by Lisa Swallow
“This is Lucy,” I say, hoping Abby recognises my ‘rein it in’ look. “Evan’s sister.”
“Sister?” Abby hovers her hand 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.”
“Anything!” Lucy grins and drops onto the sofa.
Evan stands next to her, arms folded tightly across his chest. The urge to go over and hug him, to brush the consternation from Evan’s face overwhelms, but I walk to the kitchen for wine instead. I pull out a bottle from the fridge and two glasses as Evan follows me into the room.
“Evan…” I reach out a hand and touch his pale face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“No, before tonight. You had lots of chances. I wouldn’t have judged you.”
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 down to me to help her, and I can’t do this anymore!”
Evan picks at something dried onto the work surface. I want to ask so many questions, but so many wounds I don’t want to jab.
“How long has she been unwell?” I ask after a silence lasting too long.
“Diagnosed about three years. Undiagnosed, longer. When I left Lancaster, she was in hospital, responding to her meds. I don’t think she’s still taking them.” Evan slumps against the counter, sliding his boots forward and I’m convinced he’ll land on the floor. “I thought because I’d left, 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 persuaded her to see a doctor. Now Lucy always comes to me when she needs help. She 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 because he thinks she’s going to kill him. His sum total of education on her disorder comes from TV shows.”
My heart hurts. How long has he struggled to cope without reaching out for help? The Evan he revealed to me was only half a painful story he hid from his new world. I throw my arms around him, wanting to absorb some of the suffering he’s hidden, but Evan stiffens.
I let go and rest beside him. “You can’t give Lucy 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 understand. She 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 Lucy if no one is there for her. Now she’s here, I have to do something. Again.”
Evan’s agitation increases, and I don’t want to push things, but I’m annoyed with his family for failing him too.
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 hold the bottle over the glass and he frowns at me. “She’s fine. Lucy won’t hurt anyone apart from herself or me. She was pissed off with me for hiding from her.”
How did Lucy get to Leeds 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 too, speaking gently but not patronising Lucy—a different persona he switched on for the situation. The heart I guarded from Evan is torn in two, broken for him because I want to reach out. I ache to give Evan the love and understanding he needs. I want to help.
Evan’s words about the burden on him—his calm, logical explanation of what needs to be done to help his sister—opens my eyes to who he really is. I don’t know the whole story, but I’m furious Evan is the person caring for his mentally ill sister. Not only that, but nobody prevented Lucy from endangering herself by coming for him.
22
EVAN
One a.m. Lucy’s still awake. Talking. Burbling about animals. She has a cat, apparently. Charlie. Dad bought her the kitten shortly after I left a few weeks ago. A bloody kitten. The guy doesn’t have a clue, buys Lucy something to be responsible for when he can’t even keep her on the meds she needs. Or in the town where she lives.
Abby left for her evening out, and Ness now politely listens to Lucy, but her eyes glaze. Lucy won’t sleep. She’s not manic but heading that way. The stress of getting here won’t have helped.
I swig down my beer. “Lucy, did you bring any meds?”
“I don’t need them.”
“You do. Or you get unwell.”
Lucy fixes me with narrowed eyes. “I’m better. The meds mess with my head; I couldn’t think straight, like someone had stuffed my head with cotton wool. So I stopped.”
“Lucy, we’ve been through this before. You can’t fix this. You need to stay on them.”
Lucy stuffs fingers in her mouth and chews down on a nail, wriggling her toes, warning me not to push this. So far, I’ve avoided asking questions about how she’s feeling and what’s happening. How she got here or if Dad knows. She doesn’t have her meds and god knows when she last took any. I need to call Dad and hope he has some clue about what’s happening with Lucy’s state of mind, but she can’t see me. I walk behind her and catch Ness’s eye, waving my phone and pointing upstairs.
“Can I grab my bag?”
She nods in understanding. “Yes, it’s in my bedroom.”
“Cool.”
“He’s been in your bedroom? Evan!” Lucy giggles and Ness’s cheeks turn pink.
Being in Ness’s bedroom feels intrusive. Until a few hours ago, I was on her shit list, now I’m in her room and trying not to think of Ness in the bed. Her neatly made bed has the ridiculous cat pyjamas scrunched on top of it , and I remember the night she wore them at the top of the stairs. Back when I was free of this. Those few short weeks where I thought I had my life back.
Dad answers within three rings. “Evan?” Music blares in the background and my pulse rate speeds up. In the pub. Again.
“Thought you might’ve called me?”
“Why?”
“Why? Because your daughter’s missing?”
A pause. “Shit. How did you know? Where is she?”
“Yeah, shit pretty much sums it up. Lucy is with me. Didn’t you notice?”
“No, I’ve been busy today. Working.” Laughter in the background rolls down the phone.
“Then you went straight to the pub when your daughter isn’t well and needs you.”
“She’s an adult, Evan. I’m not responsible for her.”
It’s fucking good I’m in Ness’s room because if I was in mine, something would be smashed by now. “She’s nineteen years old. She’s ill. She lives with you, needs your support. She’s your bloody daughter!”
The line fades to silence, voices from the pub interrupting the quiet.
“I didn’t know Lucy was ill again,” he says.
“She’s not going to be miraculously better in the few weeks since I came back to Leeds. I helped you get Lucy back on her meds. All you had to do was keep an eye on her.”
“But she’s with you now, she’s okay.”
/> Anger crawls inside and seizes my chest, squeezing out restraint. “Yeah. With no meds.”
“Okay. Can I come for her tomorrow? I can’t drive tonight. We had a lock-in.”
I curl my fingers tightly around the phone, gripping onto myself. Stay calm. “A lock-in? So sitting in a pub all night and not bothering to check she’s okay.”
“She’s safe with you.” He ignores my comment and my urge to slam something into the wall increases.
“Fine. Come here tomorrow. I’ll text you the address.”
I end the call and throw my phone onto the desk. Dad hit the nail on the head. Lucy’s safe with me, as if I’m her carer. I can’t be that anymore. I dig my fingers into my scalp and squeeze my eyes closed, the white spots cross my vision and my ears ring.
I can’t.
I really fucking can’t. This is destroying me.
But who will help?
I knock into Ness’s desk; her laptop’s screensaver lights up, a montage of photographs flicker across the screen. Foreign countries. Places Ness plans to visit. Freedom. I sink onto Ness’s bed, fighting tears.
I can’t cry.
I won’t cry.
Boys don’t fucking cry.
* * *
NESS
The loud phone conversation stopped ten minutes ago and Evan hasn’t come back downstairs. I glance at Lucy who’s showing me every picture she’s ever taken on her phone. I think we’re up to about two hundred now, and I’m not kidding.
“You’re into photography?” I ask.
“Yeah, was going to study. Until… well, you know. Not been well. But now I’m feeling better and I might start a media course. I could come to Leeds and live here, or we could live with Evan…” And she continues, a stream of consciousness pouring from her mouth.
I need to see if Evan is okay. The remote rests on the coffee table and I switch on the TV, hoping a program will catch the exhausting Lucy’s attention, so she can focus on something other than me for a few minutes. When I flick onto a documentary full of cute looking animals, I almost cheer.
“Oh! Wait, can we watch this?” she says, sitting forward. “Meerkats! They’re bloody awesome. I love meerkats. Not as much as I love Charlie, of course. I wonder why they call them cats too. They don’t look much like cats. But they’re still awesome.”
“Cool, I’ll be back in a few minutes. Just going to help Evan with something.”
Lucy turns to me, eyes glinting. “Oh yeah, I get it…” She giggles. “I’ll be okay with the meerkats and the wine.” She snuggles into the cushioned sofa back and places her dirty shoes on the table.
I’m working tomorrow, early shift, and the situation isn’t what I expected from meeting Evan this evening. Certainly not Evan in my bedroom and me dragged into his past. The bedroom door is ajar; I push it open. Evan’s on the floor, slumped against the end of my bed, long legs outstretched.
“Everything okay?” I whisper.
“Fucking wonderful.”
The light shines through the open curtains, casting shadows across Evan’s stressed face.
“Who did you call?”
“My dad. He’s coming in the morning.” Evan rubs his eyes. “Sorry you got dragged into this.”
“I wish you’d told me about… this.”
Evan doesn’t reply, just stares at his boots.
I sit on the carpet next to him. “You should both stay here tonight and wait for your dad.”
“Thanks. I’ll sit up with Lucy. In case she disappears again.”
“Will she?”
He shrugs. “Maybe. If she decides she really needs to be somewhere. Other than with me. But I’m pretty sure she’s okay for now.”
No wonder Lucy always comes to Evan. His insight into who she is, where she’s at with her illness, and what Lucy needs isn’t coming from anywhere else. One other question nags. Where is his mum? He said his dad is a single parent, but she must know about her daughter. Leaning my head on Evan’s shoulder, I lace my fingers through his. His shoulders are stiff and I turn and plant a kiss on his neck, but he wriggles as if the sensation irritates him.
“What do I do, Ness? How can I fix this?” he whispers.
“I don’t know. But this shouldn’t be down to you. You’re not her parent.”
“But no one’s there for her if I’m not.” His voice cracks and my stomach twists with despair for this confused, lonely guy who’s isolated himself because of the burden on him.
“Well, I’m going to help you change that. You’re not going to deal with this on your own anymore. It’s wrong.”
Evan turns and grabs me around the chest, burying his face into my side. I stroke his hair as his quickened breathing holds in the tears and anguish I know he struggles to restrain. We sit cocooned in silence, and I swallow down tears of my own. Exactly how far I’ve fallen for Evan sharpens into focus, because in this moment I want to give him everything I can to soothe his pain.
As I drift to sleep, I’m aware of Evan lifting me onto the bed, and covering me with a blanket, then returning to his sister.
23
NESS
Evan and Lucy are asleep when I leave for work the next day. Lucy’s lying across the sofa and Evan in the armchair. I skip making breakfast and grab something from the canteen when I arrive at work instead. Tiredness follows me and hangs around all day, but probably is nothing compared to the exhaustion Evan must be feeling.
Catching up to Evan’s reality is difficult. I’ve never had my understanding of someone turned totally upside down before. Evan transformed from student player to someone grappling with responsibilities that shouldn’t be his. If I struggled with a secret this big, I’d drown myself in student life too.
Before I start work, I send a text to let Evan know I’m thinking about him, and ask him to let me know if he needs help. I check my phone at the first break in my shift and Evan’s replied with a simple message.
The following days, Evan plays on my mind and I want to help him in whatever way I can. Unsure if he wants my involvement, I decide not to contact him. If Evan wants to talk, he’ll call me. Evan’s decision to keep his secret undoubtedly extends to Abby and I brush off the incident when she asks by telling Abby that Lucy was drunk. We had a friend at school who suffered from depression; Abby supported her and didn’t judge, but this is Evan’s business, I have no right to say anything. Abby comments on Lucy’s full-on personality and I leave the conversation there.
A week later, a text from Evan arrives, telling me he’s returning to Leeds from Lancaster. Desperate to talk to him, my finger hovers over the ‘call’ button. No, he chose to text and not to call for a reason. The fact he’s reached out bolsters me enough. Evan’s chosen to involve me in his life when he pushes everybody else away; I could have a place yet.
* * *
I sit in one of the popular student cafés in Headingley, and warm my hands on a mug of coffee, as I wait for Evan. We’ve visited here before, during our butterfly days, when the carefree Evan and me embarked on a relationship I’m now unsure will continue. The vinyl tablecloth is clean, condiments set out for the greasy food. Normally, I’d hanker for some of the chips I can smell, but I’m not hungry. The prospect of seeing Evan again fills my stomach with nerves. I’ve missed him, worried about him, wanted to speak to this new Evan I never knew existed. I’ve moved from falling for him to spiralling into a heart aching desire to be the person he can let into his world.
Evan walks in, face obscured by the black scarf wrapped around his neck. I wave at him and he approaches, unwrapping the scarf. Evan’s pale, and I think he’s lost weight in the short time he’s been away. Evan returned yesterday and the haunted look followed him back here.
“Did you need a drink?” he asks and I shake my head. All I want to do is stand and hug him, hold him to me as I did the night Lucy returned.
He returns with a mug of coffee to match mine, and sit
s with it untouched in front of him on the table.
“How’ve you been, Ness?”
“Better than you, I guess,” I say softly and reach out to touch him. The rough material of his gloves protects his skin from my touch and I hope he hasn’t reconstructed any other barriers.
Evan takes a sip of his coffee, lost eyes regarding me over the top of the mug. Does he want me to leave the subject of Lucy? How can he expect me to?
I won’t avoid this.
“How’s Lucy?” I ask.
The moment where Evan decides whether to keep me involved stands between us. Unease shivers along my spine. I shouldn’t have said anything. Not so soon. Please don’t let my words push him away. Evan spins the mug on the table, muscle twitching in his cheek as he concentrates on the movement.
“She wasn’t taking her meds. She’s back on them now.”
“Oh, that’s good then?”
“Yeah.” His voice doesn’t agree with his words.
“Or not good?”
“Lucy doesn’t agree. She can’t see how something that takes away her creativity helps. How do you explain that to someone?”
My shoulders sag in relief. He’s holding onto the connection we have and confiding. “What happens if she doesn’t take the meds?”
“She’ll be fine for a few weeks, even months, and then something will start again. Depression. Or mania.”
“I guess it’s difficult for her to accept she isn’t cured when she feels better.”
Evan sighs. “Yeah. Every time. But anyway. I agreed to visit her every weekend and help Dad. I need to make sure she’s going okay until I’m sure she’s better.” He’s sucked into the life he’s escaping again. This is wrong. My thoughts must be evident in my face. “She won’t keep taking meds if I don’t help her,” he presses.
I clench my teeth, so I don’t open my mouth and say something wrong, but nod instead. A nineteen-year-old guy shouldn’t be responsible for his sister, and I have to push this. Lucy isn’t the only one who needs an advocate.