She shakes her head. “The only next-of-kin information we had was for Oliver Roche. I’m sorry, we didn’t know there was a brother.”
Brotherstill feels like an empty word. I shake it off and put my jacket over the back of a chair, moving closer to her bed.
She looks peaceful. A little battered, but not as bad as I’d envisaged. Her wrists, lying still at her sides, are bruised, and there’s a red mark across her neck where the seat belt must have tightened against her. I brush the dark hair, straightened to glossiness from its natural curl, across her face, and her eyelids flutter as if they’re going to open, but they don’t. All I can think about is how much she’s already been through, the traumatic way it ended, and what’s ahead of her. My heart races the way it always does around her, but with an extra impetus this time, because I came so dangerously close to giving up on her.
I gently take her hand. “Evie? It’s me.”
The heart rate monitor beside her has a sudden uptick in resting pulse. The nurse walks in, checks it, and looks from her to me. “Her brain needs to rest,” she says. “It might be too early for the excitement of visitors.”
Excitement.I’m not sure that’s the right word in this case, but the nurse reads my wretched expression.
“We’ll tell her you stopped by,” she says softly, then checks the equipment and pats me on the arm. “Judging by that monitor, though, I think she already knows.”
the PRESENT
84
Evie
It’s four o’clock in the morning when Drew wakes me in my parents’ spare room. I’ve had the most unsettling, horrible nightmare, but I can’t hold on to it in my mind.
“Evie,” he’s saying, shaking my shoulder. “Wake up.”
I open my eyes, and he’s perched beside me on the bed, fully dressed, in jeans and a T-shirt.
“Get up, Hudson. Get dressed. Meet me in the car.”
“Are we running away? What is it?”
“Just trust me.”
He leaves the room and, a minute later, I hear him leave the house and close the door quietly, while I dash to the bathroom and pull on a dress I grabbed from Mum’s wardrobe yesterday. Some white, shapeless thing that she’s probably never worn, and no wonder. Not exactly the Bonnie and Clyde outfit Drew might be going for if we are, in fact, running away, but it’s all I’ve got.
I slip outside and into the passenger seat and he wastes no time starting up the engine.
“So we’re stealing my parents’ car now?”
He smiles. “I promise we’ll have it back by breakfast.”
It’s about forty-five minutes to Brighton Beach—less at this time of morning, particularly at the speed Drew is driving. Wearrive and park, and if we’re here for a beach sunrise, I wonder why he didn’t pick a closer one.
He takes my hand once I’m out of the car and drags me down the sandy path toward the ocean. I’m not even remotely near the shoreline when I see why he’s brought me here. With every crashing wave, the ocean is lit up in blue, sparkling phosphorescence. I stop on the sand and just watch.
“Every time I see it it’s like the first time all over again,” he says. I know this is for my benefit, because I was so broken-hearted to know I’d forgotten.
“How did you know?”
“Location-centric alert on a photography app on my phone.”
I pull the slides off my feet and tear toward the water, running straight into the waves, stepping over them, falling into them full-tilt, splashing everywhere.
He’s on the shore, watching, kicking his shoes off and carefully rolling up the cuffs of his jeans like he might step tentatively into the shallows. I’ll have none of that. I wade out of the water and pull him out into the depths with me, waves crashing over our calves, and then our thighs, the hem of my white dress floating up in the water around me.
“Don’t get it in your mouth,” he warns, and I ensure that won’t happen by dragging him close, throwing my arms around his neck, wrapping my legs around his hips, and planting my lips on his.
I feel like I’m floating as the ocean builds around us, waves rising as Drew stands firm on the sandy floor, hands at my waist. I shut my eyes, the shock of cold water swirling at my hips as white-hot flames catch alight between us.
“Did we do this the first time around?” I ask, between breaths.
