On the Other Side

by Carrie Hope Fletcher

  At 3 a.m. on the 30th, her phone rang. It was so loud in the silent apartment that she sat bolt upright in bed, wide awake. Vincent had gone home the evening before after yet another argument. She’d eventually agreed to the idea of running away – it really seemed like it was their only hope – but thoughts of Eddie, Jim, Violet and Vincent’s scholarship had racked her with guilt, and she’d changed her mind again. It wasn’t the first time, and each time Vincent would try to bring her round and they’d argue.

  Evie scrambled out of bed, registering it was only the phone and not an alarm of any kind, but her heart was still pounding when she picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’ she croaked, her voice still thick with sleep.

  ‘Evie? This is Evie, right?’ said the shaky voice on the other end.

  ‘Er, yes. This is Evie Snow. Who is this? It’s really, really quite early.’ She rubbed at the prickly sleep that was stopping her eyelids from opening properly.

  ‘Evie, it’s Eddie.’

  Her breath caught. ‘Eddie? What’s wrong? Why are you calling at …’ she took a few steps backwards so she could check the clock on the kitchen wall, ‘three in the morning?’

  ‘You live at flat seventy-two, yes?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Yeah … why?’

  There was a knock on the door. Without hesitation, Evie put the receiver back on the cradle, cutting the line dead, and opened the door to her little brother, the hood of a sodden navy blue raincoat pulled around him and his phone jammed against his cheek. He was only twenty years old but Evie looked at him with the eyes of a big sister and all she could ever see was a young boy that she needed to protect and take care of. He looked up at Evie through the strands of mousy blond hair that hung limply around his face.

  ‘Thank God for that.’ Eddie, forgetting just how damp he was, hugged his sister with the force of a stampeding elephant, knocking the wind right out of her. Had she not been so overwhelmingly pleased to see him, she would have told him off, but instead she fetched him a towel and put his wet shoes and coat in the bathtub, then sat him down on the sofa and made him a cup of tea.

  ‘I’m really sorry for coming over this late, but it was the only time I could sneak out without anyone knowing. Mother’s given me strict orders not to see you.’ Eddie sniffed through his pointy nose. He was tall and thin, all angles, and looked more like their mother. Evie, with her rounded edges, had more in common with their father.

  ‘That sounds about right.’ Evie shook her head. ‘Is something wrong?’ Eddie stared forlornly into his mug of tea. ‘I know you wouldn’t risk the wrath of Eleanor Snow for nothing.’ She touched his arm. He was still cold from the rain but he also tensed up at her touch. The Snows weren’t prone to affection, so hugging and kissing was foreign in their household, and although Evie had shunned all of that nonsense and was now used to showing love with physical gestures, Eddie wasn’t so practised.

  He sighed, avoiding her eyes. ‘Isla was fired yesterday.’

  ‘What?’ Evie snatched her hand away to cover her mouth. ‘Why? She’s always been brilliant at her job!’

  ‘She was … caught kissing someone at the back door. She was sneaking in after she’d been out drinking.’

  Evie cast her mind back to when she was sixteen and the thirty-year-old Isla had let her tag along on one of her adventures. The night she’d watched Isla kiss not only boys, but girls too. The night Evie had been taught a valuable lesson in love. When she’d seen Isla dancing very closely with a woman, she had thought it was odd, but maybe it was the lack of physical affection Evie had experienced growing up that made it seem that way to her. But when she’d seen Isla leaning in for a kiss with this strange woman, Evie had marched right up to them and dragged Isla outside, where she had demanded an explanation. When Evie was sixteen, the ideas she had in her head about relationships were limited. Her parents had taught her that love could only exist between a man and a woman. Any variations on that were wrong. Unnatural. Disturbing. So when Isla, someone she held in such high regard, did something she believed to be wrong, she needed to know why. She had felt let down by Isla’s actions.

  ‘Evie, oh Evie. Your mother’s really filled your head with nonsense, hasn’t she?’ Isla had shaken her head, making her glossy hair bounce around her long face. Her eyebrows were beautifully neat and her dark eyes were soul-seeing. But standing there with her hands on her hips, she had looked like a mother scolding a child.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Evie had crossed her arms, faltering.

  ‘Do you truly believe only men can love women and only women can love men?’

  ‘Well … what other way is there?’ Evie’s anger had slowly been replaced by curiosity.

  ‘Let me make it simple. Let me tell you how I see it. When you eat a chocolate bar …’ Evie had raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t give me that. Let me finish. When you eat a chocolate bar, sure, the wrapper might be pretty, full of bold colours and fancy details … but ultimately, what do you care about? The wrapper? Or what’s inside the wrapper?’

  ‘The chocolate,’ Evie had answered immediately, knowing her mind and her stomach well. ‘I care about the chocolate inside the wrapper.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Isla had said, nodding. ‘For me, it’s the same with people. I don’t care about what’s on the outside. I care about what’s on the inside. Someone’s mind. Their heart and soul. For me, it doesn’t matter whether they’re a man or a woman. That’s only the wrapper they come in. What I really care about is the chocolate. It’s called being pansexual.’ She had wriggled her shoulders with the joy of it all and thrown up her hands, not knowing that what she’d just said had completely changed Evie’s way of thinking for ever.

  ‘Wait a second,’ Evie had said, touching Isla’s shoulder just as she’d been about to head back inside. ‘I didn’t see you talk to that woman much before you went to kiss her. How did you know you liked her … chocolate … before you kissed the wrapper?’

  ‘We’ve been meeting here for a while now.’ Isla had laughed then, a loud and happy laugh. ‘I like her bold colours and … fancy details!’ And with that, she had winked and gone back inside, leaving Evie with a whole new world of thoughts.

  Now, back in the flat and remembering that night, Evie suddenly had more than an inkling as to why Isla had been fired.

  ‘She was caught kissing a woman, wasn’t she?’ she asked.

  Eddie nodded. ‘How did you know?’ His thin eyebrows wrinkled.

  ‘I’ve been friends with Isla for a very long time. I confided in her a lot as a teenager and there was a lot she told me too. She kept my secrets and I kept hers. I knew Mother would have kicked her out immediately should she ever have found out that Isla differed so drastically from what she thought a woman should be.’ Evie made a note to remember to try to get in contact with Isla in the morning.

  ‘She’s hired someone new already! A little thing called Clementine Frost. It’s almost as if Isla never existed,’ Eddie said, sniffing.

  ‘Clementine Frost,’ Evie said. ‘Is she a redhead?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Yes!’ Eddie laughed, despite the situation. ‘It’s fantastically curly too, but Mother makes her wear a hair net. She looks ridiculous.’ Even though he was clearly upset about Isla, Evie couldn’t help but notice that Eddie seemed to warm at the thought of Clementine and didn’t appear to harbour any ill feeling towards her.

  ‘What’s that cheeky smile for? Are you smitten?’ Evie prodded her brother playfully, but her playfulness quickly turned to concern when he burst into seemingly inconsolable tears. She’d only ever seen him sob like that once before, and that was when he was six years old and their father had found him trying on Eleanor’s high heels.

  ‘Eddie, whatever’s the matter?’ She no longer cared about her brother’s aversion to human affection. She set down her tea, pulled him into her arms and rocked him gently. They sat like that for a long time, until his breathing calmed and he mumbled something into the flannel of Evie’s
pyjama top.

  ‘What was that?’ Evie asked softly.

  Eddie lifted his face. ‘If Mother fired Isla, then she’s bound to kick me out too … when she finds out.’ He sniffed hard and sank his head back against her chest.

  ‘When she finds out what, Eddie?’ But Evie knew exactly what he was talking about. Of course she did. She was his big sister. She had grown up looking out for him, learning his little tells for when things weren’t right. She had guessed, but she and Eddie had never spoken about it, so for a long time Eddie had been struggling alone with something he wouldn’t dare reveal to anyone. Anyone except for Isla, it seemed.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, firmly. ‘I should go.’ He pushed away from Evie trying to leave the flat as fast as he could but she caught his hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Eddie, whatever it is, you don’t have to deal with this alone. Mother and I are two very different people. I won’t ever betray your trust and tell her.’

  Eddie couldn’t look at his sister. He thought he was being stronger and braver if he kept silent and hid who he was for the sake of peace and acceptance in his family but what was the price? His own sanity? His own happiness? When he realised the answer was all of the above he sank back down onto the sofa next to his worried sister. Eddie knew he had to say something now or he never would. It was time. ‘I … I like men,’ he whispered eventually, calm rivers of tears flowing down his face, catching at the sides of his lips. ‘I’m gay.’ In two words, the weight on his shoulders lessened considerably and his muscles visibly relaxed.

  ‘I know,’ said Evie, squeezing his hands.

  Eddie should have been shocked but he knew his sister and of course she’d seen it coming. He didn’t know anyone who was as observant or anyone who cared as much to look for what was making someone sad or out of sorts.

  ‘You never said anything.’

  ‘I knew you’d tell me in your own time,’ Evie said, stroking his hair. ‘It had to come from you, not me.’

  Eddie nodded, but the weight of another thought started pushing down on his chest. ‘Mother’s going to find out,’ he whimpered.

  ‘She doesn’t have to,’ Evie reassured him.

  ‘She does.’ He shrugged. ‘I need to tell her. I can’t hide who I am. She’s already picked out my perfect wife, so if I don’t tell her soon, I’ll be married before you are.’

  ‘Who?!’ Evie was gobsmacked. She’d not yet been married off and her mother was already picking mates for her younger brother? Eleanor must have started to panic that Evie’s resistance would scupper her plans so had made an early start on ruining Eddie’s life too.

  ‘Nelly Weathersby,’ Eddie said with a roll of his eyes. Evie had never hated her mother more than in that moment.

  ‘What! She’s far too old for you! She’s older than me!’

  ‘And she’s a she,’ Eddie pointed out.

  ‘Yes, and clearly that’s far more important.’ Evie put her arm around his shoulders and gave him a firm squeeze, and although the tears still flowed, she could see the vague hint of a smile on Eddie’s face.

  ‘I can’t tell you how good it feels to say things like that.’ He covered his mouth to stifle an emotional laugh. Evie could only imagine what it felt like to keep a secret that big for so long. ‘But how do I tell Mother?’ His face fell, the weight starting to press against him again.

  ‘Well,’ Evie said, trying to remain light-hearted, ‘she’s not going to take it well. We both know that.’ She suspected that Eleanor would throw Eddie out of the house and spend the rest of her life pretending she’d never given birth to a son.

  Eleanor would probably even succeed in forgetting.

  ‘But I have to tell her, Evie. I refuse to live my whole life pretending I’m someone I’m not.’ Eddie could picture the life he might lead were he free to, and his whole body longed for it to become a reality. He knew he had to tell his family, no matter what that meant.

  ‘Then you need to prepare for the worst,’ Evie said. ‘But I’ll be here for you, every step of the way.’

  ‘But where will I go?’

  Eddie looked at Evie, his eyes filled with tears that were full of fear and hope for the future, and in that moment, Evie saw clearly what her own choices in life would do to her brother. If Eleanor Snow was prepared to abandon her daughter for marrying the man she loved, goodness knows what she’d do to Eddie for wanting to marry a man at all. She would kick him out on the street, not caring that he had nowhere to go, and it would be Evie’s job as his sister to look after him. But if Evie didn’t do what her mother wanted, she wouldn’t be able to provide Eddie with the safety and security he would need to live his life.

  If Evie married Jim Summer, she’d have a house and a fortune to provide for Eddie when he inevitably lost everything. She could look after him without any problems. Yet if she married Vincent and was cut off from her family, they’d barely be able to afford rent and food for themselves, let alone Eddie too. Evie thought about her packed bags and the empty cupboards in her bedroom. She thought about Vincent’s face when she’d said she’d run away, and then when she’d changed her mind. Then she thought about how it would crumple when she told him she really did have to stay, that she wouldn’t be changing her mind back again this time. When she told him she’d have to marry Jim to help her brother. When she told him that this was the end.

  ‘You’ll come to me,’ she said, keeping her voice calm and her face expressionless. ‘I will look after you. When I marry Jim, Mother will be so happy that she might turn a blind eye to me making sure you’re OK. She wouldn’t even have to know that you’re with me at all. You could actually come out to her and Father. You could make a show, tell her where to stick her arranged marriage and leave! Then you’d come straight to me and Jim, and they’d never have to know where you are if you didn’t want them to.’

  Even though it killed Evie to think of marrying anyone other than Vincent, the look of relief on Eddie’s face made the thought of her sacrifice worth it all. The chances of successfully running away had been low anyway, she thought. Mother would have found us one way or another. For the first time, she prayed for that to be true.

  ‘You’d really do that for me? You’d let me stay?’ Eddie looked like the child Evie always saw him as. It wasn’t that she thought him feeble or immature. It was just that he was her baby brother. Even though he was six-foot-stupid and more than capable of looking after himself, she still felt the sisterly urge to hold an umbrella over him in the rain, check he had a hanky in his pocket before school and leave mugs of tea outside his room when he’d argued with Father. It was an older sibling’s job to be overprotective, whether the younger sibling was more than capable of looking after themselves or not.

  ‘Eddie, for you,’ Evie stroked a strand of hair off his cheek, and tears gleamed at him from her dulled brown eyes as she repeated the words Vincent had said to her, ‘I’d do anything.’

  Dreaming

  The balcony doors were flung wide open and the drawings pinned to the walls fluttered in the breeze. After Eddie’s visit, she couldn’t get back to sleep so had asked Vincent via Little One to come over and had spent the day in a state of numbness, not knowing how to think or feel. Vincent could tell something wasn’t right, but something in his gut told him not to open that can of worms. Instead he just cuddled her when she let him and read when she got anxious and paced.

  Now it was ten in the morning of the 31st and Evie had left Vincent snoring in bed while she made tea and sat on the cold concrete in her pyjamas, staring through the bars, her birthday entirely forgotten. Her jumper didn’t do much to fend off the wind’s biting teeth, but she didn’t care all that much. She was numb already, without the wind’s help. Today was her last day of freedom. She laughed inwardly at how she’d ever considered it freedom; how she’d really thought her mother was giving her a chance to do what she wanted to do, be who she wanted to be, when all it had really been was a temporary adventure. Eleanor had shown her a full bu
cket of water, given her a drop and then tipped the rest into the gutter. And Vincent still didn’t know.

  Evie heard him stir in the bedroom and snapped back to life, wiping the tears away from her face with the back of her fingers and draining the last of her tea, even though it was now ice cold.

  ‘Evie? Where’ve you gone?’ Vincent was barely awake and yet he already sounded playful.

  ‘I’m out here.’

  ‘Are you kidding? It’s freezing!’ He emerged on to the balcony with a blanket wrapped around him. ‘Happy birthday,’ he smiled as he draped it around her shoulders and sat down on the floor with her, his body heat sinking into her clothes and skin immediately. ‘Is everything OK?’ He could see it wasn’t, but he needed her to tell him of her own free will. And yet at the same time he didn’t want her to tell him, because he had a horrible feeling that he already knew what she was going to say.

  Evie looked at him and saw the world spinning in his eyes. Losing him meant losing everything she’d ever wanted, and yet having him meant losing everything she’d ever had. She had to tell him.