Waiting For You (3 page)

I watch as she finishes reading the first letter, which is actually the last, and looks up at me, tears already in her eyes. I smile, reaching out to wipe them away as they slowly start to fall down her cheeks.

“Ben…” she whispers, the word hanging between us.

“Yeah?” I ask, smiling at her.

“I can’t believe you did this,” she says as she crawls into my lap now, her arms wrapping around my neck as she looks at me, her eyes shining with tears. “I can’t believe you…”

I smile and silence any more of her words with a kiss. It’s hard and intense, just like it always is when she first comes back to me. I kiss her like I haven’t seen her in forever, like I’m never going to kiss her again. Her body moulds itself to mine, pressing against me as her fingers tighten around my neck.

We are sitting on the couch in our living room. Outside, it is dark and the snow is now falling. In here though, the house is warm, the room lit by only a table lamp. Lucia is in bed asleep and Evie and I are together again. I’ve just told her about the letters. I’ve just given her the first one and watched as she read it. Watched her reaction to finding out they even existed at all.

“You okay?” I eventually ask, pulling back a little. Evie shrugs, as though she doesn’t know what to say, the tears still falling down her cheeks. I smile as I wipe them all away and lean in to kiss her again. “You don’t have to read them you know,” I tell her. “I won’t mind.”

Evie squeezes her arms around my neck, a tiny smile pulling on her mouth. “Yes, Ben, I do. I
want
to read them,” she says, as she kisses me again. “I told you, I want to know everything about you. I want to know
your
stories.”

I laugh, tightening my arms as I pull her closer. “And I told you, baby, our stories have always been the same.”

Her smile grows as she stares back at me. “I know they have,” she says. “But I still can’t believe you’ve done this! Why didn’t you show them to me sooner? It’s been years, Ben…years!”

I can’t help but laugh again as I press a kiss to her cheek. “A lot of years, yes, but I wanted to make sure it was all really over first,” I say, smiling at her. “I needed to know this was finished, that we wouldn’t ever lose each other again and I wouldn’t need to write them anymore. And I think this,” I stop and grab her left hand, holding it up between us so we can both see the tattoo of my name on her finger. “This means it really is all over now.”

Evie smiles again as she lowers our joined hands to rest on my chest. “I’ll never lose you again,” she whispers, repeating the words I said to her earlier tonight.

“Well, you’ve never really lost me, baby,” I say, my eyes holding hers.

“I know,” she says, nodding. “But now, I will always find you…”

“Quickly,” I add with a laugh before closing the distance between us and kissing her again.

Evie’s eyes close as a soft moan falls from her mouth. “Quickly,” she repeats.

The fingers of our joined hands tighten and I’m pulling her even closer, wondering if I’m ever going to get enough of this woman. I really don’t think so. We might have only been separated for just one night, but I still want her like I’ve never wanted her before.

“So, where should I start,” she murmurs, pulling back a little as she presses soft kisses along my jaw and down my neck.

“Whoah, hang on. You want to start reading them right now?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says, pulling further back to look in my eyes. “Shouldn’t I?”

I grin at her, sliding a hand under her jumper and over the bare skin of her side and ribs. “Well, babe, I can think of something else we could do instead,” I say, brushing my fingers against her breast, teasing her.

Evie’s eyes close for a second and she almost looks as though she’s actually thinking about which option she wants right now. It makes me laugh, because as much as I want her right now, again, I know she’s going to be thinking about these letters. She won’t stop until she’s read all of them.

“What?” she says, her eyes slowly opening.

“Nothing,” I say, laughing as I shake my head at her. “You start reading them if you want. I’ll wait,” I tease, letting out a big sigh as though it’s not what I want, but I’ll do it.

“Ben,” she says, thumping our hands against my chest.

I laugh. “It’s okay, baby,” I say, running my hand back around her ribs, down her spine and out of her jumper. “You read them, there’s plenty of time,” I say, winking at her.

She huffs as she slides from my lap so she’s sitting beside me, her legs draped over mine. “You’ll stay here with me while I do?” she asks.

“Of course.”

She smiles. “So, where should I start then,” she says, looking down at the box beside her. There must be dozens of letters in there, and even though I never forget anything about us, never forget this woman sitting beside me, I have to admit, I can’t exactly remember everything I wrote in there. I started when I was a kid, but it’s not just that. I’m pretty sure some were also written under the influence and I’m pretty sure some were written when I was majorly pissed off. I mean, there was a four-year gap when I had no idea where she was, much less if I would ever see her again. And I really hope she understands that, that she gets I wasn’t always at my best when I put pen to paper. Some of it isn’t going to be pretty.

“It’s okay, Ben,” Evie suddenly says, as though she can tell exactly what I’m thinking right now. “I understand,” she adds, holding up the letter she’s already read.

And I know she does, just like I know she’ll get it too. Nothing I’ve said or done in these letters changes how I feel about her. It’s always been the same, since the day I met her. It’s just not always going to be fun times reading about it all.

“Thank you,” I whisper, grabbing the box from beside her and flicking through it.

“So, where am I starting?” she asks again, picking up her wine and snuggling closer to me.

I rifle through the box to find the letter I’m looking for and pull it out. It’s over twenty years old now, the lined paper I ripped from an old school book now yellowed with age. It’s so weird to look back at it, to hold it in my hand after all this time. I can see my messy, childish handwriting; feel the indents of letters pressed hard into the page. Words I wrote just after I witnessed something that I couldn’t understand, much less put into actual words. This is gonna be a trip down memory lane, in more ways than one.

“At the beginning,” I say, smiling at her. “Let’s start at the very beginning.”

And then I hand her the very first letter I wrote. I watch as she carefully unfolds the paper, smoothes it out on her lap with her hand and starts to read my story.

29 Feb 1988

To Evie,

So I’ve been sitting here thinking about everything that just happened, everything I saw tonight. It’s two o’clock in the morning right now and I really have no idea how to explain it any of it.

I don’t know what happened tonight except that you disappeared, Evie. You disappeared right in front of me.

I saw it. I saw the whole thing you know, so I know it’s true, I know it really happened. I just don’t know how. And I can’t ask you because you’ve gone and I sure can’t ask anyone else. It’s the middle of the night for one thing, but I also know no one will believe me if I told them.

But I know it’s true because I saw it with my own eyes. And I know you aren’t just hiding, I’ve been throwing rocks at your window for the last couple of hours and you haven’t come back. No one has.

Where are you?

I wouldn’t have a clue because I’ve never seen anything like this before. I mean I gave up thinking Santa Claus and the Easter bunny were true a long, long time ago. I don’t think I ever believed in the tooth fairy and I know what a magic trick is. It’s just an illusion.

But this, tonight.

This really happened, didn’t it?

One minute you were standing there watching me, reading what I held up to you. Then the next second, you looked behind you, as though something had distracted you. What was it? I don’t know, but then you turned back to me and you held up your hand. It was like you were telling me to stop, Evie. And I did, I stopped. I stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped everything.

I’m not sure why you asked me to stop, but I did. I was waiting for your answer. That’s why I thought you wanted me to stop, so you could think about what you wanted to say.

But then you just disappeared. One second you were there, the next second you weren’t. I didn’t even blink, not once. I know this, because I couldn’t. I was too busy waiting for your answer.

But I never got it, because you were gone.

Gone.

And I have no idea where or how or why.

But I’ve been thinking about it for the last two hours, because there’s no way I can sleep right now. I’ve been thinking about what happened tonight and about where you could’ve gone, and it made me remember something, something that happened a few years ago, back when you turned 8.

You disappeared then too, didn’t you? I mean I didn’t see it, but the day after your birthday party when I went to walk you to school, you were gone. And not just gone like you’d already left for school – you’d gone completely. It was like you’d never even existed in the first place. And your parents had gone too. I mean there were people in your house, but they weren’t your parents. No one had even heard of you, except for me. I mean I remember you, Evie. I remembered making snow angels and I remembered falling over the hedge. I remembered kissing you too and how weird things got afterwards. But I knew you were real, I remembered you and then the next day you were just gone.

I was really scared that day, Evie, because I didn’t know what had happened to you. I’m still scared now, but I guess I know what’s happened this time…sort of anyway.

I don’t really know what to think about any of it though. The only thing I can come up with so far is that it’s got something to do with your birthday, your real birthday. The day that was created to use up time. Because if this really is what happened back when you turned 8, then it makes sense that it’s happened again now. Well, ok, none of it makes sense, but you know what I mean.

I wish I knew where you were though and I wish I knew when you were coming back too. I know that you’re not going to be waiting for me tomorrow though. I know that this time when I go over to your house, you will be gone, your whole family will be gone.

Does anyone else know about this?

I don’t know who you would tell if you’ve never told me. Why didn’t you tell me? You’re secret is safe with me. I promise I’m not going to tell anyone.

I’ll tell you something though, I’m gonna look for you this time. Now I know that you haven’t just moved house or whatever, now that this makes more sense, I’m going to look for you. And you know what, when I find you, I’m going to ask you that question again. Maybe not straightaway, but I promise you I will. I hope you remember what your answer was going to be. I hope it was yes too.

Hurry up and come back, Evie.

Ben.

“Wait,” Evie says as her hands, which are still holding the letter, fall into her lap. “You started that night, when I turned twelve?”

I nod. “Yep, the night I saw you disappear for the first time.”

“But what about before that?” she asks, looking up at me. “When I turned eight, you didn’t write one then?”

I can’t help but laugh. “Well, babe, before that I was kinda young,” I say, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ears. “I’d never actually seen you disappear like I did the night I wrote this letter,” I say, gesturing to the paper in her hand. “And trust me, seeing it changed
everything
.”

Evie nods as though she understands how this changed things. “Yeah I get that, but what did you think had happened when I turned eight?” she asks, a worried expression on her face now. “I mean at the time it actually happened?”

I laugh, leaning in to kiss her lips. “Like I said in the letter, baby, I had no idea,” I whisper, my mouth against hers. “I thought I was supposed to be walking you to school, just like I always did. Only when I showed up at your house the day after your party, not only had you gone, your whole family had too. It was like your entire house had been replaced with complete strangers overnight.”

“Yeah, but what was that like?” she asks, staring up at me, a confused look on her face.

I look at her watching me. Her eyes are completely green now. Deep, emerald green. They look amazing, really beautiful. Even though Lucia is the spitting image of Evie, she has my eyes. Big blue ones to go with Evie’s dark, practically black, hair. I’m not sure what would have happened if she’d been born with Evie’s eyes. I’m not sure what that would have meant for her. I think the fact that she has my eyes is what gave me the most hope last night that she would stay.

Evie’s eyes have changed colour over the years though. When we were kids they were completely brown, like the colour of chocolate. But with every time that she disappeared, I noticed that they started to lose a little of their brown and gain a lot of green. Now they’re completely green, no trace of the brown from her childhood left in them at all.

Neither of us knows exactly what this means and it’s not like we can ask anybody. I looked it up once, but it didn’t really help. It seemed to be only something that happened to babies, or people undergoing chemotherapy and even then, it didn’t always happen. Most people don’t even notice it with Evie. I guess Sarah, Paul, and my family, are the only ones who would, but thankfully they never have.

I notice it though. And it’s not just the colour, it’s everything those eyes hold too. Every time she comes back to me, her eyes aren’t just a little bit greener; they’re also a little bit wiser, a little bit older. It’s like she carries the weight of all of her former lives, of everything she’s seen in those lives, in her eyes and when she comes back, that all comes back with her.

But I love them, and I especially love the way those eyes look at me.

“Ben?” Evie says, a hand brushing down my cheek.

I smile, catching her fingers in mine. “I dunno, baby, it was strange,” I say, lowering our hands to my lap. “I mean you just disappearing overnight. But seeing it,” I say, gesturing to the letter still in her lap. “Now
that
was really strange. I didn’t know if I was imagining things or what. I must have thrown rocks at your window for over an hour after you’d gone, but you never came back. I even contemplated opening my window and yelling because I had no idea what had happened, or where you’d gone, even though I’d seen it with my own eyes. But as strange as it all was, I also knew that no one would know who you were when I went to your house the next day. I knew that this would be like the day after your eighth birthday all over again.”

“I can’t imagine how weird that would’ve been,” she murmurs, staring at the letter again.

“Very weird,” I say, remembering how confused I’d been. It’s hard enough wrapping my head around it now, even after all these years. Back then, my poor little fourteen-year-old self, stood no chance. “Although I think the hardest part, the thing I didn’t understand, was why you hadn’t said goodbye to me,” I say, my fingers playing with her hair. “I mean when you were eight, I was at your birthday party kissing you, and when you were twelve, I was asking you to be my girlfriend. Then overnight you just vanished, on both occasions, without even saying goodbye.”

Evie nods, her beautiful green eyes looking up at me. “I remember that kiss,” she whispers.

“Me too,” I say as I kiss the end of her nose and smile. “But then you just disappeared.”

“I know,” she says, a sad smile on her face. “The night I turned eight, I didn’t know what was happening to me. I mean, I felt weird, like something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know I was going to leave and that I needed to say goodbye to you.”

I nod. “I know, baby, it’s okay, I get that you were young and this was all new to you. But the next time, on your twelfth birthday, you must have known it was coming again?”

I watch as she nods at me. “I did, but this time I was too scared to say anything. I mean how was I supposed to tell you I was going to vanish?”

I laugh, realising that even if she did know, it’s not just something you can drop randomly into the conversation. I don’t know if I’d have even believed it if she had, to be honest. “Yeah I know, I get that too. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone what I’d seen,” I say. “Even seeing it with my own eyes, I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. It seemed crazy, really crazy, and I wasn’t sure I was supposed to tell anyone, didn’t know what I could say, even if I wanted to tell. Who would believe me?”

“What about your mum and dad?” Evie asks. “Didn’t they ever ask, even back then?”

I reach for my wine and take a sip. Evie knows they’ve asked, especially later and especially after the worst disappearance. They didn’t stop with the questions that time, not until she’d come back to me four years later. I know Evie’s going to have a heap of questions for me when she reaches those letters too. And I’m not sure how I’m going to feel, sitting here watching her read those ones, or all the letters that came after that night. It was bad enough hearing what she went through during the four years we spent apart.

“Ben?” she asks, running her fingers down my arm.

I exhale, knowing that even though it won’t be fun, I’ll find a way to deal with it. It might not even happen tonight, although knowing Evie, it probably will. I know she won’t be able to stop reading these letters now. It’s one of the things I love about her, the way she commits to something and doesn’t ever let go of it. I’m such a lucky bastard that she made the decision to commit to me. And I know that what we have, we will have forever, no matter what. And even though her reading the other letters will be tough, I’m not going to stop her from knowing all those things either. She’s telling me her stories, I’ll tell her mine.

“Yeah,” I say, turning to smile at her. “They did ask back then too, and it was tricky,” I admit, laughing a little. “I mean they obviously knew you were my friend, knew I’d been at your party, knew we hung out a lot. I guess they just thought we drifted apart. I don’t know, maybe that boys and girls don’t really stay friends at that age.”

Evie laughs a little now, elbowing me in the ribs as she says, “You were always my best friend.”

I grin at her. “I know, just like you were, and are, mine.”

“More than Paul?” she asks, her chin raised as though she’s challenging me to a best friend-off.

I laugh. “More than Paul, baby,” I say, kissing her.

“I’m going to tell him that,” she says, smiling at me.

I laugh harder. “Oh, I think he knows,” I tell her, stretching my legs onto the coffee table. Evie’s legs are still draped across my lap and I run my hand up her leg, slowly dragging her sweat pants up until I find bare skin. “And besides, I don’t get to do these kinds of things with Paul now, do I?” I whisper, sliding my hand slowly up her thigh. “So there’s no way you’re losing my best friend spot.”

“I should bloody hope not!” she says, grabbing my hand and stopping its movement. I look at her, my smile gone as I silently ask why she’s stopping me. Evie grins back at me now, raising an eyebrow as she says, “Not yet.”

“When then?” I ask, practically pouting like a little kid, even as the memories of our shower only an hour ago still linger in my brain.

Evie tilts her head as though she’s thinking about her answer. She looks adorable and I use this moment of distraction to slide my hand higher. “Wait,” she says, grabbing it again. “You can have this,” she adds, removing my hand from her leg and using it to gesture to her chest. “After you answer all of my questions about each letter.”

I grin at her. “So let me get this straight. You read a letter, you ask me as many questions as you want about it, I answer them, and then I get you however
I
want?”

Evie laughs at me, playfully rolling her eyes as she nods and says, “Yep, that sounds about right.”

“In that case, baby,” I say, using our joined hands to pull her into my lap so she’s straddling me. “You’re already behind on payments.”

“What are you talking about?” she says, the letter falling onto the couch as she reaches up to slide her arms around my neck.

“That’s the second letter,” I say, my eyes still on hers as I tilt my head at it. “And I still haven’t been paid for the first one yet.”

Evie shakes her head, even though she’s smiling at me. “Cheeky, cheeky boy,” she whispers, leaning in and lightly brushing her lips against mine.

“Yeah, but you love it, babe,” I say, before pressing my mouth in a hard kiss against hers.

“Okay,” she eventually says, her breathing finally returning to normal. “That’s for the first and second letters, right?”

I grin, tightening my arm around her shoulder as she lies against me on the couch, her head on my chest and her warm body pressed against mine. “Uh, pretty sure that just covers the first one actually,” I say, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “But I do have ideas about payment on the second.”

“Uh huh,” she says, tilting her head so she’s looking up at me. “And would you care to enlighten me?”

“Well,” I say, grinning down at her. “Do you have any more questions first?”

Evie stares up at the ceiling as though she’s thinking about what she wants to ask me. I smile down at her; lightly trace her eyebrows with my finger while I wait.

“So your mum and dad, they just thought we’d stopped being friends then?”

I tuck her hair, which has now fallen lose around her shoulders, behind her ear. It’s shorter tonight, a lot shorter than yesterday. “They did. I think we probably got lucky that our parents were never really friends, them disappearing and you reappearing with a whole new set would have been a lot harder to explain.”

“It would,” she says, nodding. “It was a good idea, telling people I was a foster child.”

“Mmmm,” I admit, knowing that didn’t come until later. To be honest, I never really knew what to say about her changing families at first.

“So what did you do after you worked out I was gone again?”

I let out a deep breath as my eyes move to the ceiling. My fingers absently stroke her bare shoulder, making her shiver in my arms. I reach for the blanket that’s thrown over the back of the couch and wrap it around us. It’s warm inside with the radiator on, but it probably wouldn’t hurt on the tiny chance that Lucia wakes up and comes out here. She’s normally a good sleeper and I don’t think it will happen, but just in case.

“Well, I wrote everything down,” I say, my eyes still on the ceiling. “Exactly as I could remember from that night and from your eighth birthday too. Although it really wasn’t much.”

“Do you have that as well?” she asks, interrupting me.

I glance down at her, smiling again. “Turn the letter over, babe.”

“Huh,” she says, reaching for it on the floor. She lays it on my chest, propping herself up on her elbows as she looks at the words written on the other side of the page.

* Disappeared when turned 8 and 12

* Happened overnight, vanished in front of me

* Family gone too

* No one remembers her…I remember her.

“So then what?” she asks.

“Well, when I finally got up the next morning, after virtually no sleep, I went to school with a plan. This basically involved going to the library and looking up everything I could about disappearing.”

Evie’s eyes move from the letter to my face. I watch her, smile as her fingers brush the hair back from my face. “You looked it up?” she asks.

“I did,” I tell her. “Although unsurprisingly, I didn’t find much.”

“What did you find?” she asks, an amazed look on her face.

I laugh, leaning up to kiss the end of her nose. “This was in the days before the internet, remember? There wasn’t much to find. Just some science fiction theories on becoming invisible and a couple of old myths about people vanishing. It was all rubbish though, magic and old wives’ tales.”

“So what did you do next?” she asks, settling herself against my chest again, her chin propped on her hands so she can watch me.

“I did the only thing I could do,” I tell her. “I hung out with Paul and I waited for you to come back.”