Evie
When Evie was nine, and her little brother a newly born, squalling, wriggling red-faced thing she still wasn’t sure on, her father disappeared.
He left behind a hyperactive little girl, a new baby, and a wife who was probably secretly happy to see the back of him, but who was also left alone with two kids out of the blue, and no idea where he’d gone. Or why.
He really had, out of nowhere, disappeared.
That wasn’t the word the police used as Evie stared at their car, her palms pressed to the glass and nose not far from it. It looked so big in their driveway. The lights weren’t on, and it was all very anticlimactic. She’d wanted to see the red and blue lights going, to hear the siren. To feel that thrill at the drama of it.
Instead, the police said her dad had left. They stood in the lounge room, one talking in a voice that made Evie think of her teacher from the year before. All boring, in a tone that didn’t alter. It made her sleepy. The other wrote in a tiny pad, like the one Evie’s dad had brought her from work every few weeks to fill with stories and top-secret diary entries. The officer wrote as her mum answered questions. Yes, a bag was gone. Yes, his wallet. Yes, all his documents.
The police, in the end, went away, and her mother rocked her brother back and forth, and Evie watched that police car pull away, something aching deep in her stomach as it did.
Everything was different; she just didn’t know it yet.
Everything would continue to be different. Her father’s disappearance would leave a gap in her heart, and with questions she could never really figure out if she wanted answers to or not.
Twenty-two years on, and she still used that word, disappearance, even though her mother, when she’d realised, had been honest with Evie: he’d left them. Of his own free will.
Her father’s absence was no longer a knife, hot and rusty, slipped between her ribs. What got close to that feeling, though, was the constant disappearance and reappearance of Tilly, even if Evie had long ago accepted that it was what it was.
When Tilly returned, it always took Evie a few days to remember that she was back. Perhaps her mind refused to completely accept her friend’s return; a defence mechanism that prepared her for the fact that maybe, maybe, Tilly wouldn’t come back at all.
That had happened to her when she was nine, after all.
“You were pretty mad this time.”
Evie jolted at Tilly’s voice, laden with an unidentifiable but heavy emotion, cutting through her ruminations. She looked up from her laptop, not having read a single thing in an age. Tilly’s back was to her as she stared at the front of the fridge. At that ripped postcard, still stuck there with separate magnets on each individual piece. “Yeah. I was.”
Tilly didn’t turn around.
Evie pulled her dark hair off the back of her overheated neck, fanning at it awkwardly with her other hand.
A slightly cooler breeze finally came in from the open door, sending a shiver down Evie’s spine. Twilight was washing through the kitchen: no one had turned on lights yet, but they probably should have.
“You’re never mad at me for leaving.”
Except that first time when there was no warning. “No, I’m not.”
If they were both honest, Evie was never really mad at Tilly in general. She just kind of sat back and watched whatever ride Tilly took them on. Evie didn’t even mean that as criticism. That was who Tilly was, but it was who Evie was too. She wouldn’t give it up for anything.
Still Tilly didn’t turn around. “I’m sorry.”
The edge of roughness in Tilly’s voice almost made Evie stand up. Almost.
Sorry. Sorry for what? Sorry for running? For running after that night? Specifically, after that fight? For running over the entire time they’d been friends? Sorry for always leaving, for days at a time, or weeks, or months?
Sorry for what, Tilly?
Evie never asked. She never pushed. Once, she had: in uni, after the first time. When Evie had bordered on hysterical worry and Tilly had stared at her, dark-eyed and terrified and full of some kind of painful secret, and Evie knew, then, that this was a person you didn’t push.
Except on that rainy pub night, when Evie demanded too much.
Tilly left, but stayed in contact enough, and Evie didn’t push.
That was their deal.
But Evie had gone and fucked that all up that night.
In Evie’s defence, Tilly had pushed her there.
“Sorry for what, Tilly?” Evie’s voice was a whisper, something that could be swallowed up by the night trying to creep in through the windows. Whisked away by the salt in the breeze, the swish of the eucalyptus tree that hung over the fence.
“Just—” The word was suspended, for a moment. As if a decision was being made. Tilly turned away, with that carefree smile and a little half-shrug, barely there. “Just everything. Sorry I left. That I leave.”
This was the closest they had come to really talking about it, and already Tilly was trying to push it away. It was in her eyes, in the shift of her weight from foot to foot, the way she slipped her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and was going for casual.
Evie had tried and there Tilly was, already looking ready to run.
And she couldn’t run. Not right now. Evie couldn’t do this without her.
“That’s okay.” Evie managed a smile and the twilight had faded so fast to night it was a shock to find she was squinting in her laptop light. “It’s you.”
The corner of Tilly’s mouth quirked up and Evie gave her a smile. Because it was her. And Evie really wouldn’t have Tilly any other way.
She wouldn’t be Tilly, then.
Evie wouldn’t even bring up that night in the rain before Tilly had run off again. Not when they’d both smelt of beer and there had been familiar desperation in Tilly’s eyes right before the conversation and dread right after.
They didn’t have to talk about it. It could go in the pile of the things they didn’t talk about.
“What’re you looking at?” Tilly’s gaze fell to the laptop and she flicked the light switch next to the door, both of them flinching under the brightness as the shadows and melancholy were chased from the room.
Evie tucked a leg up under herself. With a nudge, she pushed the laptop so they could both see. It wobbled on the little table in the kitchen that everyone kept telling her to throw out but that she loved far too much. She’d had it and the chairs since she got her first real place after her first year of uni. She and Sean had nabbed them during roadside collection, carrying them home like they were hunter-gatherers returning with a true prize.
Tilly grabbed the other chair and sat next to her. With a shuffle and a scrape, Evie pushed their chairs as close together as she could and dropped her head against Tilly’s shoulder.
“So…” Tilly leaned her head against the top of Evie’s, hand on the touchpad of the laptop as she scrolled through the page Evie had open. “You were looking at a page on pregnancy.”
Evie sighed. A little drawing of someone with a blobby thing in their uterus stared back at her.
“Well—” Tilly then put her reading voice on “—The foetus is the size of a small lemon. Good to know. You probably haven’t noticed much weight gain. Who cares if you had? Oh! Good news.”
Evie bit back a smile.
“It no longer has a tail. I feel like that’s important.”
Evie laughed and the pressure in her chest lessened. “Definitely important.”
“Why are you looking at this stuff?” Tilly’s shoulders stiffened as she asked the question, although she continued scrolling through the week-by-week breakdown of a pregnancy.
“I don’t know. Our conversation this morning, I guess.”
“In which you realised you know nothing about this?”
“Yeah.”
Tilly straightened. “Holy shit, it has fingernails.”
Evie let out a disgruntled noise at being jostled off her shoulder. Despite herself, she missed their contact. She missed their ease when they slept in the same bed, even if all she had to do was drag Tilly in by the hand and they’d be back to how they were before, sharing space.
Tilly stared down at Evie’s stomach, ignoring her clear annoyance. “You grew fingernails. From scratch. In your belly—uterus.”
“Christ, we need help.”
Tilly caught her eye, a grin pushing onto her lips. “We are so not qualified for this.”
“Sean was right, this isn’t supposed to happen now. I mean, obviously it happens, but we’re supposed to have our shit together. I’m not meant to get pregnant from a one-night stand anymore.”
Tilly flinched. “Yeah.” Her smile faded and she looked back at the laptop. “We’re all failing at this adulting thing.”
“We? We? I got knocked up. Oh no.” Evie’s eyes widened, and she thought she might fall off her chair.
Whipping her head around, the weirdly pensive look on Tilly’s face was gone. “What? Are you okay?”
“Tilly.” She grabbed Tilly’s hands and clutched them. “I’m going to have to tell my mum.”
And, because Tilly was just awful, she cackled. Then she paled. “Uh—does that mean you’ve decided?”
Clasping Tilly’s hands a bit harder, Evie nodded. Then she shook her head. She could feel, from nowhere, uncertainty crack through her, then onto her face, spilling over into her expression like a flood and then into her voice. “Fuck.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know. How the hell am I supposed to decide this?”
Tilly opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Evie looked at her, silently pleading for some kind of answer. But she could tell that Tilly had absolutely no idea.
So that’s what Tilly gave her.
“I have absolutely no idea.”
Evie blew a raspberry as she laughed as if it broke the tension, but her shoulders ached with worry.
How did a person decide this?
* * *
On Sunday, Evie and Tilly went and watched Sean in a rowing competition. They relaxed in the sand, with Evie tucked under an umbrella and Tilly stretched out under the warm morning sun.
Cal joined them, hiding from the sun under a giant hat and grinning from ear to ear at seeing Tilly back. They dropped onto the sand next to Tilly. “I’d heard you’d resurfaced.”
“You know me, I’m like a whale, gotta resurface eventually.”
Cal cackled as if that were hilarious—Cal and Tilly were always cackling together like little old grandparents. “You were missed. Do you know Sean banned me from talking about the cricket?”
Tilly mock-gasped, putting a hand over her heart. “He did not.”
Cal pouted. “He did. And refused to go to a one dayer with me.”
Evie hated that she knew that meant a cricket match over an entire day. She needed new friends.
“Fear not, I am back. When are we going?”
Cal’s face lit up in absolute delight. “I can get tickets for the match in three weeks.”
“I’m in.”
Evie bit back a smile. Tilly confessed once that she was only slightly interested in cricket, but Cal was right into it, so she let herself get drawn in. She’d said she wanted to make sure they felt welcome, since the original three of them were such a tightknit group and it’d be easy for Cal to feel like an outsider.
Typical Tilly.
They were cackling about something once more, so hard Cal snorted, which set them both off cackling even harder. Cal turned their head to look at Evie, a shadow of a grin still on their lips. “How you feeling, Eves?”
She looked up from her belly and swearing that she could see a bump, which she wouldn’t be able to near the four-month mark, according to the internet. “Eh.”
They bit back a smile, unsuccessfully. “My sister was pregnant last year. She said the nausea was the worst.”
“It really is,” Evie whined. “I was kind of ignoring it at first, but I swear now I’ve acknowledged it, it’s worse.”
Cal grimaced in sympathy. “She said something about ginger biscuits?”
“I read about that; I’ll give it a shot. How’s work?”
They drifted into life conversations and Sean joined them eventually, dripping water everywhere. Cal grinned up at him and asked if he’d shared his work saga with Tilly.
Which Sean proceeded to do, with all the requisite dramatic gestures.
“I’m sorry,” Tilly said. “Someone at work stole your yoghurt?”
Sean slapped a hand on his thigh. “Yes! My yoghurt. Right from the fridge. From a bag with my name on it. This has been going on for weeks, Tilly.” He emphasised with a wave of his hand. “Weeks.”
“Who would steal your food from the fridge?”
“Here we go,” Cal smirked, leaning back on their hands in the sand. “Sherlock Holmes.”
Sean completely ignored Cal, leaning forward, eyes lighting up. “Well! That’s just the question. Who takes all the good bits from someone’s lunch? Who would do that? So, two colleagues and I seem to be most affected. You remember Colin and Erica?”
Tilly scrunched her forehead together, trying to put those names to faces. “Colin had the super well-trimmed goatee, no? And Erica had the blonde, curly hair.”
“That was Emma,” Evie chimed in. “Erica has that nose piercing she had to take out to conform to office dress standards and was upset about it. We met her when we met Sean for drinks last year in the city.”
“Okay, got it. So you, Colin, and Erica are having little bits taken from your lunch?”
Sean sat up even straighter, holding his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun, even though he had a perfectly good pair of sunnies on top of his head he’d apparently forgotten about in his fervour. “Not just little bits!”
Cal snorted.
Sean ignored them. “The good bits, Tilly. Always the good bits. Cake. Tim-Tams. Cupcakes. The thing you look forward to. Gone.”
Evie was grinning.
Tilly pressed her lips together, trying to stop her amusement flashing up. “Is this some part of office wars I can’t understand?”
“Look, consider yourself lucky you freelance. No fridge robbers.” Sean finally remembered his sunnies, flicking them over his eyes. “But the three of us are onto it. We’re going to figure it out.”
“Well, keep me updated, or I’m not giving you lasagne to take.”
He shook his head. “Lasagne wouldn’t be safe. Ever.”
“You’ll find ‘em,” Cal said. “Lucky the best legal minds in the state are on this.”
Sean narrowed his eyes as Evie finally broke and snorted, setting off Tilly.
After the beach, Cal slipped away to a meal with their family, and Evie and Tilly had lunch with Sean, who kept badly hiding that he was glancing at Evie’s stomach.
“Stop it.”
His eyes snapped up. “Sorry.”
“It’s not gonna grow rapidly in front of your eyes,” she said, like a hypocrite.
Tilly snorted as she pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged on the couch, twirling her fork to get another mouthful of the spaghetti Sean had cooked. Were they too cramped here?
Would she have to move if she kept the baby?
No, you could raise a baby in a small flat. It would be good for it. She had a backyard the size of a small paddling pool. That was heaps of room. Her bathroom had the smallest of baths. She could just hose the baby off in the backyard—in the patch of grass she always forgot to water behind her house.
“Evie?”
She snapped her head up to find Sean and Tilly staring at her. “Yeah?”
“Where’d ya go?” Tilly was smothering a smile, like she always did when she caught out Evie completely lost in her thoughts.
“Uh…”
Sean slurped up a piece of spaghetti before saying, “You were staring off at the wall and missed me telling Tilly she sounded like a tiny pig when she snorted.”
With a weak smile, Evie poked at her pasta with her fork. “Sorry to miss your witty repartee. You’re hilarious.”
He held a hand over his chest. “Your sarcasm wounds me.”
She flashed him a much stronger smile. “That was the point.”
Tilly held up two fingers. “Evie: two, you: one.”
“Fine,” Sean sighed. “Let her avoid our question of why she was looking away with a face that made it look like she had painful gas.”
Tilly snorted again.
“Oh, I heard it then,” Evie said. “Tiny pig.”
Sean cackled. “Evie: three, us: zero.” he said to Tilly. “Now.” He narrowed his eyes at Evie. “Talk to your best friends. What’s on your mind?”
The humour was gone from their faces and Evie lowered her eyes and poked her cold pasta some more. “Oh, general, you know…”
“Panic?” Tilly asked.
Evie flashed her a grateful look. “Yes. Exactly. I have absolutely no idea what to do.”
Silence.
“I…wish I had advice,” Sean said.
Evie gave a little huff of unamused laughter. “I know, right, I wish someone could just tell me what to do.”
“Well, thankfully we live in a time and place where no one can make the decision for you,” Sean said.
“Yeah.” Evie dropped her head back, looking up at the ceiling, then looked at the other two. “What would you two do?”
Both of their eyes widened.
Tilly side-eyed Sean. “This feels like a trap,” she whispered out the side of her mouth.
“Maybe,” Sean show-whispered back, eyes not leaving Evie, “if we don’t move, she’ll think we’ve disappeared, and we won’t have to answer this incredibly loaded question.”
“Like she’s a T-Rex,” Tilly whispered.
“Exactly.”
“I have no words for how much I hate you both,” Evie said.
Tilly cracked first. She always did. With a slightly sly grin, she said, “That’s not true at all. You always find the words.”
“True.” Evie put her bowl on the coffee table and pulled her knees up against her chest. “Come on, please? I’m serious. Tell me.”
They side-eyed each other again quickly, before Tilly took the last forkful of pasta and chewed on it as she put her bowl next to Evie’s. She gave a small nod, mostly to herself. As if she were gearing herself up. “Okay.” She licked her lips, her expression thoughtful as she sat back, a knee pulled under her. “Okay.” She took a deep, shuddering breath, and untucked her leg. Standing up, she bit her lip for a second before she said, “I need a minute for this.”
Leaving Sean and Evie to stare at each other, Tilly walked into the kitchen. There was a long minute of silence. They heard her rummage in the fridge and she came back with a beer. She sat down and took a sip. Her leg bounced.
Sean and Evie raised their eyebrows at each other. The idea of getting pregnant really did a number on Tilly, and this was all purely hypothetical.
Tilly took another sip of the beer. “Okay. So. If I found out I was pregnant now?” The thoughtful look remained, and Evie’s heart gave a thump in her chest at how carefully she was considering this. As if she knew just how much Evie needed to hear the truth from both of them. “I would probably have an abortion. I’m not in a place in my life where I’m ready for that. But also, I don’t…” Her voice caught, almost crumpled, then smoothed away. “I don’t, ah, think I want to be pregnant…”
“You don’t want kids?” Sean asked.
She shrugged, shifting in her chair. “No, it’s not that. I just don’t think I want to be pregnant. I could maybe take part in some kid raising, but I don’t wanna be pregnant. It’s why I’m super careful, now.” She winced. “We could all be idiots when we were younger.”
“Hey! You can be super careful and things just don’t go your way,” Evie protested.
Tilly threw her an affectionate look. “I know. I didn’t mean it like that. I guess I…don’t think I want that. For me. And kid raising is, I guess, a maybe?”
Evie gnawed on her thumbnail, inclining her head. “Uh-huh.” She flicked her gaze to Sean. “And you?”
“Well.” He let out a long breath. “Wow, Evie. Way to make me think.” He leaned his elbows on his knees. “They say testosterone shots make it harder to get pregnant, but I’m still super careful. I dunno. And Cal is also really careful, you know them. They’re the most careful person I’ve ever met.”
Evie and Tilly blinked at him, waiting.
“If I got pregnant?” He gave a little shrug. “I’d keep it. Cal and I have talked about it, vaguely. We both want kids in the future. We talked about adopting, but if I got pregnant, yeah, I guess I’d keep it.” He stopped, thinking for a moment. “Five years ago? No. A big no. But if it was an accident? Who knows what I would have done five years ago?”
Evie tapped her fingers on her leg. “Okay. So. Opposite answer. Good.” She gave a nervous chuckle and went back to gnawing on her nail, gaze flicking from Sean to Tilly, who were looking at her a little helplessly. “Sean, what makes you want kids?”
His eyes widened. “Uh. I don’t know. They’re cute?” Tilly scoffed and he rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. I don’t know.” He bit his lip for a second. “I like the idea of raising a little person with people I trust and care about. Cal would be a great parent; they care a lot about a lot of things and are passionate and nurturing. I guess I really like the idea, too, of raising a kid outside of what society would deem the norm. You know? I’m aro, and Cal and I are queerplatonic, and Cal sees other people outside of us who would love our kid too, and you two are so important to me, and would be a big part of our kid’s life. I guess I like that a kid we raise would be in this sort of village.” He shrugged, pink creeping into his ears. “I also really just do think kids are cute.”
A smile, genuine and soft, was on Tilly’s face, and Evie knew hers was the same.
“That was pretty sweet, Sean.”
“Shut up, Tilly.” He was grinning, that pink on his cheeks too now, even as he laughed. “I don’t think people should have kids lightly, you know? But I think kids are cool, and if a family wants to include them, that can be something great.”
Tilly and Evie were both still smiling at him.
“You’ll be a great parent, Sean.” Tilly winked at him.
“Anyway…” Sean, always awkward at too much attention, shrugged. “That’s my answer.” He looked Evie straight in the eye. “But hon, only you know if all that is something you want.”
“I know.” Evie almost wailed it. She grabbed a cushion and pulled it over her face, letting out a muffled scream against it. It was weak as far as dramatics went. But that was kind of how she was feeling: half-heartedly dramatic. She slowly let the cushion fall and Tilly and Sean were still watching her, expressions unchanged. “Tilly?”
Tilly grimaced.
“What do you think I should do?”
Tilly shook her head, her expression apologetic. “Nope.”
“Sean?” She turned to him.
“Sorry.” He shook his head too. “But, you know. Whatever you do?” He turned to Tilly, who smiled softly.
“We’re here,” she finished.
It was the second time they’d said it, but loneliness bubbled in Evie’s chest regardless. Even if they were there for her, it was incredibly isolating because this decision was all hers.
But Sean’s words sat with her, the idea of a village. The cuteness of kids. A chubby little baby hand, wrapping around her finger.
Her gaze slid to Tilly, the earnest expression on her face. When Tilly was alone and hiding from herself, did she look that earnest as she wrote all those postcards to Evie?
Longing beat along with her heart in her chest, and Evie placed her hand over it, felt it thump against her palm.
Longing for what, exactly, she couldn’t say.
* * *
After Sean left to potter around the house with Cal, Tilly sat at her laptop while Evie sat on the couch and read, trying to ignore the way her stomach felt like lead.
“Are you job hunting?” Evie asked.
Tilly kept scanning something on the screen. “I’m going to. First checking flats. Do I want to live with four ‘dudes’—their self-description—in their first year of uni, or this lady with the descriptor ‘must be okay living with five cats, some of which have kittens, and four dogs’.”
Tilly’s gaze left the screen and Evie twisted her face into a show of exaggerated horror. “Definitely animal lady.”
“She is the most appealing of the two. Though… That’s a lot of animals.”
“Is she a rescuer or something?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll ask.”
“Looks like you’re stuck with me for now,” Evie said, voice playful, but uncertainty heavy in her chest.
“Looks like it, if you’ll have me.”
“You know you’re always welcome here.” And Evie meant it with every bone in her body.
Tilly glanced down at her screen, clicking at something. “Things are going to change though, maybe.”
“Nothing will ever change you being welcome here.”
Tilly bit her lip, not looking up from the screen. Was she thinking the same as Evie, that a baby could indeed change that?
In the quiet that followed, Evie definitely thought Tilly was thinking that. So, she rushed to say anything to change the subject. “Any jobs?”
Tilly looked up, the awkwardness broken. “The usual. Cafés, bars, etcetera.”
“Didn’t Sean mention he knew someone looking for a waitress?”
“He did. I might chase that one up.”
“There’s a lot of work going now, you know, in social media marketing. You’re all the rage.”
Tilly chuckled at that, fingers running over the edge of her laptop screen. “Yeah, but we all know I finally chose a marketing degree when someone—was it that lecturer who had three pairs of glasses on his head at all times?—mentioned social media marketers have a lot of opportunity to build their own freelance business. I love the flexibility.”
Flexibility was a good way to describe what Tilly loved.
Evie ignored the thought as she snorted in laughter. “Yes, I remember. How many degrees did you start, or swap into, before finally settling? Four?”
“Three.” Tilly pouted. “I wasn’t able to swap a fourth time without issues.” Evie grinned and Tilly’s pout grew. “Hey, not all of us could know what we wanted to do at eighteen.”
“I didn’t know know. I liked the idea of Social Work because, well, there’re a lot of avenues to use the degree to help people.” She grimaced. “That sounds so trite.”
Tilly smiled at her affectionately. “It doesn’t. It’s just…you.”
Evie rolled her eyes.
“And hey!” Tilly added. “Sean switched too.”
“Once.”
Tilly grumbled. “I’m going back to looking for flats where I’m not so judged.”
The pillow Evie threw at her missed by a mile.
Tilly didn’t always live with her. She often got a place. With everything going on, maybe she would need to move, eventually.
But that night, when they squashed together on the couch even though it was far too warm, the smell of sunscreen still on their skin, there was something that always felt right about being there with Tilly, a leg thrown over her lap and Tilly groaning in happiness about finally being able to watch the final few episodes of the show they’d started before Tilly had left.
“I finished it while you were gone.” Evie pressed her lips together, delighted with herself, and refused to look away from the TV.
Tilly’s eyes on her were like a brand. “Excuse me?”
The smile burst out and Evie almost snorted but managed to hold it in. Her cheeks ached. “I finished it.” She turned her head and Tilly was so close, over-exaggerated outrage in her eyes. Something thumped in Evie’s chest because really, she loved this woman. “All of it. While you were gone. Every. Episode.”
“You really were angry at me.” Tilly’s eyes lit up, the grin on her face giving her away. “You know it’s against the law to finish a series without the other person?”
“Want some spoilers? She’s really—”
Tilly’s hands came up and Evie pushed at her shoulders to keep her away even as one of Tilly’s hands managed to half-cover her mouth, still trying to shout the spoiler even as she choked on her own laughter. “And then she—”
A hand covered her mouth. Which meant Evie did what any person would do, and she stuck her tongue out and licked it. Tilly yanked her hand away, eyes wide with disgust, fingers still wrapped around Evie’s hand where she’d been trying to pry it off her shoulder. They were both breathing a little too hard and pressed far too close.
It was like the rainy pub night, and nothing had really even come of their fight.
Evie was always so okay with this thing with Tilly. She’d accepted way back during the first year they’d known each other that Tilly didn’t feel the same, and Evie’s feelings had muted to nearly nothing, a whisper of nostalgia more than anything. Because even if Tilly did feel something… Evie couldn’t be left behind again and again like that. She had her best friend and they loved each other and that was more than enough.
But now Tilly’s cheeks were flushed and her pupils wide, and they were so close, and laughter always left Evie feeling high.
“You really should have seen that coming,” Evie said. Her voice wasn’t meant to come out so low.
“It was cheating.”
But something finally did happen almost four months ago, and that dread in Tilly’s eye after it, and all the words that Evie had said, the anger at things Tilly had no part in but thought she had a right to comment on, and the empty room the next day—all of that was reason to pull back. Untangle their arms. Keep her smile light. “All’s fair, Tilly Reeves.”
“Not when it comes to Netflix.”
“Especially when it comes to Netflix.”
And that night, Tilly went to the room Evie pretended was the spare room, but was really always Tilly’s, and Evie didn’t try and scoop up her hand and get her to sleep in her bed like they did so often.
It took her too long to fall asleep, missing Tilly beside her even as her heart thumped in her chest, unable to let her in.
* * *
“Your leg is bouncing.”
“Yes, thank you, Sean, I am aware.”
“Okay.” Sean’s wide gaze met Tilly’s over Evie’s head and Tilly smirked.
“I haven’t peed,” Evie said, eyes trained on the receptionist’s desk.
“What?” Sean asked.
“I drank something like a hundred litres of water and not peed so yes, my leg is bouncing.”
“Why?”
“Tilly, can you tell him, all my focus is going on not peeing on this seat.”
Tilly yanked her gaze away from one of the many pregnancy posters on the wall, her cheeks a little sallow. “For the baby to show up properly on the scan, she has to have a full bladder. I think she went overboard a little.”
Evie whimpered between them.
Sean’s hand hovered as if he wanted to put a comforting hand on Evie’s arm but wasn’t sure he should. “Look, your phone’s flashing, you can distract yourself,” he said.
Evie grabbed for it, reading the text:
I made potstickers. When can I drop them to you?
“My mum made potstickers.” She tapped out a reply. “I told her I could pick them up this afternoon after work.”
Tilly had perked up considerably. “Are there enough to share?”
“It’s my mum. Of course there are.”
“Yes,” Tilly hissed, and even fist pumped.
Evie laughed and then whimpered again as she almost wet her pants.
Sean looked sad. “I have to work late.”
“Sucker,” Tilly said with a wink.
Sean’s phone vibrated. Again.
“They’re an hour late,” Evie said to him as he scrolled through what was clearly a very long email. “Go, I know you’re needed on that case.”
He flicked his thumb over the screen, then shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Screw ‘em.”
“You can’t get fired.”
“I don’t care if they fire me.” At the look on her face, he shrugged. “You know what I mean. I want to be here.”
Evie stood and pulled him into a hug. “You’re here in all the ways that count,” she whispered in his ear. “I promise. Please go, or I’ll pee on you. I’m pretty close anyway.”
He jumped back, hands held up in surrender. “Call me if you need me?” She waved a hand in acknowledgement and he turned his look on Tilly. “You too?”
“You got it.”
They watched him go, and exactly a minute later, a doctor called, “Evie Chen?” from the doorway next to the reception.
“That’s me,” Evie called back and headed to the doctor. She realised no one was next to her and turned. Tilly was standing behind her, lost in the room of soft pastels and baby pictures and pregnant people. “Are you coming or not?”
Tilly jumped, eyes falling back to Evie, and joined her.
This was it. The truth of it all. This type of confirmation there was no going back from. Her palms were clammy. In the cramped hallway, her hand brushed Tilly’s and she gripped onto it, entwining their fingers and all but clinging. If it was too tight, Tilly gave no sign. Rather, she squeezed back, and Evie had to swallow past the lump in her throat.
“You got this,” Tilly murmured in her ear, and kept hold of her hand.
Evie didn’t feel like she had this. She didn’t feel like she had anything, right then, except the massive urge to go to the bathroom and a huge fear of actually having this confirmed and having to really make this decision.
Doctor Nguyen was kind. She talked a lot. She asked a lot of questions, including, “And when did you two start trying?”
They both let go of each other’s hands at once.
“Oh, no. No. We’re not together. No.” Evie swallowed. “She’s my best friend. Though, you know, good to see you’re so open. And I mean, good guess, we’re both into women, too. I mean, we’re both also into men. Well, Tilly is less about labels but kind of uses bi? I like pan, myself. But bi is good too. Queer always works for both of us. So—”
“Evie, I think she’s got it.”
Tilly’s affectionate voice shut her up and Evie sucked in a breath.
Doctor Nguyen’s lips were pressed together like she may or may not have been about to laugh out loud. “Okay. Good to know. Now, was the insemination—”
Evie hated this. Hated all these words and questions. She wasn’t a prude. But talking about it all so clinically was awkward and weird, and why hadn’t she simply taken the morning-after pill since she’d been drunk, like a good little millennial. Even though they’d used a condom. To be double sure.
“It was with, uh, sex. I had a one-night stand, while drunk. We used protection. I didn’t think anything of it after that, to be honest.”
“Okay.” Doctor Nguyen smiled at her and Evie had the feeling she was highly amused by Evie in general. “No problem. Have you spoken to the other parent?”
“Um. No. I only really realised this had happened on Saturday. Which I’m aware is late. And then I made an appointment as soon as anything was open this morning, and they squeezed me in when I said how far along I thought I was.”
“Yes, we had a cancellation. You were lucky.”
Oh, yeah. So lucky.
“Are you usually late? Do you miss periods? Just seeing if there’s anything we need to check up on as to why you wouldn’t notice you were so late.”
“I’m sometimes late. My mum took me to a doctor when I was a teen and they ran some tests and everything was fine. And my gynaecologist knows too and doesn’t have any concerns.”
“Okay, great.”
“So, I should tell him?” Evie blurted out. “I mean, I still, I don’t know if I want—if I want to keep it, or what I want to do. But should I tell him?”
Doctor Nguyen cleared her throat, shifting slightly. “Look—you are my priority in this. But I would recommend talking to him. For legalities in the future, in case he wants to be involved. Parental payments, if you decide to go ahead with the pregnancy. Those kinds of things. But I can’t really give any advice beyond that.”
Numbly, Evie nodded. Next to her, Tilly was silent, sitting straight, gaze stuck on Doctor Nguyen.
There were more questions. Past family history. Questions about giving birth in a private or public hospital. She was referred to a midwife when she selected public. Questions and information on terminating the pregnancy. On adoption.
So many questions Evie thought she was going to pass out.
“Well, we missed the time we’d usually do a first ultrasound, for confirmation, between six and eight weeks. But we can do one today to confirm everything is going along fine and since the timing seems right, run a nuchal translucency test.” Evie’s face must have looked how she felt inside because Doctor Nguyen smiled reassuringly. “Nothing to worry about, it rules out any abnormalities and only involves the ultrasound and a blood test.”
Evie could practically feel Tilly pass out next to her. She hated needles.
Doctor Nguyen added, “Did the nurse let you know on the phone about the scan? We could wait, if you’re not ready? If you aren’t sure if you’re wanting to go ahead.”
“Um.” The overwhelming questions and the information on vitamins she apparently should have been on months ago had made Evie forget the desperate urge for the bathroom. But at the mention of the scan, Evie was about to pee herself and then pass out from all the decisions she was having to make. The air felt as if it were slowly being sucked out of the room and she realised, like a tonne of bricks falling onto her chest, that she was feeling very overwhelmed. “No, the nurse told me. I drank a lot of water.”
Doctor Nguyen leaned forward and gave her a soft smile. “You have a little time. If you’d prefer to wait.”
The bricks eased a little at being offered some space. “I—let’s do the ultrasound. I kind of need the confirmation.”
And then Evie was changing into an uncomfortable gown and lying on a chair and table combination device next to a monitor and cold jelly was on her stomach. Tilly was leaning right next to her, their hands gripping each other, and that touch was all that was keeping Evie in this chair. Was this how Tilly felt? Right before she ran? As if her feet were dying to be on the ground and her skin was prickling and if she didn’t leave, right then, something bad was going to happen?
“Ready?” Doctor Nguyen asked.
Nope.
But she said yes anyway.
The wand was put against her stomach. The first thing she noticed was the black and white fuzzy screen. The second was the sound echoing out.
“Is that…” Tilly’s voice was low next to her ear. “Is that the heartbeat?”
“Mhm.” Doctor Nguyen’s eyes were glued to the screen, but she threw them both a quick smile. “It is. It sounds perfect.”
It was so fast, thumping away. Fluttering, really. Maybe if Evie closed her eyes, maybe she could even feel it. And then the weird, grainy image came into focus, and—
“That’s a baby,” she whispered.
Because it was. It was an actual baby shape on the screen and that baby was in her and Tilly was clutching her hand and it was pulled against Tilly’s mouth as she pressed her lips to it and stared over their entwined fingers at the screen.
Tilly’s hand was shaking like it would when she was thinking about something too intense for her. Then she took a long, deep breath, and the shaking eased. “Evie, whoa—you made that. That’s real.”
“It is.” Evie’s throat ached and she had no idea why. It was very, very real. “It is.” She laughed, disbelieving. “We must sound so stupid.”
Doctor Nguyen tutted. “You sound like most people in here, don’t worry.”
She fiddled the wand, and then Tilly gave the smallest of gasps. “That’s a foot!”
“It’s a tiny, tiny foot.” Evie dropped her head against Tilly’s and grasped her hand tighter as she stared at the tiny foot on the screen with five tiny toes and wondered how this was real.
That could not be in her body.
But it was. It was there, and real, and that longing that had thumped away in her chest thumped harder.
She felt split in two, caught in the strangeness of this moment, in the wonder at the tiny thing displayed on the screen and the incredulity she could sense coming off Tilly in waves. And the other half of her felt as if there was no way this was her.
This thing was real. Entirely, truly real.
What had Sean said? Kids are cute.
This weird, black and white alien-looking baby would be cute.
If she kept it.
For the first time, that if grated. For the first time, it didn’t belong.
“So.” Doctor Nguyen’s voice sounded too high. Too enthused. “Everything looks healthy, developing along right as it should. From what you told me, and looking at the scan, you’re around three and a half months. About fourteen weeks. You still have the option for termination up to twenty weeks. Now, if you continue on, you’ll need another scan around the twentieth week, but all that will be organised with your midwife. Any questions?”
Evie could only shake her head.
She had millions.
But Tilly’s hand was still in hers, and for now, that would be enough.