Chapter 18
EVAN
The fury inside when Lucy ruins everything with Ness is uncontainable. I go home and drink myself into unconsciousness, stop myself doing anything stupid. The next morning I try to contact Ness but the irony of my repeatedly unanswered calls becomes too big a reminder of how we got there, so I give up.
I throw myself into the gym. Everyday. For hours. Exhausting myself and pumping out the adrenaline coursing around my body.
Lucy’s calling continues and I come close to answering. Instead, I call him, in Lancaster, beg him to do something. Scream about how he’s ruined my life, failed me. Failed us both. Then I bury myself back in the bottle, numbing myself. Nothing works. I can’t stop the pain of not being able to escape her pain.
Poetry class smacks me around the head with another irony. We’re onto Romanticism. Byron. Tortured poets. Ha
ha. I don’t know why I send the card to Ness but when I read the quote, from Keats’s love letters, the words slam me in the heart. Three butterfly days with Ness. Until Lucy tore the wings off.
I don’t expect her to respond, knowing Ness she’d think the card was insincere, clichéd. I’m wrong. She doesn’t call me but she texts a time and a place. This leads to mixed feelings, I half-wished she hadn’t called, and made me confront this.
Matt hassles me to go on another drinking binge with him. He enjoys the bacchanalian side of my pain. I fob him off, tell him where I’m meeting Ness and instruct him not to bring his drinking buddies to this particular pub. Another reminder of the Evan she detests won’t help the situation.
I’m here. Ness is late.
This small pub is a good choice because few students come here; I’m unlikely to bump into anyone from uni. Girls. Older locals prop themselves against the bar, talking quietly over the music from the jukebox. I smile at the old style. My beer glass empties quickly and I stop. Alcohol isn’t going to help this situation. Nausea churns around in my stomach; the decision to acknowledge my old life in this new one terrifies me.
The heavy door opens and a girl enters. Pale face, curls partly obscuring her face, brown eyes searching the room. Her hands flutter around, like she’s reaching out for something and I know she’s looking me. The beer resting heavily on my stomach pushes into my mouth.
How the fuck did she find me
?
Lucy.
And it doesn’t take her long to see me in the half-empty room. No chance of hiding from her anymore.
She darts over and sits on the stool, eyes dragging me into her. “Evan, I’ve been looking for you. You have to help me.”
Lucy grabs at my sleeve with broken fingernails. Fingernails she once lovingly painted different colors.
“Lucy, you can’t be here.” I can hardly hear what I’m saying, hearing fading.
“Please. I don’t know who else to ask!”
Her voice rises above the low hubbub of the pub and heads turn
.
Shi
t
. Lucy’s shaking and I know what’s coming. I can’t sit here and risk a Lucy meltdown.
Grabbing my jacket, I touch her hand. “Okay, come with me.”
Lucy’s face transforms with relief and she rubs a sleeve across her head. “Thank you.”
I want to drag her out of the pub, but I can’t. So I let her follow and I spin around as soon as the cold air hits us.
“What do you want me to do, Lucy? I can’t help you!”
Her face crumples again and she grabs my sleeve. “No, Evan, you’re the only one I can trust. Please. Help me.”
I don’t feel as if my rigid body belongs to me. This isn’t real. She isn’t here.
“Why didn’t you answer my calls?” she whines.
“I don’t know what to do to help you. You shouldn’t have come here.”
Lucy grabs fistfuls of her hair and screams, her cry so familiar the sound washes over me, and I don’t respond. I’m pushed against the wall as she attacks me, fists smashing my chest, nails scratching my bare arms. Her assault doesn’t phase me. Not anymore.
Through the numbness of the night her pleading voice and attempts to get my attention fade into the darkness I want to consume me. Nothing touches me now.
Apart from the sight of Ness standing a few hundred meters away.
****
NESS
There’s one hell of a domestic outside the pub where I’m meeting Evan. The girl’s screams can be heard echoing down the street before I even turn the corner. There’s nothing unusual about people fighting in the street around here, especially where alcohol is concerned. Pathetic that people let themselves get into the mess. I turn the corner and head down the slope towards the pub. Two figures argue outside.
“Evan!”
The scream arrests me and I study the couple more carefully. Evan’s impassive face is illuminated by the pub sign and a small female figure lays into him. I don’t know what stops me from running in the other direction when I see this, but I approach. Then hesitate. Evan isn’t responding, standing resigned to his fate as the girl pummels him. Why doesn’t he catch her hand, talk to her? He’s worse than I thought.
Evan sees me, catches one of the girl’s arms and pushes her away from him. As he strides towards me, I turn away, my walk becoming a run as his footsteps catch up to me.
“Ness!”
“Don’t you fucking talk to me!” I shout.
Evan grabs my arm and I shrug him off. “Is this her?” I indicate the girl approaching us.
“Yes.”
“When you said you were going to tell me about Lucy, I didn’t expect you to introduce me to her!” My heart thumps, anger shaking through me. I’m so close to slapping him but that’d lower me to her level.
The girl approaches and grabs Evan’s arm. “Who’s she?”
I don’t even want to acknowledge her, but fix my gaze on her proprietary grip on his arm.
“It’s Ness,” he says.
“Who’s Ness?” The edge to her voice scares me and I step back. Maybe her psycho behavior applies to any other woman in his life.
“I don’t know what you expected to achieve by this!” I shout at him.
“I didn’t expect to see her.” He doesn’t shout, voice low.
“I bet!”
“Who’s Ness?” continues the girl.
“My friend.”
“What friend?”
“A new friend.”
Their conversation sends a prickle across my neck and I look at the girl properly for the first time. Where she’s holding Evan’s arm, her hand is picking at a thread, an odd repetitive gesture. She’s about our age, brown curly hair and the frantic look in her eyes disarms me.
“Who is she, Evan?”
Evan turns a vacant gaze to me, the look of someone who’s disconnected himself from his surroundings. He’s scaring me. She’s scaring me.
“This is Lucy. She’s my sister.”
Chapter 19
NESS
“Sister?”
Evan turns empty eyes to me. “Yes, she’s not well.”
Lucy grips his jacket. “I’m fine. I just needed to know where you were. You’ve been hiding from me.”
“Not well?” I know what he means. He’s not talking about flu.
“I said I’m okay.” Lucy’s voice rises a decibel and Evan shakes himself back to reality.
“Okay, Lucy. How long have you been in Leeds?”
Lucy rubs her head. “Just today I think. I saw Matt. He told me where you were. I haven’t seen him for a while either. Why did you both leave?”
“I came to Leeds, to study.”
“You left when they had me. I didn’t get to say goodbye.”
Evan’s disheveled appearance from his sister’s attack matches the disarray in his mind which is clear on his face. I want to reach out to him.
“Sorry, Lucy,” he says softly.
Someone comes out of the pub, a middle-aged man with receding brown hair, shrugging on a winter jacket. He regards us suspiciously. We shouldn’t stay here.
“Do you want to come back to my house?” I ask.
“That sounds like a great idea, you must be freezing?” Evan smiles sympathetically at his sister.
“Sure, do you have wine there?”
I smile at her too. “I have a friend, Abby. She has a lot of wine.”
Lucy’s grip on Evan’s arm loosens and her eyes loose their wide-eyed fear. In silence, we head towards my house.
****
Abby’s getting ready to go out when we walk in. She’s half-dressed, towel wrapped around her hair with mirror propped up on the table, applying mascara.
“Hey…” Her voice trails off as she takes in the sight of the three of us. “Didn’t expect to see you again,” she says to Evan. “Ever.”
“This is Lucy,” I say hoping Abby recognizes my ‘rein it in’ look. “Evan’s sister.”
“Sister?” Abby’s hand hovers in the air, mascara brush extended.
“Twin,” says Lucy, “That’s why we’re so close. Ness said you had wine?”
“I do?” Abby looks at me.
“You always do.” I say, then turn to Lucy, “Hope you like sweet, white stuff.”
“Anything!” Lucy grins and sits on the sofa.
Evan stands next to her, arms folded tightly across his chest. The urge to go over to him, hug him and brush the consternation from his face overwhelms me. I head to the kitchen. Evan follows me in.
“Evan…” I reach out a hand and touch his face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“No, before the other night.”
His lost brown eyes fix on mine. “Lucy’s the past I’m trying to escape from. Why would I bring her into my new life?”
“She’s your sister…”
“Fuck!” he says too loudly, then clears his throat, gaze darting to the door. “She’s not just my sister. She’s someone’s daughter, granddaughter, niece… But it’s always been down to me and I can’t do this anymore!”
Evan picks at something dried onto the work surface. So many questions I want to ask, but so many wounds I don’t want to jab.
“How long has she been unwell?” I say eventually.
“Diagnosed, about three years. Undiagnosed, longer. When I left she was in hospital, responding to her meds. I don’t think she’s still taking them.” He slumps against the bench, sliding his boots forward and I’m convinced he’s going to land on the floor. “I thought because I’d gone, someone else would finally take over.”
“You’ve had to look after her for three years?” I’m incredulous - he’s still a teenager himself.
“Mostly. I saw something was wrong with Lucy first and got her to see a doctor. Now she always comes to me when she needs help. Doesn’t trust anyone else.”
“But your Dad?”
Evan makes a derisive noise. “Old school. Thinks she should pull herself together when she’s depressed and as soon as she starts tipping into mania he panics. Thinks she’s going to kill him. Because his sum total of education on her disorder comes from TV shows.”
I reach out to him, try and hug him but he’s stiff, so I let go and lean next to him. “You can’t give her the help she needs. You’re not a doctor.” I pause. “Or her parent.”
“I know that. But when she’s unwell, she doesn’t get that. Thinks I can fix things for her.”
“That’s unfair. Your family can’t expect you to do this.”
Evan rubs his face hard. “I know it’s not fair, Ness. Every time she screws up my plans, it’s not fair. But it’s not fair for her if no-one is there for her. And now she’s here, I have to do something. Again.”
Evan’s agitation is increasing and I don’t want to push things but I’m annoyed with his family for failing him too. I have to stop myself saying something.
Abby chats to Lucy in the other room, Lucy smiling and animated, and for once Abby can’t get a word in which amuses me - this rarely happens. Evan indicates the bottle I’m holding.
“Probably don’t let her have too much. I need to figure out where she’s at - with her meds and stuff. She hasn’t got a bag so she can’t have any on her.”
I hover the bottle over the glass and he frowns at me. “She’s fine. She won’t hurt anyone. She was pissed off with me for hiding from her. No-one else.”
How did she get here and how long has she been looking for Evan; wandering the city in an unstable state?
I watch as Evan hands the glass to his sister, how she smiles up at him, calm and happy. Evan’s calm again, speaking gently to, but not patronizing, Lucy. Almost as if he has a persona he switches on in this situation. Inside, my heart tears in two, broken for him. Evan’s words about the burden on him - his calm, logical explanation of what needs to be done to help his sister - open my eyes to who he really is. I don’t know the whole story but I’m furious he’s the person caring for his mentally ill sister, and nobody prevented her from endangering herself by coming after him.