Waiting For You (12 page)

Evie looks up at me smiling.

“What?” I ask, smiling back at her.

“That was intense that night, wasn’t it?”

I laugh. “Intense is one way to describe it,” I say. “It was also awkward as fuck after you disappeared.”

“Oh god,” she says, sitting up now. I watch as she turns to face me, wrapping the duvet around her shoulders, her legs crossed beneath her. I smile, running a hand over her knee and resting it on her thigh. “I disappeared in public, didn’t I?” she asks. “That’s never happened before.”

“No,” I say shaking my head. “And I’d really like for it to never happen again too.”

“Shit,” she says, slapping a hand over her mouth. “What happened, what was it like?”

I slide my hand up her thigh, my fingers brushing lightly over her skin as I watch her watching me. There’s a look of horror on her face as I imagine she tries to picture all the things that happened that night, how strange it must have been.

“Well, for one thing,” I say, laughing a little. “There was no underwear left behind this time.” Evie tilts her head at me in confusion. “Back when we were kids, remember, the sexy black number?” I say, grinning at her.

“Right,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. “So none of that this time then?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No, nothing. Which reminds me, you never did tell me if you woke up naked in your next life?”

Evie smirks at me and I can’t help squeezing her thigh, sliding my hand a little higher. “No, perv,” she says. “I didn’t. I don’t know why my clothes stayed behind that time. I’ve never woken up in a new life naked. Well…” she says, pausing as she smiles at me. “Except for my favourite new life.”

I smile at her, sliding my hand up to her waist and pulling her forward so she falls on top of me. Evie lets out a squeal, but I wrap my arms around her, pulling her whole body onto mine.

“That was definitely my favourite time too,” I say, looking up at her. “And we’ll get to that one, very soon.” I pull her closer, kissing her deeply before saying, “No, there was only one thing left behind this time, one thing that proved to me you really did come back, that you really were on the train that night.”

“What?” she asks.

I reach for the box again, rummaging through it until I find the small piece of cardboard. “This,” I say, holding up her train ticket.

British Rail

Oxford to London

29 February 2000.

1 Adult.

Evie smiles as she takes it from my hand, turning it over as though she’s looking for something. “God that woman in front of me was so goddam slow,” she murmurs. “I was so close to shoving her out of the way, just so I could get to you.”

“Tell me about it,” I say, laughing. “Certainly earned me a few strange looks as I pushed past her, calling your name only to discover you were gone.”

Evie drops the ticket onto the bed beside us. “What happened then, I mean did anyone else notice?”

I shrug. “I think so, I mean people must have, it was so busy at the station that night,” I say. “But you know what London is like, so many people, all wrapped up in their own thing. I guess most people just assumed they were seeing things or that…I don’t know, they’d somehow imagined you. I did get a lot of strange looks though, calling out to a person who wasn’t there anymore. But I think it was more,
oh here we go, just another crazy person
, type of look rather than anything else,” I say, pulling a face as I slide my hands up her body and start to tickle her.

Evie squeals as she squirms against me, her body rubbing against mine in all the best ways as she tries to get free. I fucking love how ticklish she is and how this
never
changes with any of her lives.

“Ben, don’t, please…” she says, laughing now.

“Mmmm,” I say, stopping as I roll us over and pin her beneath me. “How about this, then?” I ask, dropping my mouth to her neck and kissing her all over. “Should I do this instead, or should I keep tickling you?”

Evie moans, not saying anything as her hands slide into my hair, holding me against her skin. I smile against it, covering her in kisses as I slide my way down her body.

“More of this, then,” I whisper.

5 March 2000

Dear Evie,

So Sarah rang me earlier. She wanted to know what the story is because she hadn’t heard from you since you’d left. I told her we’d seen each other. I also told her that I still loved you and that you still loved me and that we had talked.

It’s all the truth, even if I’m sure she took it all to mean that we were back together.

She wants you to call her. I’ll try and stall for as long as I can, but I really need you to hurry up and find me this time, babe. We have so much to talk about, so much to explain to each other. But more than anything, we have so much time to make up for and I don’t want to waste a single second of it, Evie. I don’t want to wait for you anymore. I can’t wait for you any longer…I need you.

I’ve been… Shit, that’s the fire alarm.

I gotta go, babe…I’ll write more tonight.

But hurry up and remember me, ok?

I love you, so much.

Ben x

I watch as she glances up at me. “Was that the…?” her words trail off as though she can’t bring herself to finish the question.

I smile, running my fingers down her neck. “The night of my accident?” I ask, watching as she nods at me. “Yeah, it was. That alarm was the call out and that was the fire where it all happened.”

“Will you tell me about it?” she asks, her voice quiet.

I let out a breath, wrapping my arms around her as I pull her close to me. I glance at the clock on the table beside the bed. “Wow, it’s really late¸” I murmur.

“I’m not tired,” Evie says, propping herself up on my chest so she can look at me.

I smile. “Me neither, but we’re gonna pay for it tomorrow when our baby girl wakes up.”

Evie finally smiles now. “It will be worth it.”

“It will,” I say. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

Evie takes a deep breath, slowly letting it go as she thinks about her questions. “How come you went into the warehouse that night?” she asks, surprising me a little. It’s not what I expected her to ask.

“There were people in there,” I tell her. “We had to get them out.”

“Yeah, but why you?” she asks. “Why did
you
go in first?”

I smile at her, understanding now. “It’s my job, babe,” I tell her. “Someone had to go in there and rescue them and if it hadn’t been me, then it would’ve been someone else.” I was the first person to notice the squatters that night, but regardless, I probably would have been first in even if I hadn’t. After the captain, I was next in charge and protocol said that I go in first.

“Were you scared?” she asks, staring at me.

I shrug. “Not really. I mean there’s always a tiny bit of fear with every fire we go into. But it’s not so much about the fire itself as the knowledge that this could be the one.”

“The one?”

I lean in and kiss her. “The one you don’t walk out of,” I say, my words quiet.

It’s hard to explain, the feeling of walking into a building that’s lit up in flames. No one wants to face fire, especially when it’s a raging inferno. Instinct tells you to run, to get the hell out of there. And it’s hot too, hot as hell, much hotter than you ever expect. A suffocating heat that lingers on your skin and in your bones, long after you’ve walked out.

But then the training kicks in. Reminds you that you’re equipped to deal with it; that you have the gear and the team to back you up, but most of all, that you have a job to do. I remember Dad trying to explain all of this to me, but I never really got it until I went in and just
did
it.

“And is that what you thought when you went in that night?” she asks. “I mean did you ever think that this was ‘your one’?”

I shake my head. I hadn’t thought that. Not when we arrived and not even when I’d walked into the warehouse. Even up on the second floor, I never thought that this fire would be the one that would get me.

“I remember the wood under my feet,” I tell her. “The way it almost seemed to bounce, like it was a sponge or something. There was a voice somewhere in the back of my head, warning me to be careful. That this was an old building and the fire had been burning for a while. But then I heard a scream and I forgot about the floor and the voice, and I just took off,” I say, watching her as I tell her about the moment that changed everything. I can tell she’s trying not to cry, that she’s trying to be strong as she listens to me tell her about that night.

Because when I heard that scream, when I raced off to find where it came from, when I ran across the room and straight into the wall of flames, that was the moment that I changed my mind. That was the moment when it suddenly occurred to me that this fire could be
the one
. And I wasn’t just scared when I realised that, I was fucking petrified. Not about the fire or going in to rescue those idiots, I was scared about not ever seeing her again. I was scared that this would be the one, the one I wouldn’t walk out of and the worst thing about that, the thing I was most afraid of, is that I’d never get to see Evie again. That we’d endured the last four years for nothing, because I was about to lose her all over again, only in a way that was much more permanent.

“Ben,” she says, her fingers brushing down my cheek and reminding me that I didn’t lose her, even after everything that happened.

I smile at her. “I ran towards the doorway on the other side of the room, but I never actually reached it,” I say, pausing as I run a hand through my hair, my fingers sliding beneath my head. “One minute the floor was there, the next it wasn’t and the only thing I remember is the sensation of falling. Falling and then…nothing.”

“You don’t remember hitting the ground?” she asks, a trace of fear still in her voice.

“Nope,” I say, shaking my head. “The only thing I remember is being terrified that this was it and I wasn’t ever going to see you again. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital.”

“And two days later, I remembered you,” Evie whispers. “And a couple of days after that, you did see me again.”

I smile at her, pulling my hand from behind my head and sliding my fingers into her hair. “Yep,” I say. “And thank fuck it was so quick this time.”

She laughs a little now and I know she’s trying not to dwell on the accident. We’ve talked about it enough, god knows when I was bed ridden for months, there wasn’t much else we talked about. But most of that was Evie talking to me about how I was feeling, about me walking again, and about her never leaving my side. We talked about our time apart too, but we never actually talked about the accident itself. I think it was probably all too raw and she didn’t want to distract me from getting better by going over what had happened that night.

It wouldn’t have mattered, the second I saw her sitting beside my bed in the hospital, I knew I’d do anything to walk again. Seeing her again was all the motivation I needed.

“Yeah, well you can thank my brother for that one,” she says. “He tried to set me up with some guy, who happened to go by the name of Ben.”

I practically growl as I say. “I liked your brother, Evie, I really did, but you already had a Ben, you didn’t need another one.”

She laughs now. “I know I did. And I liked Nick too, I miss him, a lot.”

“Yeah,” I say, smiling at her. “Me too, but that reminds me.” I reach for the box again and grab the single photo that’s still lying at the bottom. “I do have this,” I say, handing it to her.

“Oh my god,” she breathes out as she stares at the photo. “Shit, I can’t believe you found this.”

I smile, running my fingers through her hair as she stares at it. It’s a photo of Evie and her brother. They are standing together, laughing at something. Nick has his arm around her shoulders and the two of them look so happy. I can’t even remember where or when it was taken, but I do know it’s the only photo we have of the two of them.

“Your brother was a good guy,” I say, watching as she stares at the photo. “It would’ve been nice if he didn’t have to disappear. It was strange seeing him go, even when you stayed.”

“Yes, it was,” she murmurs, still staring at the picture. “I hated that I lost him like that.”

I pull her closer, pressing a kiss to her temple. Even though Evie never really gets to know her families, especially now, Nick was definitely an exception. He clearly loved her and when she eventually let him be a part of her life, I know she grew to love him too. It would’ve been good if he could have stayed a part of her life. But I guess, like all of her previous families, we’ll never know what happened to him.

“I guess there isn’t much more, is there,” she eventually says, glancing at the box. “I mean we got a long time together after this one.”

I grin, lifting an eyebrow at her as I say, “We did. A very long time and a
lot
of good times too. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t some things I kept,” I say watching, waiting for her reaction.

“What do you mean?” she asks, surprised because she knows it would be eight years this time before I lost her again.

“You’ll see,” I say, handing her another letter.