Part of me was glad to hear it wasn’t just a one-night thing. He did actually have feelings for her. “But what went wrong, Mum?”
“I started making mistakes. I’d get held up at work and be late meeting him. He wouldn’t believe my excuses … He was the specialist, so I had to fit around his schedule, but my job as a trainee nurse was demanding and I didn’t have the flexibility I needed to adjust to his timing. And then he started to suspect things about other doctors I worked with. He didn’t trust me. He’d have my schedule changed to avoid shifts with certain people …”
“And you didn’t think it was time to get out of that relationship?” I asked her.
“I tried to leave,” she said, pain seared across her face. “And that led to an awful argument, and then … well, in the end I was pregnant.”
The way that hit me in the heart.
“You were never not wanted, my darling. But it was terrifying to think of telling him. When I did, the fallout was bad. He demanded a DNA test. And even when he had proof you were his, he said he couldn’t be with me anymore. By that stage he’d met Oliver’s mum. She was everything he expected. Good family. Established. Someone he didn’t have to hide away on secret weekend breaks—because I was never good enough for him, Drew. My background didn’t fit his future.”
The heartbreak in her voice was raw. It might as well have happened a week ago, not twenty years in the past.
“He drew up a contract saying he would pay for your education if I walked away. I took what I could. I knew I’d never be able to provide much for you myself. I was young and stranded. I had no one advising me, and I signed something saying I would never disclose his identity. Because, of course, by then, Oliver’s mum was pregnant too …”
I was furious.
She could see it. “Drew! You can’t tell anyone about this. Especially Evie.”
The terror in her eyes broke me.
It was all too messy. Besides, I had more pride than to try to convince Evie to cram me into her increasingly happy existence. Our feelings were never going to align, in a way that was always going to be worse for me, so I pulled the pin on the whole friendship. A sudden explosion seemed easier than her gradually peeling off the Band-Aid.
Bree and I stayed friends, though. And following her gapyear online hasn’t been an issue until now, because they ended up having separate trips. But opening the app while I couldn’t sleep tonight and being hit in the face with their reunion in Rome slammed me backward. So much happiness on Evie’s face. And the caption:Surprise of the year with @Evie_Clicks #Trevifountain #boyfriendgoals #tears #bffsforever.
And now the light of my phone has disturbed Esther, who rolls over beside me in her bed that we’re sharing in the shoebox of a flat she rents, her long leg draped across mine while I try to stay still and not wake her.
Esther and I met at work about a month ago in the café beside the photography studio in Manly, where I’m hoping to hold my first solo exhibition. She’s an artist too. A couple of years older than me, at twenty-one, and ridiculously cool in that “couldn’t care less what people think” way that oozes confidence. Tall and fit, with dyed black hair to match her black tank tops and black jeans and boots. In fact, she is the embodiment of the girlfriends Evie admitted dreaming up for me, except probably even better, and I can’t believe she’s concocted a “colleagues with benefits” arrangement:Nothing serious, Drew, don’t get attached.
Given the way my heart is pounding, not by the sight of Esther’s bare leg stretched across me but by the unexpected appearance of Evie’s face on my phone screen, there’s very little chance of that. And then my gut churns remembering Esther and me in this bed last night, and where my mind wandered when it shouldn’t have.
My deciding to stay in Australia during my gap year to work and create and exhibit my photos was less about my career, I regret to admit, and more about putting a whole hemisphere between me and the girl who broke my heart. And got away.Plus every other lovestruck cliché that could possibly be applied here.
“You mean you weren’t even together?” Esther quizzed me, not long after we first started working the same shifts and I mentioned Evie one too many times. “And you’re still hung up on her a year later?”
I’d opened my mouth to argue, but she said, “It’s a high school thing, Drew. Move on.” Then she backed me up against boxes of coffee filters and bags of beans in the storeroom and kissed me in a way that convinced me we weren’t in high school any longer.
When she’d finished with me and we were adjusting our clothes and righting the collateral damage on the shelves, she kissed me once more and whispered, “Evie who?” in my ear, before swanning out of the storeroom like she owned it, the entire world, and me. But her methodology was flawed. Being with her only made me crave Evie more, because it turns out there’s more to a friendship than mind-blowing trysts among the café inventory.
What if I never get past this?
46
Evie
“You’re not a little bit worried?” Bree asks, while we sip strong black coffees and share a slice of amaretti and sultana cheesecake at an outdoor café hidden down a little cobblestone alley not far from the Colosseum.
My hackles rise immediately, the cake losing a touch of its sweetness on my tongue. Chewing and swallowing buys me some time. “Worried about what?” I ask lightly.
I know what she’s talking about. She’s been in Rome half a day and already the cracks have started to show.
“It was all amazing when we were pulling off the surprise. The photos for socials are all smiles. But you’re not even slightly concerned about the way he’s been since?”
“He literally flew you over here from London!” I say defensively. “He planned everything. It’s the most romantic gift imaginable, to fly my best friend to the Trevi Fountain instead of just keeping the experience to ourselves. He knew how much this meant to us!”
She sits back. Am I protesting too much?
“Evie, he’s known all along this was our thing—ever since you started talking about the gap year with him.”
