Felix hadn’t enjoyed himself so much in a long time. When Eden had invited Eve back to Drew’s place, he hadn’t thought she would agree. When she had, he hadn’t expected her to stay long. The four of them had spent the afternoon hanging out together in such an easy way that it had felt as if Eve had been a part of their circle for years. When he’d first met her, the attraction had been instant, but she’d seemed standoffish, maybe even a little cold, and one thing guaranteed to kill attraction for Felix was if someone wasn’t warm. He just couldn’t gel with people who had an aloof demeanour, whether it came to romantic or platonic relationships. It hadn’t taken long to realise that Eve wasn’t cold and as soon as he’d seen her at Oakwood Park, even before she’d explained more about the situation with Max, he’d known that what might appear to some to be detachment was just a way of trying to safeguard a heart that had already been badly broken.
Even if Felix had doubted his own judgement, he’d have got all the evidence he needed that Eve was a good person from the way Teddie had taken to her. His nephew was an impeccable judge of character and he only ever gravitated towards kind people, as if his autism gave him some kind of sixth sense. Evehad sat on the floor, patiently building towers out of stacking cups, just so that Teddie could demolish them, like a tiny, curly-haired Godzilla, flattening tower blocks in Tokyo.
Drew could often be quiet, his own high-functioning autism meaning that it had taken him a while to feel comfortable to be fully himself around Felix. He hadn’t seemed to need that adjustment time around Eve and the four adults had chatted about all kinds of things, from the hospital and volunteering at Domusamare, to travel destinations they’d loved and others they longed to visit. Eve had said she had family living in California, who she’d love the chance to visit, but there’d been a wistful look in her eyes, as though she knew it would never happen. Even when Felix had told her about his own time living there and how flights could be picked up relatively cheaply if you timed it right, she’d shaken her head, seeming to dismiss the possibility without actually saying the words. They’d been at Drew’s place for nearly three hours, when Eve suddenly made an admission that took Felix completely by surprise.
‘Max is my fiancé.’ To Eden and Drew’s credit, there was no sharp intake of breath, but his sister was nobody’s fool and Drew was a highly skilled pathologist. If they couldn’t read between the lines and work out how deeply entrenched Eve was in Max’s life, then nobody could. Eve closed her eyes for a moment, before opening them again and looking at Eden. ‘At least he was, before he sustained the catastrophic head injury that has left him like a completely different person. He was training to be a surgeon and he was the most upbeat person I’ve ever met, now there’s very little left from our old life that makes him happy, certainly not me. But I still feel like the worst person in the world for wanting to admit our relationship is over.’
Eden’s eyes took on a glassy appearance as she looked at Eve. ‘I can’t imagine how hard that is, when you loved him as much as you must have done, and you don’t want to hurt him.’
‘It’s not even about hurting Max.’ Eve closed her eyes for a second time, swallowing so hard against the emotion that must have been bubbling up inside her that Felix heard it. ‘I don’t think he could care less if I told him I wasn’t coming to see him any more, but it would kill his mum. Annie is still clinging to him somehow making a miraculous recovery, even though after almost two years, it’s pretty clear the change in his personality is permanent, never mind anything else.’
‘I take it you’re close to Max’s family?’ Drew asked. ‘I can’t imagine they’d want you to put your life on hold indefinitely.’
‘I don’t have a family of my own to speak of and so they are my family, which means I’m not even acting selflessly, to protect Annie. I’m doing what I’m doing so I don’t lose them, for my own sake. How bad is that?’ Eve made herself sound like a master manipulator and Felix was about to protest, but his sister got in first.
‘It doesn’t sound bad at all. You love them and they love you, and you’re all just doing what you can in a horrible situation. From the way you’ve described the kind of person Max was, it sounds like he’d have hated the way things are for you now. I know if anything like that happened to me, I wouldn’t want Drew to put his life on hold forever.’
Eden had said more or less then same thing to Eve as Felix had done before, but she still seemed unable to believe that no one would judge her if she decided to end her engagement to Max. At least not anyone who understood or had witnessed firsthand the kind of impact of an injury like Max’s. As medical professionals, all four of them knew there would be no amazing turnaround for Max. The only life Eve had any power to control was her own.
She’d changed the subject after that, and none of them had pushed her to talk about it any more. It had been huge enough for her to raise the subject at all, and Felix was just glad Eve nowhad the option of confiding in Eden further, if she wanted to. Loving someone who’d suffered an injury like Max’s could feel desperately isolating, and the more support Eve had the better. Especially if an issue came up when she was at work.
When Drew suggested they get a takeaway, Eve had surprised Felix again by agreeing to stay. He’d offered to drive to Port Tremellien to pick up the Chinese they’d settled on, and Eve had said she’d go with him, while Drew and Eden put Teddie to bed. It wasn’t a long drive, but Felix had something he wanted to get off his chest, in the hope it might help Eve realise that the choice about whether to stay engaged to Max didn’t lie solely in her hands.
‘I’m going to tell you something that not even Eden knows. You know I told you before that I understood a little bit of what it feels like to love someone who then seems to become another person in front of your eyes? Well, it happened to me when I was living in San Francisco. I shared my home and my life with a woman called Meredith for two years.’ Felix kept his eyes on the road ahead as he spoke, grateful for the darkness in the car as he continued.
‘Meredith was a therapist at the addiction clinic where I worked and she was a former addict herself. I couldn’t tell Eden about Merri, because I’d begged her for years not to get involved with someone who had addiction issues, not even if they were in recovery. I knew we both had a bit of saviour complex, growing up with an alcoholic mum, and I wanted Eden to have an easy life. She ignored my advice and got involved with Teddie’s biological father, but what she doesn’t know is that I ignored my own advice too.’
‘Sometimes love doesn’t play by the rules. Oh God, sorry, that was so cheesy.’ Eve laughed, breaking the tension for a moment. ‘Just ignore me, please, and I promise I won’t interrupt again.’
‘Actually I kind of like your reasoning, it makes me feel a bit less of a hypocrite.’ Felix breathed out slowly, bracing himself for recounting the rest of the story. Reliving it was never easy. ‘Things went really well for the first year or so, and I was building up to tell my family about Meredith and even planning to bring her over to meet them, when she relapsed. I tried everything I could think of or knew about to get Merri well again, but nothing worked and her behaviour became more and more extreme. In the end she disappeared and cut all contact, not just with me but with everyone who cares about her. Occasionally she’ll reach out and ask for money, but her family have begged me not to respond to that, and they aren’t giving her anything either. They’re working with a team who believe the best way of helping Merri is to allow her to reach rock bottom, when her only option will be to accept the help we’ve all been trying to give her. I know it’s probably the right thing, but it’s the toughest kind of love there is.’
‘That must be incredibly difficult.’
‘It is and I just couldn’t stay in San Francisco and be certain I was strong enough to hold out. I’d been wanting to come home for a while, because of Eden and Teddie, and it just felt like the right time to leave. I thought it would be easier being thousands of miles away, but she got in contact recently and it took all I had not to just give her what she was asking for. Instead, I turned her away.’
‘You didn’t turn her away, you’re doing what her family have asked and working with a strategy the experts think will give Meredith the best chance. No one could blame you for that.’
‘I still feel like the worst person ever. I got in touch with her family, as well as one of the doctors at the rehab clinic where I used to work, and I’ve left it in their hands. Some people might see that as me abandoning Meredith and only the lowest of the low would turn their back on someone they loved, right?’ He wastaking a huge risk telling Eve all of this, because she might well agree with that assessment, but even in the darkness of the car he could see her shaking her head.
‘It’s crazy to think that. You wouldn’t be helping her by giving her the money, that’s not what she needs to get well. What she needs is the help you’re trying to set up for her.’
‘So you think that, even when you’ve loved someone and a part of you always will, sometimes it’s okay to step away from their lives and let someone else help them in a way that nothing you do ever can?’ He kept his voice low and steady, but Eve’s response was sharp all the same.
‘That’s not fair, it’s not the same situation.’
‘You’re right, it’s not, but we’ve both tried everything we can think of and come to the conclusion that there’s nothing we do can do to change the situation for Max or Meredith. If I’m not a bad person to draw a line in the sand about the extent of my involvement, then you certainly aren’t.’
She didn’t respond for a moment, but when she did the rawness of her emotions was spelled out in every syllable. ‘Then why do I feel like the worst person alive every time I look at Annie?’
Felix wanted to believe that his motivation for telling Eve about Meredith had been entirely altruistic; an attempt to help her see that moving on from her engagement to Max wasn’t the act of someone cruel or unkind, but he knew there was more to it than that. He’d wanted to tell someone about Meredith, and the decision he’d made to leave. He’d wanted that someone to tell him that he wasn’t a heartless bastard for stepping away from Meredith, and allowing the hope that she might finally beat heraddiction to rest in the hands of other people. There was also the fact that he liked Eve more and more, in a way that he had to admit wasn’t entirely platonic, which made him question his motivations all over again. He shouldn’t have pushed things so far and he probably shouldn’t have told her about Meredith either, but it was done now. All he could do was back off and let her mull things over. If she decided she wanted to be straight with Annie, that had to be down to Eve. All of which was why he moved the conversation on to a far more neutral topic, as they walked from where they’d parked the car towards the Chinese restaurant.
‘What was the first single you ever bought?’ It was one of those kinds of icebreaker questions you might ask on a first date, but it seemed like the ideal way to lighten the mood, and he could tell as soon as he asked it that the answer was going to be interesting.
‘Oh God, you’re going to judge me. Especially when you find out I knew all the dance moves and used to lip-sync to it in my bedroom.’ Eve pulled a face.
‘Well, you didn’t need to tell me that part, but now I really want to know!’
‘All right, it was ‘Don’t Cha’ by The Pussycat Dolls. I was thirteen and completely left to my own devices a lot of the time as my mum was really unwell and Dad was already starting to check out. It’s probably a surprise that I didn’t end up going down a very different path.’ She grinned. ‘Although I’m not the world’s greatest dancer, so it probably had more comedy value than anything else. At the time I thought I could be in the next big girl band, though.’
