Evie
The joke was on Tilly, because Evie wasn’t even mad about that fight anymore. She hadn’t even been mad when it happened. Or stayed mad the entire time she was gone.
That was all a lie.
Obviously.
That fight months ago had grown out of control, fuelled by emotions and deep-seated issues of theirs. Tilly’s words had stung so much. Had stoked that flame of anger.
They still did.
How could Tilly encourage Evie to see her father when all Evie had wanted was to rant at her friend and feel supported?
It had something to do with why Tilly left. Could it be her own parents left her and meant that Tilly was left with a need to run from everything? To take off and never get entirely attached, just in case she did and then what she was attached to disappeared? Up and left her?
But Tilly, who wasn’t the mystery she thought she was, had mentioned her parents in passing. Talked to them on the phone at times. Went to see them when she took off sometimes. She had a younger sister who Tilly described as “sarcastic”.
But then why would Tilly want her to give her dad a chance. Why wouldn’t she warn Evie to guard her heart? To lock it up from everything much like Tilly had?
None of it made sense.
Maybe there was someone in Tilly’s life she’d missed an opportunity with?
Who knew.
None of them knew, so she and Sean gossiped about it together like old times when they caught up a while later.
“Maybe she’s on the run from the law,” Sean said, smirking and leaning back into his chair.
Around them, the small café buzzed with people coming in and out. Orders were shouted for a variety of fancy ways to drink the same coffee, the steam machine making more noise than anything as the barista pumped out order after order. Evie’s own had an elaborate design of a leaf in it. Perth coffee culture really could be so wanky. She took a sip of warm goodness. She loved the wanky coffee culture. Even if it was overpriced as hell.
She held her coffee in both hands, fingers wrapped around the giant porcelain mug despite the way it burnt and the fact that it was forty degrees outside. “Remember the second year we were all friends and she was gone over the break between semesters? It was bucketing down outside and we were in a pub we couldn’t afford and we made up that she was really a princess from a fantasy country and had to return home to deal with her duties?”
Sean looked blank for a moment then cracked up, his eyes lighting up. “Holy shit, I’d forgotten that. I don’t know how. We’d created an entire life for her and spent weeks discussing if she was first in line for the throne or second, and that was why she was given the opportunity to live as the common folk part time.”
“Her real name wasn’t Matilda, but Tilfred the Seventh, second child to Tilda and Tildred of Toldonia.”
“Why we put a posh British accent on all of that I still don’t know.”
“Because it was the only monarchy we knew of.”
“True.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe we weren’t wrong. Or the crime thing. That’s fun too.”
Evie swirled her mug a little, the leaf that had only been clinging to form in her half-filled cup finally whirling into obscurity. “None of that explains why she yelled at me about having to contact my father.”
Sean’s silence made her look up. He was looking at her contemplatively.
“What?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said, “she just thinks you should talk to him and didn’t explain it that well?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I see what you’re saying, Sean. But it was…so passionate. If it were that, surely she would have broached it with me nicely. Or waited. I’d just heard from the man. I was entitled to a dramatic reaction. He thinks it’s okay to call me out of absolutely nowhere after more than twenty years and expects me to be okay with it? That I’d jump at the chance to talk to him? That he was entitled to that?” Her voice had risen and she heard it herself, the catch of her voice a little too raw in her ear, making her wince.
He gave her a soft smile as she snapped her mouth shut. “Still not there yet, huh?”
She glared at him. “Obviously. Maybe I should go to therapy. Or maybe parents shouldn’t abandon their children.”
“Or both.”
She huffed a laugh. “Or both.” She winked. “I did the therapy, though. My anger is founded and I shouldn’t smother it, letting go, yadda yadda. Though maybe with him showing back up I should go see that therapist again. Maybe.”
His look was affectionate. “You can never go wrong with some extra therapy. I understand what you’re saying, though, about Tilly. It’s not like her to force an issue. She’s normally pretty sensitive to you, and me, and our issues. When my parents were struggling to understand my transition, she listened. Always. Would only offer little bits of advice if I asked her something. It’s strange that she reacted so strongly here. And if it’s all her buttons being pushed, and yours, I imagine that fight wasn’t the best for either of you.”
Evie put her mug down and sighed. “It wasn’t. It’s the worst fight I think I’ve ever had, including any of my messy teenage screaming moments at my mum. It was painful. It was like we couldn’t even remotely understand each other.”
“Which must have sucked even more because that never happens with you two.”
“Exactly!” Evie threw her hands up. “Exactly. Hence, I think it’s about why she’s been taking off to leave. Maybe her own parent took off and she’d give anything to talk to them again? And resents that I wouldn’t take that opportunity? Or she missed that opportunity and regrets it?”
Sean rubbed his forehead thoughtfully. “That would make a lot of sense. So why does she leave, though?”
“Maybe that’s a whole other issue. Or she leaves because she needs space from people to stop getting attached. Or to see her long-lost parent who’s in prison that she has contacted again finally?” Evie added the last weakly. “We can sit here and make suppositions all day. It’s what we’ve done for over ten years.”
Sean laughed. “That we have. The decade-long mystery of Tilly.”
“The Unsolved Case of Tilly.”
“Tilly: A Decade of Questions Unanswered.”
“Ten Years of the Unknown Tilly.”
“Tilly and The Great Life Mystery.”
“Having fun?”
They both jumped and turned guiltily to see Tilly standing, looking at them both with a bemused expression.
Sean gave an awkward wave. “Hi, Tilly.”
She waved back, waggling her fingers. “Tilly: Keeping You Guessing Since 2007.”
Sean gave a weak laugh. “That’s a good one.”
“I could write a book on it,” Tilly said.
Silence overtook them, the sounds of the café interceding once more.
“Well!” Sean clapped his hands together. “We all left this awkwardly the other night as we decided you two needed some cool-off time. And now you’re here to chat about that fight. Your first fight, I think?”
They both stared at him.
“Okay. And I’m outta here.” He left with a final weird wave and headed for the door.
The lack of his presence was like a ghost. There was something physical about the way he wasn’t there. It made no sense. Tilly gave her a smile, a gentle one, and Evie’s stomach rolled over as she remembered how soft her lips had been. How gently she’d pushed back against Evie, so unsure. But not pulling away. At first.
Which was almost worse than if she had pulled away. Some line had been crossed by them and they were both scrambling, no idea how to brave this new terrain where they kissed and Evie was pregnant and they had fights and Evie called her on her bullshit, Evie followed her to a bus station and shoved all the guilt-laden postcards into her chest.
They had no idea how to function. There were no rules for this.
Tilly dropped down into Sean’s vacated seat and the coffee she must have ordered earlier was put down in front of her. She thanked the waitress and reached for the sugar. This part, Evie knew. Two sugars. Sometimes three. Far too sweet but Tilly loved it.
“How are you?” Tilly asked, looking up from her coffee, the eye contact like a physical shove.
God, Evie missed her. She missed her in a way she couldn’t even put into words. Tilly was here but they weren’t them, and Evie longed for the familiarity of their patterns, their touches, their ease.
Sharing a bed with Tilly now would be the opposite of normal. Barely any time had passed, yet Evie couldn’t imagine being in bed with her. As if the line had been crossed and that changed everything. And worse, the baby still kicked at Evie anytime Tilly spoke out of nowhere. A solid, hard reminder of, I’m here, hi Tilly.
No one else’s voice did that, except for Evie’s if it came from nowhere after a long bout of silence.
Was it reacting to Evie’s own reaction? Or to Tilly?
Who knew?
Just the baby.
“I’m good,” Evie lied.
“Liar.”
Evie smothered a smile. “You don’t know me.”
The familiar, fun exchange faltered and Tilly looked put out, brow furrowing. She held Evie’s eye contact and the baby rolled inside her. “I do know you. Which is why I should never have let that argument spiral like it did.”
Evie swallowed heavily. “I feel like you do know me. I feel like I’ve shared so much, and accepted so much from you. But you’ve always kept this little part of yourself apart from me. Like you don’t want me to know you.”
Tilly let out a slow breath, the sound of it shaky. “You do know me. I share so much of myself with you and Sean.”
“I know you do. When you’re here, especially since university finished and you left less, you’re here and it feels like you’re never away. You slot right in, and everything is amazing. But we know there’s something you’re keeping from us. What could it be, that you don’t want to share?”
Tilly said nothing, holding her gaze solidly, eyes a little red.
“There can’t be anything that bad,” Evie said gently. “What don’t you trust me with?”
Finally, Tilly broke the eye contact, gaze flicking away, then up to the ceiling, before back to Evie. “I came back to tell you everything,” Tilly said. Her voice was a whisper, and Evie had to lean forward to hear her. “I wanted to tell you so much, so many things. But all of…that, too. Maybe not immediately, but a little. Or in bits and pieces. At some point, soon. That argument and leaving and how I felt afterwards: I was gone and realised I didn’t want to be. And if I really didn’t want to be, there was a lot I needed to share with you. But I came back and you were pregnant and everything was different.”
Evie wasn’t the only one who saw how different everything was, then. That flare of resentment didn’t die out, but it did dim.
This was a mess.
“I’ve…” Tilly hesitated, as if unsure of what word to use “…buried myself with this secret. And I just—” She pressed her lips together, faltering completely. Her gaze was locked on Evie’s, as if desperate. “I’m terrified of sharing it. I’m scared you’ll hate me.”
“Tilly,” Evie said, her voice cracking. “You can tell me anything.”
With a shake of her head, Tilly gave the saddest smile Evie had ever seen. “But I’m sorry. I’m sorry for that argument, for how I handled it. It hit too close to home and I should have separated my own feelings about it all to be there for you, and I fucked that up. But I’m here now. When I was gone after that I realised how much my pushing all of this into a giant secret had messed up so much. And I decided to bite the bullet and tell you everything and see where it left us.” Tilly paused again, as she danced close to something the two of them didn’t go close to. But that line had been crossed and here they were, breaking their own rules. “But you were pregnant and needed me and needed to know I was here, and I decided to show you I could be here.”
“Almost leaving the other day didn’t exactly help that.”
Tilly let out another slow breath, measuring her words. “I know. And I really was just gonna go for a couple of weeks, to get some space, see Adrian down south. And give you some space. Not that that is any better,” Tilly rushed to say when Evie opened her mouth. “But I was very…confused.”
Maybe they were talking about a lot of things, but the kiss wasn’t one of them.
Apparently.
Evie’s cheeks warmed. “I can get that.”
“But I’m here. And I want to be here for you.”
Evie cocked her head, taking Tilly in. “You have no idea how much I want to believe you.”
They were still dancing around things. But on a different line. The one between their friendship and something else. Maybe they’d kissed. But that didn’t mean they were ready to talk about what that meant, not when there was so much more to talk about beyond that. Not when that stuff needed to be sorted out before they could really talk about the other thing. The kissing thing.
Tilly reached out and clutched Evie’s hand over her knee, her fingers clammy. “I don’t blame you for not believing me. But I’ll show you.”
Evie let her hold her gaze, hold her hand, hold her moment. But then she asked, “So why do you leave, Tilly?”
Tilly didn’t pull away. She didn’t retract. She didn’t even flinch. Tilly stayed right where she was. “I just need a bit of time to tell you. Everything is different now. But I will tell you. And soon.”
Evie turned her hand, entwining their fingers. Something eased in her chest, within her entire body, and the baby kicked. The last time they’d touched had been that messy, aching kiss in the kitchen that had left them both more confused than anything. It felt like forever ago.
“Okay,” Evie said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”