Finding Evan

by Lisa Swallow

  “Can you leave me alone, please?” I ask quietly. I don’t want this doctor to say anymore to me. This is enough.

  “Okay. I’ll let you know when she’s out of surgery.”

  The doctor’s scrubs rustle as she stands; the door clicks as she leaves the room.

  A life empty of Ness when I knew she lived across the city was bad enough, but a world where Ness doesn’t exist, I couldn’t cope with. I clamp my mouth together, stopping the yell threatening to come out, and squeeze my eyes closed. I can’t cry. I don’t want to. But I do.

  ***

  An LCD clock above the reception desk illuminates the time in huge numbers. Time crawls by as people pass in and out of the waiting room. Sick toddlers with concerned mums, a kid in school uniform with his leg wrapped in a bandage, an elderly man with his daughter…so many people. I’m angry because they get to leave again, and Ness is still here.

  The day darkens, but I barely notice under the neon strip-lights. Nobody has spoken to me about Ness since the doctor, and that was hours ago. I sit stiffly, repeating over and over in my mind, ‘let her be okay’.

  Ness’s parents arrive. The same doctor ushers them into a room, and I sit in the same waiting room chair, re-reading the same poster. How will they react? Not only did I get their daughter pregnant, but the pregnancy almost killed her. I want to run, but staying here is the only option.

  They reappear, and Ness’s mum’s face is tear-streaked and puffy. I shift and stare at my feet as they come over.

  “Did she know?” Her dad’s voice is harsh, and he’s looking at me as if I’m something he scraped off his shoe.

  “Yes. She just found out. Is she okay? They won’t tell me.”

  “She will be. No thanks to you.”

  I don’t care. He can drag me out of this room and beat me to a pulp for doing this to his daughter. All I feel is the tide of relief that Ness is okay.

  Ness’s mum grips his arm. “James…don’t make a scene. Not here. This isn’t just Evan’s fault.”

  “Stupid bloody kids!”

  A woman with a baby on her lap looks around at us and I stand, moving to the opposite end of the waiting room. Away from her. Away from them. Ness’s mum follows me.

  “He’s upset.”

  And I’m not? “When can we see her?”

  “James doesn’t want you to.”

  “What? Ness would want me to! I have to see her!”

  “You need to give him time to calm down. Maybe go home and come in the morning.”

  Am I speaking a foreign language? How the fuck does she think I can do this? “I’m not going anywhere!”

  Ness’s mum chews on her bottom lip. At least her eyes are sympathetic. “I didn’t think you two were together anymore?”

  “We weren’t. But we are now.”

  “Because of the…”

  I fix my eyes on her tearful ones. “Because I love her. Because I can’t stand to lose her.”

  She glances back to her husband. “I’m sorry. Maybe when Ness is conscious she can tell James she wants you.”

  As she walks back across the waiting room, I sink down in the chair, wrap my arms around my head, and fight the tears of my own.

  Chapter Thirty

  NESS

  Am I dreaming? I fight to wake, but my eyes don’t want to open. Unfamiliar voices and noises fill the usual silence of my bedroom, and I struggle to catch up with where I am. The pillow I’m lying on crinkles: not my pillow. And I can’t move my arm; I’m attached to something.

  Focusing my blurred vision, I stare at a white ceiling and turn my head to see machines monitoring me. Hospital. I scramble for my last conscious memories, but they’re vague. How am I here? Maybe I had a car accident and have memory loss because I feel as if I’ve been run over by a bus. I want to sit up but can’t move.

  No. I remember. I was with Evan. And the butterflies. And I fainted.

  “Ness?”

  I’m suddenly aware of others in the room, my mum’s voice.

  I turn my head towards the voice. Mum is sitting on an orange bucket seat close to the bed.

  “What happened?” My voice is a whisper.

  Mum leans over and strokes my head, and I notice Dad stands in the corner, arms crossed and face drawn tight.

  “You’re a medical student and you don’t see the symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy?” She smiles through her tears. “You collapsed. They’ve operated.”

  Ectopic pregnancy? None of this seems real. The sounds around are distorted and I can’t focus on my mum’s face properly. It’s as if I’m watching myself in a weird nightmare.

  “Where’s Evan?” I ask.

  Mum turns to Dad and he shakes his head at her. Has Evan left me? He wouldn’t.

  “He’s outside. Your dad is pretty angry,” she says as if he’s not in the room.

  “I want to see him.”

  There’s a low and insistent conversation between my parents where I gaze at the ceiling, fighting tears, desperate for Evan to be with me. They can’t stop him, surely. Do next of kin get the final say in who sees me? A few kisses and awkward goodbyes later, they leave. We’re not the most demonstrative of families; if I’m going to get physical comfort, it won’t come from them.

  A few minutes later, Evan appears. As soon as he steps into the room, my tears start, and he hesitates. The poor guy looks like crap; his hair is sticking up, presumably from doing the constant Evan thing of pushing his hand through when he’s stressed. He’s pale, and under the bright hospital lights, his red-rimmed eyes are huge as he stares at me. My love for this man surges through my aching body.

  “I’ve waited in the hospital all night for you to want to see me. I wasn’t sure if you would, but…”

  “I wanted you as soon as I opened my eyes,” I interrupt.

  “Will I hurt you if I touch you?” he asks hoarsely. “Because if I come over there, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from holding you and never letting go.”

  “Come here, please.”

  Evan sits on the bed and gingerly takes hold of me, as if I might break. I push my face into him, inhaling his scent, removing me from where I am and back to happier places. It hurts when I move my arms to embrace him, pain shooting through my side, but it hurts more not to hold him. I cry into his T-shirt, rubbing my nose against the soft material. I never want to let him go.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” he whispers into my hair, “really lost you.”

  My foggy brain can’t keep up; the safety of his arms halts my tears and lulls me back to sleep before I can respond.

  ***

  I jerk awake as someone touches me, and my mind scrambles. Where am I? A young nurse, with bobbed brown hair, smiles down, friendly eyes calming my alarm.

  “I’m just checking your obs,” she says quietly, wrapping a cuff around my arm. “Sorry to wake you.”

  I rub my forehead with my other hand, remembering. I woke before and Evan was there.

  The nurse stands back and picks up the clipboard from the end of my bed. “Who’s sleeping beauty?” she asks as she writes.

  “Who?”

  The nurse inclines her head to the corner of the room. Evan. Asleep in a bright orange bucket chair, head slumped forward. “I told him to go home last time I came in, but he refused.”

  Any doubt about Evan’s love is wiped away by the sight of him asleep here. Waiting for me.

  “Evan. Has he been here long?”

  “He’s been hanging around since they first brought you in a couple of days ago. Poor guy really needs to go home and get some sleep. We’ve told him you’re okay. Maybe if you tell him?” She grins. “Devoted guy.”

  Her words sting. Yes, and look what I did to him for weeks. “Can you wake him up?”

  “Of course.” The nurse goes over and touches Evan gently on the shoulder. He looks up at her in confusion, and then glances towards me. With another smile in my direction, the nurse leaves the room.

  “You loo
k like crap,” I say.

  “You don’t look so hot yourself.” He rubs his eyes and grins.

  “Nice…”

  Evan picks the chair up and places it next to the bed. He strokes my cheek. “How are you feeling?”

  “Tired. Confused. Sore.” Pain engulfs me as I shift to look at him and his eyes widen in alarm as this pain registers on my face.

  “I came in to see you before; I’m not sure if you remember?”

  I reach a hand to touch his cool cheek. “I remember. Was that today?”

  “No, two days ago.”

  I blink. The idea of being out of things for so long frightens me. How bad was this?

  “You’ve been here for two days?” I ask hoarsely.

  “Mostly.” Evan’s shoulders slump. “This past couple of days have been hell. I never want to go through this again.”

  “Funnily enough, neither do I.”

  Taking hold of my hand, Evan kisses my palm. “Not just the past day. The past two days. The past six weeks. Without you.”

  “I’m too tired, Evan. To talk about the past.”

  He shakes his head. “The past is gone. I’m more interested in the future.” Something about the way he says this suggests he’s not just talking about us.

  “A future us?”

  “If you still want to, now you’re not…” Evan looks down at the bedclothes.

  “Pregnant?”

  I don’t think he means to, but he winces at the word. “Yeah.”

  I’m not sure I’m up to this conversation now. I spy a water jug on the nearby table. “Can you get me a drink, please?”

  Evan looks confused for a moment, then pours me a glass of water and hands it to me. I sip. Even though it’s warm, it feels good to wash away the dryness in my mouth. Evan’s gaze is fixed on me, as if I might disappear if he looks away. I take a deep breath. He deserves an explanation, and he’s waited long enough. I summon the energy.

  “When you explained Christmas, I realized how stupid and stubborn I’d been, what I nearly threw away.” Touching my cheek with the tip of his fingers, Evan just stares at me. Doesn’t say a word. But he doesn’t need to. I place my hand on top of his. “One thing you can never hide from me, even when you think you’ve buried everything, is how you feel. I see it in your eyes. Every time.”

  “What do you see now?” he says quietly.

  “Your heart.”

  Evan blinks. “That’s because I’ve fallen in love with you over and over since we met, and there’s never been a single day when I haven’t thought about you. So when I look at you, I can’t hide. My heart won’t let me.”

  My eyes fill with tears. “Of course you’ll be able to explain more eloquently than me. Jeez.” I lie back on the pillow.

  Evan shifts towards me. “It’s true, Ness. I love you. I’ve quoted you poetry plenty of times, but the love I read about in books didn’t make sense until I met you. I’ve found someone who gave the word definition.”

  “I can’t imagine life without you,” I whisper, telling him and myself what I’ve known for weeks. “I love you.”

  Evan’s eyes fill with a lost hurt, and I don’t understand why until he speaks. “I spent a few hours imagining the worst, thinking I was facing a life without you. I’m not going anywhere again.”

  He kisses away a tear from my cheek, one I hadn’t notice fall.

  “Do you know where I never want to go again?” I ask.

  “Where?”

  “I never want you to take me to the butterfly house again. Ever.”

  “But you’ll still be my butterfly girl?” he asks frowning, but a small smile is growing.

  “As long as you keep the poetry coming, I won’t be able to resist your charms. Apparently.”

  Evan bends over the bed and kisses my cheek. I close my eyes and his soft lips touch my eyelids before resting on my mouth. Gently, he kisses me, and I wind my heavy arms around his neck, wanting him to stay.

  “You’ll have to excuse the lack of poetry right now though; my brain is a bit broken,” he whispers.

  At that moment, I know things have changed, that whatever happens, we are connected. We’re enmeshed. Every time something tries to pull us apart, the world pushes us together harder. I don’t think that’ll ever change. We might fall to pieces, but I think we’ll always stick back together somehow. We will never have a happy ending, because I believe however hard the world tries, we won’t end.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  MARCH

  NESS

  The chatter of the audience grows, as everyone heads out of the theatre for the interval. Evan has his arm across my shoulders, hugging me close. When we’re together, he rarely lets go of me; throughout the play, he held my hand, absentmindedly rubbing the back. I don’t mind; I don’t want him to ever let me go.

  Everything changed. I left the hospital, and left behind a part of myself. The part that stands in the way of me and Evan as much as Lucy does. I think the doctors played down how sick I was, but several weeks later, I’ve pushed the event aside as much as I can. But it haunts me – the pregnancy, the loss, and the danger I was in. They wanted me to talk to someone, the doctor gently explaining to me how the loss of my fallopian tube makes conceiving in the future difficult. I already know this, and it isn’t something I want to think about. So I ignored the appointment, wanting to put this behind me and move on. Life’s taken on a new perspective, since lying in a hospital bed counting the good things in my life and letting go of the bad. Letting go of the Ness who won’t give herself to someone in case she gets hurt. If Evan is willing to change, I need to accept I have to. That I contributed to the mess we got into.

  “Wine?” asks Evan, guiding me towards the bar.

  “Thanks.”

  I stand at one of the high tables watching Evan order, and the love I have surges. I can’t look at him anymore without being overwhelmed. As if my eyes have been opened to exactly what I have – Evan. Loving, gentle, loyal…and sexy as hell. I smile to myself; he’s the whole package. I appreciatively look over the hug of his jeans, resting my gaze on the muscled forearms as he pays for the drinks. The arms that hold me, hands that caress me. When he turns, he frowns at me, and I rub my lips together to fight a smile. Evan realizes what I was doing, and his knowing smirk pulls the corner of his mouth up as he walks over.

  “Feeling okay today?” he asks, passing a large glass of white wine.

  “Fine. But you’re obviously not.”

  “Why?”

  I point at the wine glass he’s holding. “Wine? You only drink wine if there’s no beer available.”

  He clinks glasses with me. “I’m watching Shakespeare at the theatre with my gorgeous girlfriend. And being refined.”

  I splutter. “I don’t think you were being very refined when your hand was sneaking under my dress and up my thigh halfway through the performance.”

  “I can’t help myself around you,” he whispers, breath tickling my ear.

  “It was very distracting!”

  Moving his face from my ear, he places a chaste kiss on my lips, and then sips his wine. “Enjoying the play?”

  “I like the main characters.”

  “Remind you of anyone?” He raises an eyebrow.

  Last year, Evan quoted a line from ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, disarming me with poetry before he kissed me the first time. Back when I held him at arm’s length, engaging in battles of wit. Before he broke through my defenses and I fell in love.

  “No.” I pout.

  Laughing, he hugs me to him. “We’ve come a long way since last year.”

  “I think that’s an understatement.”

  We don’t talk about what happened last month anymore. The subject came up, of course, but only once. Why dwell on the past?

  “You’re different,” Evan says quietly. “Recently.”

  “We both had changes to make. I hope you mean a good different.” I know he does; I don’t doubt any of how he feels. Not anymore
.

  “You’ve opened up. Less the uptight madam you were,” he teases.

  “Cheeky!” I poke him in the chest and he catches my arm, kissing my palm.

  “I like the new Ness a little better.”

  How much did he hold back on saying how I upset him? Until the day we argued, when Lucy blew everything up in our faces, I never considered him. So caught up in building my protective shell, in case he hurt me again. And look where it led. Cold, irrational Ness, who denied him the chance to explain what happened. I know Lucy will always be there, and accept that sometimes she’ll need Evan. But he’s also there when I need him. And he loves me.

  “The new Evan’s not bad either.”

  “Nothing new about me. I’m still the person you met.” I open my mouth to say something and he covers it with his palm. “Not the person you thought you met. Just a bit more sober.” I look pointedly at his glass of wine and he smiles, releasing his hand. “For now.”

  I sip mine. “So, Mum called today. About the party next week.”

  Evan’s happy expression drops away. He hasn’t seen my parents since the hospital. “Am I invited?”

  “Of course! Silly! It’s my twenty-first. Besides, they don’t talk about what happened.” I focus on my wine glass, resisting the urge to drain the contents.

  Evan wisely doesn’t comment. “Big birthday.”

  “Big party.” Not what I want. Another excuse for my parents to invite the whole village to their house, another extravagant party I won’t feel comfortable at.

  “Come on, the new Ness is a fun Ness.” I scowl at him. “If I’m prepared to go and face your parents, I’m sure you can face the horrors of gifts, food, and dancing all in your honor.”

  Evan moves to kiss me, and as he does, I nip his bottom lip so he pulls away again.

  “I love you,” I say quietly.

  Stroking my hair from my face, he studies me, and Evan’s heart is in his eyes again. “‘I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is that not strange?’”

  I huff at him quoting the play. “You couldn’t resist, could you?”