Sean
It was Evie who had introduced Sean to Cal, and Tilly who had brought them even closer together. Evie had come home from work, gushing about some person called Cal, and Sean had thought, Oh, Evie’s got a crush, here we go. Tilly had just smiled.
It was a time in which Sean thought that Evie and Tilly were never going to happen, and maybe that was all for the best anyway. It was a time when Tilly went on the odd date and slept in Evie’s spare room and they were housemates again and incredibly close, but that was the end of it.
Evie convinced Tilly and Sean to join her for drinks with some work mates. They walked into this little pub in the middle of the city and Sean had felt the bottom drop out of his world because this Cal was hilarious. Which Sean positively adored in a person.
And Cal absolutely loved Tilly.
Tilly and Cal had chatted the entire time, peals of laughter erupting from both of them as they pressed into the corner of their table and cackled together. Sean pretended to be interested in talking to the others, but really he wanted Cal to look at him.
They didn’t.
Tilly and Cal hung out a lot after that, though. They went to movies, they met to watch games of footy (Sean’s worst nightmare), they met in Evie and Tilly’s flat and had dinner, and they all played board games. Sean was more and more interested in knowing this Cal, and more and more intrigued with how Cal managed to be so damn funny.
Then Tilly did her thing one day: there was a breakup with some person she’d been seeing on and off, and a phone call to Sean in which Tilly had hiccoughed with some kind of emotion when she talked about a fight over being pro-choice (which made sense in general for Tilly to be worked up about, but all made a lot more sense now) and the next day she was gone “for a couple of weeks, promise, I’m going south to hang out with a mate.”
Cal, who had spent so much of their free time with Tilly for months, was, understandably, shocked she was gone with no warning. They didn’t get the depth of it then, just thought it was the spontaneity of someone like Tilly. Cal called Sean one of the nights Tilly was gone, her phone switched off as always, and asked to hang out.
Which might not have happened if Tilly weren’t, well, Tilly.
When Tilly had come back, true to her word that it wasn’t so long this time, Cal and Sean were almost inseparable. Tilly had thrown Sean a wink, which annoyingly made him blush. But she’d always known he had thought he’d never find someone who got being aromantic, yet looking for a queerplatonic relationship.
And there was Cal. Who felt the same about so many of the things Sean felt.
Cal and Tilly still got along like a house on fire now.
The point to this, though? Tilly had always been infuriating and worrying. But if she weren’t her, how different would all their lives be now?
Sean didn’t even want to think about it.
That conversation in the car had given him answers for so many of his questions about Tilly.
Yet he still wanted to shake Tilly a little. Sit her down and ask why take this long? Why run so much? But she’d skirted around the answers to those anyway and at this point, with their lives running away ahead of them and their thirties settled over them like an old friend, he was just relieved to understand more now.
More than he had, anyway. Tilly would always be a delightful little enigma.
Evie and Tilly were acting silly
One dressed all frilly
The other with a glare that was oh-so-chilly
Never apart
Right from the start
Careful or they’ll break your heart.
Sean had a different ending, though, that he kept to himself.
Evie and Tilly were acting silly
One dressed all frilly
The other with a glare that was oh-so-chilly
Wish they’d just bloody kiss, already.