Sean
When Tilly had left the first time, a hole had opened up in their lives.
That was a bit dramatic, really. But they had been nineteen; dramatic was what they all did.
Evie had struggled the most, though.
She’d panicked, if Sean was being totally honest.
It had been dark for hours when she’d arrived at Sean’s door, hammering on the wood.
Tilly had been gone since the day before.
None of them had heard from her.
She didn’t have a mobile phone, one of the only people who didn’t in 2007. There was no note. No one had seen her.
Sean had a feeling. He couldn’t tell where it came from, but it rose up out of nowhere and refused to go away.
She’d run.
Evie thought something had happened to Tilly. She called the police, who side-eyed each other at the missing backpack, wallet, an empty drawer.
They didn’t take Evie seriously.
For two weeks, Evie and Sean had scoured Perth. Evie put up signs. Black shadows were smudged under her eyes and Sean stayed in her room more nights than not, trying to hold her together. And he was worried too, of course. But he was worried because he saw what the police saw. And he was worried because he saw Evie and her shattered heart and utter, stone cold belief that Tilly wouldn’t leave without telling her.
He saw first love scrawled over her face, because Evie wasn’t able to hide it, and dread spread in his body like a bad cold, setting up to come back again and again because love like that could break a person.
Tilly, as much as he loved her, could break a person.
She’d come back sheepish, shock on her face at the anger on Evie’s. She came back with a medical certificate procured to get her out of trouble with the university and a hand rubbing at the back of her neck.
She came back to a lecture in a bar from Sean, because Evie may have loved Tilly, but Tilly loved Evie right back, and if she was going to pull games like disappearances, he was going to warn her not to play with Evie’s heart.
He didn’t know what was sadder: that Tilly couldn’t promise to stick around because of some reason she refused to share. Or that Tilly had already buried her love for Evie because she couldn’t do the one thing that would bring her so much happiness.