Evie
Watching the fan spin around and around above her, Evie sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. The sounds of traffic outside filtered through the window: the hazard of a city-centre hotel. It was the middle of the night, and for once the baby was asleep at a time most people were, not kicking at her and squeezing her bladder and keeping her awake for hours.
This time it was her own thoughts keeping her awake.
Or rather, it was Tilly’s words keeping her awake. Tilly’s entire story, skipping around and around in her brain. Evie shifted her feet, a heel pressing into the mattress, one foot finally kicking the cover off so she was left with only the sheet. She was wearing only an oversized T-shirt and her underwear, and finally felt some relief. It wasn’t even that hot here, not compared to home.
Laura was out of surgery and doing well so far. Tilly had gone to the hospital and Evie had been invited to join her, but she had opted to go to the hotel and think.
Which was all she’d done. And now it was one in the morning, and she couldn’t stop doing it.
She had so many questions. But more than that, she finally had answers. The mysterious parts of Tilly had been revealed and Evie was slotting those pieces together and able to step back and see the big picture.
No, it was the opposite. She was now able to step closer to the picture and fill in the details. Evie had always seen Tilly, even when it had felt easier not to. But now her view of Tilly was truly whole. No more gaps, no more missing threads. Of course Tilly had held back something she was wracked with guilt over. She’d had no words for how to talk about what she’d done. Something she’d felt she had to do, but been ashamed of: how did a person explain that to people they loved?
They didn’t. They hid it away and let it eat them from the inside out, all the while smiling and pretending they weren’t hurting.
Evie’s heart ached for fifteen-year-old Tilly. She put her hand over the tight skin of her stomach, palm running over the stretch marks that now streaked along the skin under her belly button, silvery and new. The baby slept on, wrapped up in all the strange grossness her body was providing it.
She rolled her eyes at herself. She was thirty-one and called it “grossness”.
How did a fifteen-year-old deal with being pregnant? With giving that baby up? With giving that baby to their own parents, there to taunt you with its existence for the rest of its life? But Tilly had done it, because it was the right thing to do. A child herself, she’d made such a hard decision so her baby would be shaped as best as possible and that decision had shaped Tilly for the rest of her life.
So much about Tilly made sense now.
And here she was, with Evie pregnant, and trying so hard to prove to Evie she wasn’t leaving.
How had it been, watching Evie be pregnant and plan to keep it? For Tilly to figure out how she wanted to be in Evie’s life? In this baby’s life?
In their lives?
Evie’s eyes widened in the dark and she sat up. Was Tilly doing this as a form of penance? For not staying for Laura? Or was being there for Evie and the baby truly something she wanted to do?
Evie lay back down, twisting her body into the nest of pillows so she was comfortable. She missed the body pillow her mum had got her.
This was all such a mess and all so hard.
Evie knew Tilly. She knew her to the core: knew how she laughed when she didn’t really think something was funny, knew when she was grumpy or tired or PMSing. Knew what to do when she was those things. Even if Tilly wanted to be in their lives, would she feel she deserved it? Or would she punish herself forever? Would it really be what she wanted?
The bottom nearly dropped out of her stomach as an image materialised of Tilly in the baby’s room, bending to pick up the baby and hold it to her chest while Evie watched from the doorway.
A simple moment.
Something Evie wanted more than she could express.
Longing: that was what was filling her chest and stealing her breath.
Would that simple moment be something she could ever hope to have?
As much as she knew Tilly, as much as she felt she understood her and could guess so many things about her? This wasn’t something she could tell.
But God, she wanted it.
Evie’s fingers clenched against the sheet, bunching it in her fist. She wasn’t meant to let herself want this. She’d put the thought of Tilly away, years and years ago. At times, she’d genuinely thought she’d moved on.
An utter lie.
A flash of annoyance interrupted everything else. Where would they be if Tilly had shared with her earlier? Where would Tilly be, and Evie, and Evie and Tilly?
And here she was, in bed and longing for a future that may never happen.
Everything was racing to a head and soon enough, it would all collide. She could feel it. So much had been shuffled away and now it was all out there, careening towards each other, and once that collision happened, the pieces would fall where they may.
Evie knew what she wanted, now. It was undeniable. She’d kissed Tilly in her kitchen; like an idiot, she’d thought. But the truth was her body knew before the rest of her, and here she was, finally knowing Tilly’s secret and catching up with what her body had already caught on to.
Denial only lasts for so long.
A soft knock at her door made her jump. She grabbed for her phone, checking the time. It was nearly two a.m. The only person who would knock at her hotel was—
“It’s me,” the whisper of Tilly’s voice said through the door.
Evie stumbled out of bed, actually putting her hand on her back like an overly pregnant woman on television. She pulled the door open, the light from the hotel hallway flooding in and making her squint.
“Hi,” Tilly breathed out, standing in front of her and resting on the balls of her feet, as if ready to leave any moment.
Like she always was.
That annoyance flickered again.
“Hey,” Evie answered.
She stood aside so Tilly could come in. There was a second’s hesitation, then Tilly walked through. When she shut the door, they were left in near darkness.
“Sorry to appear, with no warning. I figured you’d be asleep.” Tilly stood in the middle of the room, fingers tugging at the end of one of her sleeves.
“It’s okay, I wasn’t. I was having trouble sleeping.”
Tilly put her hands in her back pockets to stop herself fidgeting. “I—Laura’s doing really well in recovery.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“It is. She’s—she always bounces back. And I went home to my parents’ and tried to sleep. But I…couldn’t.” She was whispering, her voice low and dulcet. She cleared her throat and dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Same,” Evie said. But her voice was tight.
Tilly looked up. “Are you okay?” She really took Evie in, then, gaze concentrating on her face. Then she gave a small nod to herself, her arms coming up to cross over her chest. “You wanna talk now?”
“I just…” Evie pursed her lips together. “It’s hard to, because what you’ve been through is awful and I feel for you so much.”
“But…?”
“But I am so mad, too.”
Tilly didn’t even have the audacity to wince or look worried. Instead, she did nothing but watch Evie, curious. As if she knew this would come.
Which was even more annoying. “Are you serious though, Tilly? All this angst, for this? Disappearing and leaving us worried? I get at first not wanting to share it, I do. This is huge and it is your thing, but…not sharing it with me even five years ago? Last year? At some point? Waiting until I literally had to follow you to Melbourne?”
Tilly opened her mouth, then closed it, pressing her lips together. “I know.”
“You know? I mean—” Evie huffed out a breath. She didn’t even know if she had the words for that flicker of annoyance. “You took off after that fight and I couldn’t even be properly mad at you because I had no idea what was going on, like I haven’t for more than a decade. And then you sent postcards as usual and you come back and I’m pregnant and there was something you wanted to tell me, and you decided not to because I’m pregnant? Like that disqualifies me from being shared with?”
It was hard to tell in this light, but Evie could swear Tilly flushed.
“Exactly,” Evie said. Though she wasn’t sure what she was saying that to. “And after everything you made it sound like you were siding with my dad after that argument? Like I said in the park, the situations were entirely different. And I get that there was stuff going on for you there, but where was your empathy for me in that? I’m so mad at him for barging his way into my life and disrespecting that I made it clear I don’t want to talk to him, and you took his side. And I’m trying to be understanding—but where was your understanding?”
The flush in Tilly’s cheeks deepened. When Evie didn’t say anything else, Tilly asked tentatively, “Anything else?”
Yes. So much more. What do you want? Do you actually want to stick around with me and this baby? Do you want to just be friends? Do you feel obliged? Undeserving? But none of that was something Evie felt ready to ask, not yet. The questions stuck in her throat and she left them there for later.
Evie crossed her arms. “Not for now.”
Tilly shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I don’t really know what to say, except that I understand everything you’re saying. And I’m sorry. I am. I’m sorry it took so long. I’m sorry that fight about your dad was such a mess—” Evie opened her mouth to butt in, and Tilly hurried on “—and that I was so insensitive. Because I was. And I don’t think you’re incapable because you’re pregnant.” Tilly gave her a small smile. “Everything got, well, complicated.”
Evie sighed, because that was true if nothing else. And getting out that rant of words had left her drained and satisfied. She was kind of itching for a fight, but Tilly had said all the right things. Which could be disappointing. She was getting to like this “say what you think” thing. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Tilly asked.
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Are we okay?” Tilly asked. She looked so small in the dim hotel room, her arms wrapped around herself.
“We are.” Evie meant it, too. Even with all the complicated mess of feelings, she meant it.
“I haven’t slept that well since…” Evie trailed off.
“I haven’t slept that great since I moved out of your place,” Tilly said.
The air between them was almost brittle, and those words shattered it. Instead of leaving behind something angry, a peace was in the air between them. Something for them to bridge.
Evie stepped a little closer. “I always sleep better when you’re with me,” she murmured.
Tilly’s eyes flicked up rapidly, deep and dark in the room. But soft. Always so soft when she looked at Evie. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Evie held her hand out, and Tilly slipped hers into it, their fingers brushing over each other, twining together. Evie tugged her to the bed and climbed in first.
Tilly toed her shoes off, nearly unbalancing, then shimmied her leggings down. After undoing her bra and tugging it out her sleeve, she slipped under the covers and they moved into each other’s space, Evie rolling to her side, but shuffling backwards, Tilly’s arm wrapping around her, tucked under her breasts. Her skin heated where she touched her, but their insecurities, all the unknown, left it solely at that: overheated skin and a feeling of utter comfort.
Tilly’s face pressed into the back of her neck, her lips brushing over Evie’s skin, warm breath sending a shiver of goosebumps down her back. “I missed you.” Tilly’s voice was choked. “I missed this.” The words were barely sound, only a whisper of breath, left just for Evie.
“Me too.” She really had. Evie linked her hand over Tilly’s and slowly moved it down, resting over her stomach.
The baby, as if it knew, rolled.
Tilly’s fingers twitched, gripping that bit tighter. “Hi, little bean.”
The room was so quiet, but not too much so. They filled that silence with their entwined presence, chasing away anything that could have left them awkward.
“When I was…” Tilly’s voice caught, and she cleared her throat. “When I was six months pregnant, it started to get impossible to sleep. I missed sleeping on my stomach so much. It was so uncomfortable.” Evie heard her swallow, then she turned her face a little, pressing her cheek against Evie’s shoulder blade. “Are you comfortable?”
She felt like she’d been given another little nugget of Tilly. A little piece of her Evie had been missing. “More comfortable than I have been in months,” Evie whispered.
Tilly pressed her face back into Evie’s neck, and Evie could swear Tilly’s smile was stamped there. “Me too.” There was a pause, the sound of their breathing. “I’m glad you said all…of this. Everything.”
“I have one more thing that I don’t understand.”
Tilly tensed around her, as Evie had known she would. She didn’t pull away though, and that was something. “What is it?”
“Why run? So much?” Evie made herself ask as calmly as she could. “I just—I understand, leaving when Laura was sick, and the times she must have been in the hospital since, and rebuilding your relationship with your family. It’s the other times I’m having trouble with.”
For a long moment, Tilly was very still. Then, finally, “I don’t know. I mean, I do, but I don’t? I’ve felt half in and half out of my life for so long, with this all kept down. I used to love hiding and running away as a kid, for fun. Watching things and feeling all secretive. But after Laura, it was different. Any time I felt—anything, really. If I felt…” She pushed further against Evie; once more, not pulling away, but closer, and something between them was crumbling, in the best of ways. “If I felt strongly about something, about you—or about Sean. If I felt ashamed about something, like when we had that fight. When I had the pregnancy scare way back in uni and it brought some stuff up. When I broke up with someone, or felt happy and content and was scared I’d ruin it…I got claustrophobic? I guess. Or I wanted to get away. Or leave, rather than face it.”
Silence, once more. But Evie let it sit, and waited, because she could feel there was more.
When Tilly started speaking again, her voice was tight. “Especially if I felt bad about something I’d done. I’d make myself go back to Melbourne almost like a…a punishment? Sometimes I felt smothered by the decisions I’d made and went south to see a friend or something. But usually, I don’t know… I guess it was about punishing myself some more.”
Evie released the breath she’d been holding, and words slipped out with it. “So, it’s not about punishing us, then?”
Tilly’s nose pressed into the back of her neck. Her arms tightened and Evie pushed back into her, wriggling as much as she could.
“Nope. Just… Just me.”
“Oh, Tilly.”
Tilly’s laugh was low, thick with emotion. “Oh, Tilly, indeed.”
Evie lifted a hand up and behind her, burying her fingers in Tilly’s hair for a moment.
“There’s more to say,” Evie whispered.
“I know.”
And even with the knowledge of all that, her eyelids grew heavy. Tilly pressed even closer into her and Evie felt something low in her belly warm.
Even with her skin on fire, Evie managed to fall asleep.
Waking up with Tilly was always a nice way to start the day, especially after not getting to do it for so very long. But there was something different about it this morning. An invisible barrier had finally been pulled away from between them and they could slip further into each other’s space, could press together that much tighter.
Evie woke up in much the same position she’d fallen asleep, with Tilly also still pressed along the planes of her back, an arm tucked tight around her, pulling her in even closer. Her face was in Evie’s neck and Evie would have happily stayed there for the entire day.
She’d missed Tilly.
But now she had something entirely new to enjoy.
It was terrifying and unknown, and an overwhelming bubble was filling her chest, coated in excitement and anticipation. The thrill of something completely new.
It was getting less terrifying and more amazing.
Tilly murmured something, her arm tightening even more. She’d done that every time Evie had woken up to shift or go to the bathroom: even with Tilly there to help her fall asleep, it was still interrupted thanks to being pregnant. The baby gave a kick, as if to say, “Ha!” and Evie ran her own hand over her belly as a way to say good morning. Rolling over, Tilly’s face came into view as Evie lay on her back. The grumpy crease between her eyebrows disappeared as Tilly, mostly asleep, realised it meant she could move even closer. She wriggled into Evie, along her side, leg sliding over Evie’s, resting her head on Evie’s chest, face pressed into her neck and collarbone.
It was so rare that Evie woke up early, let alone before Tilly.
She should get used to it, but she was still hoping her baby would not like mornings.
A completely naïve thought, but one she would cling to as long as she could.
Tilly’s fist tightened in Evie’s shirt, clutching and bunching material before relaxing. A tickling against Evie’s neck indicated Tilly was waking up as her eyelashes fluttered open.
“Are you awake before me?” Tilly rasped, barely sounding alert.
“Mhm.” Evie hummed her answer. She lifted her hand, managing to get it against Tilly’s head at this angle and run her fingers through her hair. “Looks like I am.”
“Well, that’s unheard of.” The baby gave a kick and Tilly chuckled. “Good morning to you too.”
Another kick.
“It always responds to your voice.”
Tilly sat up abruptly at that, digging her elbow into the mattress next to Evie’s head and resting her own in her hand. “Really?”
Evie shuffled so her arm, now free, could go under her head. “Really. It’s always kicking up a storm when it hears you, but especially when it’s not heard you in a while.”
Tilly’s hand moved back to Evie’s stomach, splaying her fingers over the taught skin. “It’s been so weird to watch you be pregnant,” she whispered.
Evie blinked, then brought her hand up to cover Tilly’s. She pulled her other from under her head and reached up, gently brushing hair off Tilly’s face, barely mussed from sleep. Apparently, Tilly hadn’t moved once, even when Evie had had her restless moments.
“It must have brought up so much for you.”
Tilly gave a half-shrug, awkward in the position she was in. “In some ways, I guess. To be honest, I’ve blocked it all out so much, it feels like it happened to another person. But if I think about it…” Her gaze had dropped away from Evie and to their hands.
“What?” Evie asked.
“I dunno. If I think about it, I can remember the strangeness. I had no morning sickness and suddenly I was just…pregnant. It was so weird, to have this thing move and react inside me like that. The baby, Laura—” Tilly flinched, and Evie’s heart thumped extra hard for her “—she would wake me up in the middle of the night, doing somersaults or something. I thought she’d be a soccer player. Turns out, she hates sports.” Tilly gave a little laugh, the corners of her lips tugging up. She looked back to Evie’s eyes and the shock of her eye contact stole Evie’s breath. Her eyes were so earnest, so honest. Sad. Something in her open and raw.
Tilly had never talked about any of this. Had probably not thought about it at all.
“She doesn’t look much like you, except her smile,” Evie said.
Tilly nodded. “She looks a lot like the father. When they’re babies, everyone goes on about who they look like and how much. But I didn’t see it until one day when I’d been at my grandparents for a while. I hadn’t seen her in maybe six months. My parents came to visit me, but I’d avoided her. And finally, I tried to go and visit them and she was maybe, two? Under three, I think. And she was in the lounge room, standing up all wobbly. She was standing on a giant picture book and trying to pick it up while she stood on it and getting frustrated because she couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t pick it up.” Evie snorted and Tilly gave her a crooked grin. “I know, right? They’re so…dumb. But in a really funny way. And she looked up, all mad, and it was like looking in a mirror.” The humour was gone and Evie brought her hand back up, placing it against Tilly’s cheek, letting her fingers rake backwards into her hair a little. Tilly leaned into the touch. “I could only stand there, staring at her. And she blinked at me and then almost cried because this stranger was in the lounge room. She had no idea who I was and it was everything that was meant to be: everything we’d planned, that I’d wanted. And yet I felt like I’d been punched.”
“Oh, Tilly,” Evie murmured.
She tugged gently with her hand and Tilly fell into her, unresisting and pliant, face pressing hot into her neck and Evie wrapped her arms around her, clinging to her, one hand running up and down her back and the other in her hair, gripping her closer. She turned her head so her lips pressed against the top of Tilly’s head and held her as tight as she dared.
Tilly’s chest heaved in a sob and Evie kissed the top of her head, leaving her lips there, and Tilly’s breath was damp and heated against her skin.
“I’m sorry,” Tilly breathed into her.
“Never,” Evie said. “Never be sorry for this.”
Tilly sobbed against her while Evie ran her hand up and down her back. The room got lighter and lighter as the sun came through the cheap hotel curtains and the sounds of traffic grew even more intense.
Finally, her sobs easing, Tilly nuzzled her face against Evie’s shirt. “I’ve made your shirt all wet,” she whispered, the words trailing over Evie’s skin.
“Oh, the travesty.”
Tilly snorted, hot and blasting over Evie’s chest. She lifted her face, inches from Evie’s, red-rimmed eyes shockingly clear after her tears, although still so open and raw. “Thank you.”
Evie cupped the back of Tilly’s head, and Tilly rested her forehead to Evie’s. They were wrapped in a sheet, wrapped in each other, the morning chasing them, and they breathed in sync. It was terrifying how fast they could slip back into their old patterns after months of being stilted. Yet not just slip back into what they were, but this new thing that was building. Tilly pulled back slowly and Evie wanted to pull her back in. The overwhelming desire to press her lips to Tilly’s again washed over her. Not with desperation and fear like in the kitchen, but with need, with want, with love.
Love.
That was a terrifying thought.
Tilly’s gaze dropped to her lips and Evie’s heart thudded against her ribs, so loud she was sure Tilly would be able to hear it. Tilly lifted her hand, fingers trembling, and grazed her fingers down Evie’s cheek, one fingertip grazing her lip. It took everything in Evie not to turn her head and press her lips to her fingers.
It turned out she didn’t have everything in her, and she ducked her head ever so slightly, lips pressing to Tilly’s fingertips. Tilly’s breath hitched, audible in the silent room. And then Evie did something she probably shouldn’t do, that would lead to things she probably wasn’t ready for: she kissed Tilly’s fingers, the tip of her tongue flicking out, and Tilly’s entire body froze against her, then Evie’s gaze flicked up to meet Tilly’s and her breath rushed out of her, her pupils blowing wide. Everything within Evie ached, her skin too warm and Tilly close and everything she wanted. Their breathing was ragged in her ears and she wanted to close the gap between them, thread her fingers through Tilly’s hair and pull her mouth to hers. To pull her in close.
Instead, she smiled, Tilly’s fingers against her mouth, and Tilly slowly, crookedly, mimicked her. Then ducked her head and pressed it back into her neck and Evie wriggled a little so their legs pressed close. The room was warm, being pressed this close together was too warm, but they lay there anyway, closer than they had been in months.
Closer, maybe, than ever, with all their secrets tugged out from between them.
The sound of a vacuum filtered out from the hallway and someone slammed a door in the next room. But here, they lay quietly, the thudding of Evie’s heart slowing after the feel of Tilly’s fingertips against her mouth, from the way her eyes had shifted, from the catch in her breath.
Evie’s phone rang.
Tilly groaned and pushed off her, hair in disarray and face grumpy. She rolled away and dropped face-first into her pillow.
“I bet it’s Sean,” Evie said.
Tilly groaned again, into the pillow.
Reaching for the phone, Evie took the chance to take in a big breath. “Yup, it’s Sean.”
Tilly groaned even louder into the pillow.
Evie cackled, flopping back into the bed. “Hi Sean,” she said once she’d pressed answer.
“What the fuck,” he said.
“Good morning to you too.”
“You’re in Melbourne?”
“I am.”
“With Tilly.”
“With Tilly, yes.”
Tilly didn’t move from the pillow.
“And Tilly knows you’re there.”
“Tilly does know I’m here.”
Tilly lifted a hand, giving the finger blindly towards the phone. Evie laughed.
“And Tilly is there?” he asked.
“Tilly is right here.”
Sean was silent for a moment. “Right. What’s going on?”
“Tilly,” Evie said to the blob on the pillow. “What’s going on?” Tilly hadn’t dropped her hand, so Evie relayed it to Sean. “She’s giving you the finger.”
“Typical, then. I can see nothing’s really changed.”
Well, that wasn’t true. There was a shift in how Evie was responding.
Even through the phone, Sean picked up on it. “Is everything okay? Did she run again?”
“No, Tilly didn’t run again. After last time, I think she learned I’d murder her.”
Tilly huffed into her pillow.
“Is everything okay?”
Evie sighed. “Everything’s okay. I can’t—it’s not really my stuff to say.”
“Got you.”
And then Tilly sat up, hair absolutely wild with friction from the pillow, and held out her hand for the phone. “Hi, Sean,” she said. There was a pause and the soft murmur of Sean’s voice. “Everything is fine, really. But I—when I get back at the end of the week, let’s talk.” Her brow knitted, and Tilly nodded her head the way she did when she was agreeing with someone but also had a counterpoint. “I’d rather tell you in person.” She ran a hand through her hair, wincing when it got stuck in a tangle. “Yeah, here’s Evie.”
And she held the phone out, letting Evie take it. Tilly got up and slipped out the bed to the bathroom, the door closing quietly behind her. Evie bit her lip and put the phone back to her ear.
“Hi again.”
“This is all very mysterious,” he said. But he sounded more concerned than annoyed. “I hope you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. It was a last-minute decision, or I’d have asked you to come.”
“I think you two have some stuff to sort out, anyway. Even if this doesn’t happen immediately, I think it’s good you have some time.”
Evie hummed her response.
“How’s Bean?”
“Kicking me in the bladder. Again.”
He laughed. “I’ll let you go. And Evie?”
“Yeah?”
“Just…be careful.”
From anyone else it would annoy her. “Of course.”
“I love you both.”
“Goes both ways,” she answered. “Bye.”
“Bye.”
She hung up, the sound of the shower making its way through the door. She flopped back into the pillows and tugged the sheet up over her. It was still so odd to see this giant bulge coming from her own body.
She ran her hands over it anyway, and whispered, “Well. The timing of all of this is a little out of whack, huh, Bean.”
The baby didn’t even dignify that with a kicked response.
* * *
They had breakfast in the hotel and then Tilly went to the hospital. Evie walked slowly around the city centre—thankfully not yet at full waddle stage—taking in some of the sights. She bounced from hipster café to hipster café, stopping into little art galleries and sitting in Federation Square to watch the crowds of people—and pigeons—flow through it.
And all the while, she thought.
Her phone beeped with a message:
The Fridge Poacher has been very, very quiet since the holidays! Perhaps they know Colin, Erica, and I are onto them? OR we are right and it was Erica and she knows we know.
Evie snorted and sent back a gif of someone stealing cake from a fridge.
When Tilly picked her up to get a late lunch, Evie was ready to ask her some things.
“Are you ever going to tell Laura?” she asked.
The car slowed as Tilly seemed to twitch at the question, then picked up speed.
“That’s a big question,” Tilly finally said. Her gaze was glued on the road.
“It is.”
“Give me a moment with that one.”
“Okay.”
They drove quietly, Tilly taking her to a lunch spot near St Kilda she’d said she liked. They stayed quiet as Tilly found a parking spot and the smell of the ocean hit them, extra strong in Port Phillip Bay. Being the weekend, people lay strewn all over the sand on top of brightly coloured towels, enjoying the heat and swimming.
The café was summery and bright, the acrylic art on the walls full of twisting, blooming shapes dragging away Evie’s gaze. But the highlight lay through sliding glass doors at the back, leading to an outside eating area, a little picket fence running the border and the water across the sand mere metres away.
“It’s gorgeous,” Evie said.
Tilly’s gaze never left her. “It is,” she answered.
Evie’s cheeks warmed.
They found a table in the shade and ordered fish and chips on Tilly’s recommendation. They sat quietly while they waited, feet stuck out of the shade in the sun, skin heating up in their thongs. Their food arrived surprisingly quickly, perfectly crisp with big slices of lemon on top.
It shouldn’t be this easy, to sit across from each other and chew their food and watch little kids racing through the sand, kicking it up under their feet to stick to the backs of their wet calves. To be quiet and okay in it. Everything had changed. A few weeks ago, Evie had thought that change meant they were broken.
But instead, they were stronger. As if by pulling everything down again, they could rebuild from a sturdier foundation. Something solid and true.
She understood Tilly so much better now.
And because of that, she knew them, together, so much better.
The waiter took their empty plates and returned with their coffee, Evie lighting up at the arrival of the one coffee a day she was permitting herself.
Tilly leaned back, stirring hers thoughtfully. She finally put her spoon down and gazed out at the bay. “Mum, Dad, and I talked about telling Laura last year.”
“You did?”
“Mhm.” Tilly turned her head to face her, cheeks flushed in the warmth. Hair had escaped her ponytail, the tendrils brushing over her neck as she moved.
Evie’s fingers twitched in her lap with the urge to brush them away.
When Tilly made eye contact, she gave a little smile, uncertain and fragile. “Yeah. We were thinking of doing it after her sixteenth birthday. We didn’t mean to let it, you know, stay such a secret. Or maybe we did, I don’t know. Maybe I needed it to be. But also, even only fifteen years ago, the ideas of what kids should and shouldn’t know were different. Anyway…” Tilly trailed off, biting her lip. “We thought, last year, that the best thing would be for her to know. Which seems so obvious now.”
When she didn’t start speaking again, Evie said, “Hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that. I couldn’t sleep before you came over last night, because I was thinking about it all.”
“It’s so complicated,” Tilly breathed out. “Should we have never told her she was adopted? She would never need to know; we look alike enough, and blonde can appear from any of our family. Our cousins are blonde. Should we have told her everything? Would she have felt abandoned by me, since I was in and out of her life, even if she had my parents as a constant? Would it have been better that she knew it all from the start, so even if she struggled, she had the truth of it all? Should we… Should we, should we, should we.” Tilly gave the same fragile smile from before, almost self-deprecating. “I don’t know if we will ever know what was best.”
“Maybe there wasn’t a best? Just several options that could all work in their own ways? And all have their own separate sets of problems?”
Tilly grabbed a sugar packet, fiddling with it, tapping it on the table and flicking it around and around. “I guess. But we thought she’d be old enough to understand it now, and young enough that it wasn’t kept from her forever, or… Hell, I don’t even know. But then she started to get sick again.” Tilly huffed. “My stupid kidney failed her.”
Evie laughed, startling and loud, causing Tilly to look up in surprise. “Sorry, but that’s ridiculous. You told me yourself, half end up needing another transplant.”
Tilly gave a coy shrug. “You’re ruining my self-deprecation. Rude.”
“Sorry.”
And her smile this time was real, if fleeting. “Anyway. In a nutshell, yes, we want to tell her. And I’ll try to explain it to her. But we’ll wait until she’s well on her way to being recovered.”
“So, you’ll tell her soon, then?”
Tilly drew in a shuddering breath. “Yeah.”
“How does that make you feel?” The most stereotypical, legitimate question there was.
Tilly’s gaze bore into her, open and honest. “Terrified.”
“Why?”
“Because she could be mad or angry or never want to talk to me. Which she’s entitled to, whatever she feels, she can feel. But also…then it’s out.”
“And if it’s out, who are you without that secret?”
Tilly’s face crumpled, barely, and Evie wanted to hug her. To wrap her in her arms and press her lips to her hair like she had done mere hours before in bed.
“Basically, yeah. I’m so used to punishing myself for this. I gave her up so she’d have a great life, stability, opportunities…but also so I could. My parents wanted me to have that, too. But instead I’ve let it stop all of that.”
Evie leaned forward, her hand open on the table, palm up. After a moment’s hesitation, Tilly leaned forward and put her hand in Evie’s.
“Not all of it,” Evie said.
Their fingers gripped each other and Tilly smiled, again, vulnerable and shuddering but wide.
“Yeah,” she said. “Not all of it.”