Waiting For You

by Natalie Ward

  “Really,” she murmurs, her eyes wide.

  I nod. “Yep, it’s hard to explain though, because it’s just so quick.”

  “Maybe next time we should video it or something,” she suggests. “So I can see it too?”

  I grin. “Oh I know something we can video.”

  Evie slaps my leg. “Ben!”

  I laugh. “What, babe? Two birds, one stone, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she says, smiling as she rolls her eyes at me. “But it might be cool to see, that’s all.”

  “And what if someone else saw it,” I ask, my smile disappearing as I think about the full implications of what that could mean. “What if someone found the video?”

  Evie shrugs. “Yeah, that could be awkward.”

  “Awkward would be an understatement,” I say, as all sorts of nightmare scenarios flash through my brain. It’s still four years away until she disappears, and I guess anything could happen in that time, but I still don’t want to do it. Not when I know it could end up in the wrong hands, that someone else could discover our secret. “Nope,” I say, shaking my head now. “I don’t think we should do that. I don’t want to risk you becoming some sort of science experiment, baby,” I say, kissing the top of her head. “And I think if anyone else was to find it and see what happens to you, then it could get dangerous. It would change things.”

  Evie smiles at me and I can tell she thinks the exact same thing. Her disappearance has always just been our secret and I guess just like I thought this morning, that’s what makes it that much more special. We might not like it, but we are the only two who share it, know and talk about it. Ironically enough, it’s actually something that brings us closer together, even when it’s the one thing forcing us apart.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” she eventually says, smiling at me.

  I grin at her. “Of course I’m right,” I say. “Now, anything else you want to ask me about that letter?” I ask, gesturing to it.

  Evie turns to stare at it, a million thoughts flashing across her face as she tries to decide which one she wants to ask me about. She doesn’t say anything though and I can’t resist leaning over and whispering in her ear, “Nothing about the postscript, maybe?”

  Her head falls onto my shoulder as a slow smile spreads across her face. “You said it first,” she whispers.

  “Well, sort of,” I say, squeezing her shoulder. “I really should have said it to you that night though.”

  “I should have too,” she says quietly, still staring at the words at the bottom of the page. Words I nervously wrote back then, but which are words that come so easily to me now. The words I never stop saying to her because I know when time is against you, they are words that always need to be said.

  I smile, remembering that night and Evie sneaking into my room. I’d thrown rocks at her window about an hour before it was going to happen, long after both of us should’ve been asleep. I was awake though, awake and trying not to think about what was going to happen that night. Trying desperately to come up with a way to make it all stop. When she’d looked out her window, I’d just waved at her, telling her to come over. She hadn’t even hesitated, just nodded once before sneaking downstairs and meeting me at my front door. My parents would not have been happy had they caught us, but neither of us cared as I took her upstairs to my bedroom, careful to avoid all the creaking stairs on the way up.

  “I wonder what would’ve happened if we had said it that night,” I murmur, remembering the thrill of having her in my bedroom when no one else knew, when I definitely shouldn’t have had her there. The possibility of everything that could have happened that night.

  Evie chuckles a little. “Why do you think I was wearing the black underwear, Ben?”

  My heart stops in my chest as I register what she’s just said to me. “Whoah, hold up…what are you talking about?” I ask, pulling back to stare at her.

  Evie grins up at me now, her eyes alive with amusement. “Well…” she says, biting her bottom lip. “I was kind of hoping…”

  “You were?” I ask her, shocked.

  Evie nods. “Yep, I sorta hoped you were, too.”

  “Fuck,” I breathe out, amazed that she wanted things to go further that night. It was practically all I’d been thinking about for days, weeks, months even. It’s like I was permanently turned on, horny as fucking hell and I wanted nothing more than to, well, to do what I just did to her thirty minutes ago. “Shit, Evie, why didn’t you say anything?”

  She shrugs at me. “I don’t know. I guess I was nervous, scared about what was coming…”

  “Wow, I could think of something else that could’ve been coming.”

  “Ben!” she says, laughing as she whacks me in the stomach.

  I grin at her. “Well, come on, babe. I was a teenage boy. I had needs you know, urges…wants…” I squeeze her harder with each of my words, loving the tiny blush that creeps over her cheeks.

  “Uh huh,” she says, smiling up at me. “And now that you’re supposedly a grown man, that’s changed how exactly?”

  I laugh. “Dunno, guess it hasn’t really.”

  “No, I know it hasn’t,” she says, kissing my neck. “But I’m not complaining, trust me.”

  I grin, pulling her closer. “Anyway, having your underwear definitely helped with all that. I’m pretty sure I spent the next eight months dreaming about you wearing it. It was good material for…you know, helping myself out…”

  Evie groans at what I’m telling her. “Oh dear god, we need to move on,” she says. “Now.”

  “So no more questions?” I ask.

  “Give me the next letter,” she says, holding out her hand.

  I laugh, pushing her back onto the couch. “Pay up first, babe.”

  2 April 1992

  Dear Evie,

  So it’s been a month since you left. I haven’t managed to find you yet and I guess you haven’t remembered me yet either. Mum and Dad have been giving me the third degree about where you are though. I guess they knew we were together or at least friends again. Don’t worry, they never found out about you sneaking into my room the night you left, but they have been bugging me about where you’ve gone ever since.

  They kinda caught me off guard too. I mean I never really noticed how much attention they paid to my life…or I guess how much time we spent together. But they’ve noticed you’re gone, Evie, and they want to know why and where and if you’re coming back.

  I haven’t told them about what happened. That’s our secret, remember? Right now, they think you and your parents have moved because of your dad’s work, some case he’s working on or something that meant you had to leave for a while. I know it’s stupid, but it was the first thing I came up with.

  We’re probably going to need to come up with a better story though, because if this keeps happening every four years, and you keep changing parents and lives, someone’s going to notice. I’m not sure how we’re going to cover it all up, or explain things without telling people what really happens. No one would believe me anyway. But I’m working on something, ok? I promise.

  The other thing I’ve been thinking about is what you said to me the last night you were here. About how you can feel it coming, the heaviness and the longing. I didn’t really understand what that meant, how you felt, until now. And I think the reason I understand it better is because I’m now feeling it all, too. I’m sure it’s nothing like what you go through, but I do understand that weight of sadness thing you talked about, the heaviness and the thought of losing something.

  Because right now, without you here, I feel like I’ve lost something very important to me and it…well, it really sucks, Evie. It makes me miss you a hell of a lot.

  I know you’re coming back, though, I know you are. But I just wanted to let you know that I finally get what you mean about it all. I’m longing for you too. I have been since you left me. Longing for you to come home, to come back to me.

  I’l
l be waiting…please hurry up and remember me.

  Ben x

  9:15 pm - 29 February 2012

  “Hang on,” Evie says, looking up at me. “I thought you told your mum and dad that I was a foster child?”

  I nod at her. “I did eventually, but like I said, they kinda caught me off guard that first time and I had to think quickly,” I say. “I mean we were old enough that us just not being friends anymore didn’t make much sense.”

  It was awkward as fuck actually, trying to make something up. I don’t even know if they really bought it because they asked me a million questions about why I hadn’t said anything before, why Evie hadn’t said goodbye to them. I had to try and placate them with some bullshit about it all being very last minute and unexpected. I even faked going to Evie’s house the next morning to supposedly say goodbye, even though I knew she wasn’t there anymore. Mum and Dad never understood how they hadn’t even noticed them leaving, even though they were right next door. I still can’t believe I ever got away with it to be honest.

  “They wanted to meet your parents after that,” I continue. “Said that when you got back, we had to introduce them all.”

  “Shit,” she says, shaking her head at me. “And how did that work out, given what happened next time?”

  I let out a deep breath. “Yeah, not great. I mean by that stage, before you’d actually come back, I’d come up with the foster parents thing. I’d been trying to work out how to tell them and when I finally did, then it all kinda backfired when you did come back, only to wind up in hospital. Then, their main concern was how the fuck you ended up with people like that as your foster parents.”

  Evie gives me a sad smile now because she knows it’s the same thing I was thinking. I still wonder about it now, that of all the people she could end up with, why them? Two people who didn’t even seem to want kids, let alone seem capable of raising them. Sure her other parents had all been different over her lives, but the one thing they always had in common was that they loved Evie. It never made any sense that she could end up with the two she got when she turned sixteen.

  “I used to make notes on your families too, you know,” I say, smiling at her. “See if I could find any patterns in that. Who they were, what they did.”

  “Wow,” she breathes out.

  “You wanna see?” I ask, lifting the lid on the box again as Evie nods at me. I pull out a small black notebook. Inside, there are pages dedicated to each of her families. Notes on their addresses, her parents’ names, when I could remember them, even whether she had any brothers or sisters. I kept notes on every single one of them, from as soon as I could remember, to now.

  “God, Ben,” Evie says, flicking through it, a look of amazement on her face. “I seriously can’t believe you did all of this.”

  I shrug, even though she isn’t looking at me. “I told you, I was prepared to do anything to try and find you. I didn’t want to just sit around and wait, hope that you would get a trigger quickly and come home to me. I wanted to see if I could somehow find you. Find a way to know where you’d be next time you moved.”

  Evie glances up, smiling at me now. “I feel like you did more to find answers in all of this than me,” she says. “That you made more of an effort than I ever did.”

  I brush the hair back from her cheek, my fingers skimming across her jaw. “Yeah, but I never forgot anything, remember? There’s no way you could’ve thought to write things down until you actually remembered them in the first place. And by then you would’ve remembered me too, so it wouldn’t have mattered anymore.”

  “Oh,” Evie suddenly says, jumping off the couch. “That reminds me, you were going to read this, weren’t you?” she says, reaching for her laptop.

  I smile, knowing she’s talking about her story and all the things she’s written down. Things that happened when we were together and things that happened when we were apart too. I want to read it, I really do, but I kinda want to do it like how we’re reading these letters. I like the idea of being able to explain things, or her being able to ask questions, and of us being able to sort anything out straight away, before it becomes something it doesn’t need to be.

  “You still want to read it right?” she asks, sitting back down beside me.

  I lean in and press a kiss to her lips. “Very much, baby,” I whisper, my mouth only inches from hers. “But can we finish these first, and then I can read yours and you can answer all of my questions?”

  I catch her smile before she presses her lips against mine again and says, “Yes, of course we can.”

  We kiss once more before I pull back and search for the next letter. When I turn back to face Evie though, there’s a worried look on her face now. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  She shakes her head quickly as though she’s trying to dismiss something. “Nothing, it’s just…well, I know what’s coming now. What time we’re going to hit from the past and I…I just…”

  I try smiling at her again, but I know it’s not quite real. She’s right, even if it’s not going to happen exactly like that. “I know, Evie,” I say, pulling her into me. “We can skip them if you want, just skip that whole time period?”

  A part of me almost wants her to say yes because even though it was a long time ago, I can still remember all the anger and hurt running through me during those years. And I know that’s going to have translated onto the page. I know that these are the letters I wrote when I was both drunk and pissed off…often at the same time. I don’t remember everything I wrote back then, but I remember enough to know that some things are going to hurt. Both of us.

  “Do you want me to skip them?” she asks, her fingers tracing patterns on my thigh.

  I take a deep breath. It’s partly a yes answer because I really don’t want us to rehash this stuff again, not when we’ve been over it all already. But it’s a no answer too, because I know the story won’t be complete if she does skip them. She’ll always wonder about what really happened and there’s a part of me that will always want her to know.

  “I want you to know everything,” I finally say, brushing my thumb over the palm of her hand. “Yeah, there are things that might hurt in there,” I say. “Hurt both of us. But there’s nothing you don’t know, Evie, I promise.”

  “So there are no surprises in here?” she asks, glancing up at me.

  I shake my head, leaning down to kiss her lips again. “I promise I haven’t kept anything from you. I would never do that.” She gives me a sad smile as she eyes the box of letters and the box of things I’ve been keeping from her all these years. “Baby,” I say, suddenly getting it. “I know I never told you I was doing this, but…well, I don’t know. At first it was just something I did for myself, you know. I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t, so I talked by writing it all down. Then when you kept coming back, I knew that one day I would give it all to you. I just…I guess I just wanted to be able to do that when everything was over, when I knew all this looking for each other was finished.” I pause and watch as she stares up at me. “And even though I wrote all this stuff down, it’s not like I didn’t not tell you it all as soon as we saw each other again. You still know everything, you just haven’t read about it, that’s all.”

  I watch as Evie takes a deep breath before letting it slowly out. “Okay, let’s keep going then,” she says, holding her hand out for the next letter. “Oh wait, hang on, payment?” she asks, looking up at me.

  I give her a smile now as I lean down and kiss her. This kiss is different to before, slower, deeper, and more intense. My lips slide over hers, urging them apart before my tongue touches hers. Evie lets out a soft groan that I feel rumble right through me and I slide my hand to the back of her neck, holding her closer as I deepen the kiss.

  Eventually we pull apart, both of us breathing a little harder. “Done,” I say, smiling as I hand her the next letter.

  31 October 1992

  Dear Evie,

  I’m breaking my rule here. I said I’d only
ever write to you when you weren’t here, that every other time I’d tell you all the things I wanted to say. And I am going to tell you this, but I also need to write it down. Because I need you to know, I need you to know exactly how I felt tonight when I finally found you again.

  Ready… It killed me, absolutely fucking killed me.

  I know that sounds bad, and don’t get me wrong, I’m so fucking happy you’ve come back to me…but not like this, baby. Not like this.

  Because right now, I’m sitting here watching you sleep. Only you’re not sleeping, you’re unconscious…and you’re in hospital. Hospital, Evie…after your fucking house nearly burnt down. God, I can’t believe this has happened to you. I can’t believe you’ve been with those fucking arseholes all this time. I can’t believe this had to happen to you tonight for you to come back to me. Fuck, just knowing you were going home to them every night, just knowing that you were so close to me, but I didn’t even realise.

  Just knowing that I could have been looking after you, but I wasn’t.

  It fucking kills me, Evie.

  I have no idea why whatever this thing is that happens to you, sent you to those people, but it’s not right. They don’t deserve you and it breaks my heart knowing you are stuck with them this time. I’ve been trying to work it all out. Trying to find some fucking answers and now this happens.

  I’ll be honest though, I don’t even know where to start. Nothing I’ve done so far seems to tell me anything and I’ve really got no clue. And there’s no one I can ask, no one I can talk to about it. That’s almost as hard as losing you, you know. Not having someone to talk to…it’s the thing about us that I miss the most.

  Dad’s the one who found you this time. It was a fucking miracle that he was working, that he was the one on-call and that he was the one who pulled you from the fire. I can’t stop thanking him for it. He just smiles and tells me he was just doing his job, but to me it’s so much more than that.