering wheel, the buzz of thoughts getting louder and louder in the back of her mind.
She refused to even glance at the brown paper bag slipping out of her backpack on the passenger seat.
Finally, she turned left off the main road, the ocean dipping until it disappeared from view. She took a right and pulled into her driveway. Her phone flashed on the seat next to her. A missed call from her mum.
Evie hesitated. Her throat tightened. She clicked callback.
“Hi honey!”
“Hi, Mum.” For reasons unknown—or avoided—Evie was near tears.
“What’s wrong? You sound strange.”
“No, no. I’m fine. Just got home from work, I think I have allergies.” Evie was a terrible liar. Being on the phone helped this time.
“Drink some tea, okay?”
Evie smiled, dropping her head back against the headrest. “I will. What’s up?”
“Oh…nothing.”
“Mum.”
“The house is so empty.”
Evie’s heart clenched for her mum. “I bet it is. Jayden isn’t dropping around to be fed a lot? Don’t law students struggle to feed themselves? I remember Sean lost in books and Tilly mostly keeping us alive.”
“You and I both know that it’s not being a law student. Did you cook at all?”
Evie shifted in her seat. “Rude, Mum. But point taken. Like I said, Tilly kept us alive.”
“Is she still gone?”
Evie swallowed, and kept her eyes off that brown paper bag, her nail running along the edge of the steering wheel. “Yeah, she is. I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
“I was kind of hoping she wouldn’t leave anymore. She hasn’t gone for a while, I thought maybe she was more settled. I was talking with the girls from the Shrieking Sheilas—”
“You talk to your friend group from your office about Tilly?”
“Of course I do.”
“But—”
“They’re my friends. So, I was talking to Joanne, you remember her? She’s a bit older than you, and she’s the one who suggested we take our next trip to Bali. Anyway, I was talking to her and she thinks Tilly is just someone who wants space. But Angela—you know Angela, you met her last year when she helped me move from our old family home to this one. It was her idea I get somewhere a bit smaller and more comfortable to help with missing you both since you’d moved out. Her husband found this place, actually—”
Evie bit down on a smile. This could go on awhile.
“Well, she thinks that Tilly’s been hurt. Anyway, we all thought maybe she’d…grown out of it. It had been a while since she’d gone.”
Evie’s smile faded. “I… We had a silly fight. I think that was why she was gone.”
“Oh.” A pause. Something Evie loved about her mother. She always took a second to think about it. “Do you want to talk about the fight?”
“Not really.” Evie sucked in a breath. Rain, beating down outside the pub they’d been in; later, beating against their skin as they’d stormed outside. The anger in Tilly’s eyes. The anger in her own chest in response. And then Tilly was gone. “But I think… I don’t know, we need to talk when she gets back.”
“Well, that’s obvious.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Anyway. I miss you and Jayden, although Jayden keeps using me for cooking, which I have no problem with. But maybe you can come by for dinner when he does one night soon?”
“I’d love to.”
“Bring Sean. And Tilly, if she’s back.”
“I will.”
“Good. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
As soon as they hung up, she missed her mum profusely. That bag stared at her. She’d almost spilled the beans on the phone. But the inevitable sex jokes, something her mother was notorious for teasing Evie with, had put her off.
She grabbed the bag.
She entered her flat, letting the door clatter shut behind her, the fly screen bouncing once before it caught, like it always did. Food. She needed to cook. One glance inside her fridge proved that not to be an option. Which was fine, as Evie hated cooking. She closed the door softly and was left blinking at the torn-up postcard.
That beach. Their swags spilling over the sand. White grains of it were everywhere, in their hair, their clothes. Sean, Tilly, Evie, and a few other uni friends had gathered before graduation—a million years ago now. Or nine. She’d been nestled between Sean and Tilly, the smell of campfire clinging to all of them, strong with the scent of the ocean. A sleeping bag was wrapped tight around their shoulders. In front of them, the sun was sinking into the ocean, a burst of orange enveloping the sky.
The moment had been overwhelming, the leap from uni to jobs looming. A leap into something that felt too big, too unknown, too much. Too soon. And these two, either side of her, anchoring her when sometimes she felt like she was going to disappear.
And there that beach was, on a ripped-up postcard.
And there, behind her, was her backpack.
She sucked in a breath and turned on her heel, grabbed the paper bag and walked into the bathroom. Ten seconds to pee.
Three minutes to wait.
Her hands shook so hard she peed all over her fingers and she washed her hands twice with soap.
They were still shaking.
Washing her hands only took thirty seconds, and that was with her drawing it out as long as she could.
Time really dragged when you were waiting. She gnawed on her thumbnail, stared at the white plastic with one pink line.
She couldn’t be.
There was a soft knock at the front door, and Evie jumped so hard her back jammed into the sink.
There was another knock on her front door a touch louder.
Thirty seconds had passed.
It was still one lonely line.
She read all the time about people who noticed something come up straight away.
She wasn’t, she couldn’t be.
That wouldn’t be fair.
She pulled in another deep breath, went to the door and yanked it open. And with whatever dread was swirling around in her, it all slammed to a stop at the sight of Tilly on her doorstep.
Because there she was. After three months. The white of her T-shirt made her skin look even more tanned than it probably was—she’d be pale as anything in winter, then summer would start and she’d brown so quickly. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun and her smile was a little stilted, as if she was sheepish.
She was always sheepish after she dropped off the face of the earth.
“About time,” Evie said. Because that was what she always said.
And Tilly reached forward and grabbed her hand and tugged her in for a hug. One that was two-armed, pulled tight so Evie could bury her face in her neck and hug her as tight as she could in turn, and Tilly did the same, the sound of her breath right near Evie’s ear. The hug was an apology. Not for leaving. But for that night before she left, their eyes flashing anger at each other in the rain.
Evie pulled back and took her in, one arm still clutching Tilly’s. She was dressed in the denim overalls Tilly was forever smug about being back in fashion—not that it stopped her wearing them when they weren’t—with bags still under her eyes, but in one piece and back and that was all Evie wanted.
“Come to my place first because you knew Sean wouldn’t go easy on you?” Evie asked.
“Obviously.” And Tilly smiled, the motion catching slightly, as if she was hesitating, unsure. “Actually, can we talk?”
The last words Evie wanted to hear. Ever. They rarely talked when she returned. Tilly usually slipped back in as if she hadn’t been gone. She’d find a part-time job to complement her freelance work in online marketing if she needed it, and would drop a few sentences about where she’d been or something that had happened and that was that. Back to normal.
Unless—did Tilly want to talk about right before? About what sent her off this time after their clash at the pub?
Evie didn’t want to talk about that.
She’d been very purposefully not thinking about that—about those texts on her phone that had set off all the events on that rainy pub night. About what tore angry words out of their mouths and pushed them apart and together and apart again.
Would Tilly ask her about it all again?
All the air had escaped Evie at the thought, nausea twisting in her belly. That reminded her of the plastic stick in her bathroom she needed to look at. “Sure. I just—I need to check something.”
Tilly inclined her head and stepped inside as Evie turned and went straight back to the bathroom. The sound of the front door closing echoed in the strangely quiet house as she grabbed the test and stared at it.
“Fuck.”
Two unmistakeable pink lines.
Two missed periods. Three? She never paid enough attention. She missed months when she was stressed, or anxious.
The constant nausea.
She was pretty grumpy all the time lately.
Her boobs were kind of sore, now she thought about it.
Numbly, she sat on the edge of the bath and stared down at it.
Her stomach twisted and for a second, she thought she was going to throw up, finally, but instead it kept twisting and Evie kept staring, eyes watering and not able to feel the fingers that she could see holding the stupid test that had to be wrong, except she knew it wasn’t.
Some stupid shots, a gin and tonic, and a decision she’d never thought of as bad until this very second. They’d used protection. But she’d been drunk. Had they been careful enough?
A knock at the door, the same one as before. Soft. “Evie?”
Her own breath was echoing in her ears. Fast. Too fast.
Was this what an anxiety attack felt like?
“Evie, I’m—I’m coming in, okay?”
She nodded. Distantly, she knew Tilly couldn’t see her, but she did it anyway. She watched her fingers curl around the stick and her knuckles go white. How odd, to watch something like that and not be aware you’d done it. She was used to being in touch with her body. For her nerves to let her know things.
And then Tilly was there, on her knees in front of her, her hands on Evie’s thighs and staring straight up at her, eyes dark, almost black, wide with worry and a crease in her brow.
“Evie? What’s wrong?”
And Evie’s tongue wouldn’t work, the words wouldn’t come, so she held up the stick and those pink lines stared at them both.
Tilly’s cheeks went sallow. “You’re pregnant?”
And Evie threw up, not for the first time in her life, on Tilly’s lap.