Losing Me Finding You

by Natalie Ward

  “You sure about that,” he says teasingly, pressing his warm, naked body against mine, as if to show me how much better it could be.

  I groan in response, tightening my hold on him as I pull him closer, pull him exactly where I need him to be. Ben groans with me as he pushes inside me, my body moulding to his like it always does, every time we do this.

  I’ve been living with Ben’s family for the past six weeks. He meant everything he said about me staying with him and when his parents had come home that night, he’d said exactly that to them.

  Ben was still going through the application process to get into the academy so he could become a firefighter, so it was a big deal, asking if we could both live at his parent’s house, together. We couldn’t afford our own place, not while Ben was still training and only working random jobs. But worse still, I was still in school…and only sixteen. But Ben was adamant; he wasn’t letting me go back to my house and the latest people who were my so-called parents.

  And surprisingly, his parents had been unbelievable. Even though they hadn’t really liked the idea of us sharing a room, given Ben’s younger sister was right next door, they had been completely in agreement with me moving in with them. It hadn’t even been an issue, almost like it was something they’d already discussed between themselves. And when his mum, Suzanne, had walked right up to me and wrapped me in a bear hug, I’d felt tears well up in my eyes as I remembered my previous mothers, the good ones, and all the times they’d done to this me. How much I missed it now I’d been stuck with my latest set of parents.

  I’d always wondered how Ben had explained it to his family, where I went and why I ended up living with different people, in a different house, in different towns or streets. When I’d asked him, he said he told them I was a foster child, which was actually a really smart idea, and that circumstances forced me to move from time to time. I guess we were lucky they never noticed it happened on the exact same day, every four years.

  Every leap year.

  “Evie…” Ben moans, bringing me back to the present as he moves inside me.

  I smile knowing I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be now though.

  30th July 1994

  Eighteen years old

  “So, do you know what you’re going to do yet?” Ben asks.

  We are lying together in the park, his head is on my stomach and my fingers are in his hair as we both stare up at the cloudless blue sky. We’re waiting for Ben’s best friend Paul and his girlfriend Lily to show up. Ben and Paul have both just found out they’ve been accepted into the training program, and I’ve just passed my O levels, so today we are celebrating.

  What I’m going to do next though, is something we’ve really only just started talking about. It’s not as simple as going to university or getting a job because in two years time, I’m going to disappear again. Back when I was younger, we could explain it away with my parents moving or something, but not now. It’s not really a legitimate excuse for dropping out of university midway through my degree or failing to show up for work one day, because I’ve suddenly woken up on the other side of the country.

  Despite all the unknowns, we’ve never told anyone else about my little condition. This is mostly because we don’t even know how to explain it to ourselves. It already sounds crazy enough just saying it out loud and if it wasn’t for Ben having witnessed it for himself back when I turned twelve, I’m not sure how I’d have told him about it either.

  How do you actually explain to someone that every leap year, when the clock moves from the 28th of February into the 29th, you disappear? And not just disappear, but wake up in a whole new house with a whole new life and no memory of the lives you’ve had before it. How the hell do you explain that without sounding crazy?

  When it first happened to me, I didn’t actually realise it had happened at all. I just remember waking up feeling like something was missing. It was like I’d woken from a really strange dream that I couldn’t remember anymore. And the more I thought about it, the faster those memories faded.

  Then I saw there was more to it than just a half-forgotten, weird dream.

  Somehow I understood that I now had a whole new life, and not just that but also new friends, a new school, new parents, and a new house. Once I even got a sister. It freaked me out because suddenly, everything felt different, but only to me. To all these other people, it was as though I’d been in their lives this whole time. Nothing about me seemed new to them.

  I couldn’t understand it, because when I looked in the mirror, I thought I looked the same as before, so that hadn’t really helped. I mean to me, I was the same person I’d always been. I was Evie. But I wasn’t really, because while I started off as Evie Roberts, when I moved I became someone else; Evie Sutherland, then Evie Smith and now, I’m Evie Wakefield. And when that happens, all of the other Evies before me just cease to exist. We’ve tried looking for them, the Evies and even the families that go with them, but they’re gone. It seems as though when I wake up in a new life, all of the other Evies just disappear into thin air, as though they were never real in the first place.

  Except I know they are real. Because I carry all of their memories with me and for the most part, I look exactly like them. At the time, I don’t remember these memories; it’s only when I get the trigger that it all comes back. And for some reason, this man, this gorgeous man who is lying with me, holding my hand in his as he rubs his thumb softly over my wrist, for some reason, he is the trigger to those memories.

  As soon as I remember Ben, I remember everything.

  It all just comes flooding back with the mention of his name or the second I see his face. All of the Evies, all of the lives and most importantly, all of the moments with Ben.

  And thankfully, Ben seems to be in all of my lives. So far, I have found him every single time this has happened to me. Not always straight away, but eventually. And he’s not just my trigger; he’s become my constant. The one thing that lets me remember who all of these Evies are and all of the lives that belong to her. Without him, I’d still just be walking around feeling like I’ve woken up from a strange dream.

  “Baby?” Ben says, breaking my train of thought.

  “Yeah?”

  He laughs, rolling over now so he’s propped up on his elbows, looking down at me. “You weren’t even listening to me, were you?”

  I smile up at him. “Sure I was,” I say, even though I have no idea what he’s just said to me.

  Ben leans in and kisses me and my fingers immediately slide into his hair and hold him there. “Liar,” he breathes against my mouth.

  I smile, but keep kissing him back, not really caring what he’s just said right now. Ben groans as his elbows collapse and he ends up half lying on me, the weight of his body holding me to the ground, anchoring me. Our kisses deepen, my arms wrapping around his shoulders, holding him against me.

  “Evie Wakefield, you’re going to get me arrested for public indecency if you’re not careful,” Ben says in a low voice when he eventually pulls back.

  I smile up at him, raising an eyebrow in question. “Is that a dare?”

  Ben laughs. “Don’t tempt me!”

  I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively and Ben laughs harder now, his hands moving to my stomach as he tickles me in payback. “No, no, please…don’t. Stop, Ben, please!” I’m pleading with him now. I’m incredibly ticklish and Ben knows this is the easiest way to get back at me.

  “Are you going to behave?” he asks, still tickling me.

  “No chance,” I say without even thinking about it.

  “Well,” Ben says, sitting up and moving so he’s straddling my hips. “Guess I’ll have to keep going then.” His fingers are tickling me everywhere and if he doesn’t stop soon, I’m literally going to pee my pants.

  “Okay, okay,” I say grabbing for his arms, desperately trying to stop him.

  Ben finally stops, grabbing my wrists and pinning my arms to the ground on either side of my head. “B
ehave,” he says, trying to be threatening but not really succeeding when he’s wearing a big grin on his face.

  “Promise,” I breathe out, squirming a little as I realise exactly where Ben is sitting.

  “Evie,” he says in warning as I start to move against him. I smile, not stopping until Ben lets go of one of my wrists and starts to tickle me again.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll stop,” I promise.

  Ben smiles. “God, I am so glad you stay ticklish every time you come back to me, Evie,” he says, leaning down to kiss me now. “I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t do this to you all the time.” He’s kissing me softly and as much as I pretend to hate it, I’m glad he can still do it to me as well. There’s something to be said about Ben’s fingers roaming all over my body. When we’re somewhere private, it almost always ends with both of us naked and a lot more than tickling going on.

  “Do I look different to you?” I suddenly ask, wondering if Ben notices the changes that I see. He’s the only other person who would. I mean his parents could, but Ben knows me in ways that nobody else does, so if it’s going to be anyone, it’s going to be him.

  “What do you mean?” he asks, sitting back, his hips still on mine.

  I wriggle my wrists free from his hold and slide my hands up his thighs now. Ben cocks his head, as if to warn me about moving them too much higher. I smile at him, but behave, asking him again. “When I come back to you,” I say. “Do you think I look any different to the last time?”

  Ben exhales, his breath blowing his hair off his face as he looks me over. “I don’t know,” he says, “it depends. I guess when it’s been a bit longer, you look older, but I think that’s normal. Overall, you still look like you though. You’re still beautiful, baby.”

  I smile now, my heart melting at his words as I grab his t-shirt and pull him in for another long kiss.

  “Do you think you look different?” he asks, his lips against mine.

  I shrug. “Maybe, I’m not sure though. When I first see my eyes, I feel like they are different, but I can’t work out exactly why.”

  “Yeah okay, they are a little different,” Ben says. “I mean, it’s something I’ve noticed. It’s nothing bad or anything, but yeah, they do look different.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  Ben shuffles around, so he’s lying on his side next to me now, his fingers pushing my t-shirt up so he can trace patterns on the bare skin of my stomach. It tickles a little, but this I don’t mind.

  “Yeah, at first I thought it was just the colour…” he starts.

  “You’ve noticed that too?” I ask, interrupting him.

  Ben looks at my eyes, examines them for a minute or two. “Yep, I remember when we were kids, they were a really deep brown, but now…”

  “Now they’re turning green, aren’t they?”

  Ben smiles at me, his finger gently tracing underneath my right eye. “They are yeah, but I really like them green too.”

  I smile back. “Is that the only difference?”

  Ben shakes his head. “No, the other one is harder to explain,” he says, still looking into my eyes. “But I guess when I look at your eyes, I feel like I’m looking into the eyes of someone who has seen so much. It’s like you’re looking at me with the eyes of more than one person.”

  “What, like a crazy multiple personality type thing?” I quickly ask.

  Ben laughs. “No, baby, not like a crazy, multiple personality type thing,” he says, kissing my nose. “More like an Evie Roberts, Evie Sutherland, Evie Smith and Evie Wakefield type thing.” I watch as he kisses me again, on the lips this time. “It’s like all of my Evies are looking back at me, with all of their lives and all of their memories,” he says, his voice quieter now. “And I kinda like it. It makes me think that somewhere in here,” he says, running his finger under my eye again. And here,” he adds, sliding his hand so it rests on my chest, over my heart, “that you remember me.”

  “I always have you in here, Ben,” I say, my hand resting on his hand as it sits on my heart. “I promise.”

  Ben smiles as he lifts our hands and puts them over his heart now. “And you are always here in mine, Evie. All of my Evies are.”

  My fingers clutch at his t-shirt and I pull Ben’s lips back to mine again, relief flowing through me as I not only understand what he’s telling me, but believe it too.

  It makes sense in some ways, that he would see all of that, because he has known all of those Evies and all of us have known and loved him.

  5th November 1995

  Nineteen years old

  “Happy birthday, Ben,” I whisper, my hand sliding along his thigh under the table.

  His fingers grab mine, stopping my hand from going any higher. “Behave,” he whispers back, his parents sitting on the other side of the table, oblivious to what’s going on between us.

  “No chance,” I say, quickly kissing his lips.

  “So, Ben,” his mum says, raising her glass of champagne as she smiles at both of us in a way that suggests she knows exactly what’s going on below the table.

  She’s cool about us being together now though, they always have been, really. They worked out early on that trying to make Ben and I sleep in separate bedrooms was a mission that was never going to work. Ben had just laughed when she’d suggested it, explaining that we weren’t breaking any laws, so what was the problem. When Suzanne had mentioned his younger sister, Rachel had rolled her eyes and said, “I know people have sex, Mother,” which may have embarrassed Suzanne more than anything.

  Still, they tried to play hardball with us for a couple of weeks, begging us to at least wait until I’d turned seventeen. But when we emerged together from Ben’s room every morning, in the end they relented. As long as we didn’t do anything inappropriate in front of Ben’s then fifteen-year-old sister, they were fine with it. In actual fact, me moving in was probably the best thing that happened for Rachel. I’d always been a good student, more so when I woke up in this latest life, because I was determined to make something of myself, get away from the parents I was forced to have this time. That had rubbed off on Rachel and when she saw me sitting at the kitchen table, studying, night after night, she’d wound up joining me. And Suzanne had thanked me.

  “Yeah?” he says to her, finally tearing his eyes from me.

  “Happy birthday and congratulations.”

  I turn to Ben and see him smiling at his mum now. He graduated from the academy today and is now officially a firefighter. I’m so incredibly proud of him, because I know this is something he’s always wanted to do. Something his dad still does, and something his grandfather once did too. From the minute Ben climbed that tree to rescue my cat when he was seven years old, he’s dreamed of rescuing people. I know he’s going to do an amazing job.

  “Thanks, Mum,” he says, picking up his glass now as he joins his parents and sister in a toast. I raise my glass to join them and think to myself, this is the family I belong to, this is the family I long to stay in.

  “Do you know where you’re going in March?” she asks.

  I turn to Ben, watch as he shakes his head. March the first is when he gets assigned to his fire station. And by then, I’ll have disappeared. I’m not sure how we’re going to deal with this, because by the time I remember Ben, he will be somewhere else, and it’s going to be harder for me to find him.

  I feel Ben’s hand squeezing mine under the table. “I don’t know yet,” he says, pulling me closer. “But I might try and get assigned somewhere earlier now that Evie is finished with school and free to move.”

  Ben turns to face me now and I smile up at him, knowing exactly why he’s asking for the early move. I need to be able to know where to find him. I need to know where he’s moved to when I eventually remember him.

  I just hope it all works out that way.

  “We’ll get the early move, Evie,” Ben says as we walk up the stairs together to our room. We’re still living with his parents while we wait to find
out where that is.

  “Yeah,” I answer, my voice flat. I know it’s not a definite, that Ben might not find out until after I’ve gone.

  “Hey,” he says, pulling me into our room and closing the door. “What’s wrong?” I shake my head, not wanting to ruin his night with bad feelings about the future. “Evie,” he says again, his voice firm this time. He tilts my head with fingers under my chin so I’m forced to look at him. “Talk to me, baby.”

  “It’s nothing, Ben,” I say. “I promise.”

  “Eva,” Ben says. “Don’t. Don’t do this. You and me, we always talk, always.”

  “Yeah,” I reluctantly admit.

  Ben steps closer, sliding his arms around my shoulders as he pulls me against him. “Yeah?” he says. “That’s it, just yeah?”

  I finally look up at him, and even though he’s trying to keep it light, I can see the worry and concern on his face. I take a deep breath before I say what’s really bugging me. “What if I’m gone before you find out, Ben?” I ask. “What if I don’t know how to find you when I finally remember?”

  Ben smiles at me as he bends down to press a kiss against my lips. “You won’t be,” he whispers. “And even if that’s what happens, then you just ring here, ask mum and dad. We’ll think of a reason, okay. It will be alright, Evie, I promise.”

  I’m shaking my head before he even finishes. “You don’t know that, Ben,” I say. “We don’t ever know what’s going to happen, where I’m going to end up or when I’ll remember you. What if it takes years, how are we ever going to explain that?”

  I feel Ben’s hands smoothing up and down my back as he steps even closer against me. “I don’t have all the answers right now, baby. But we’ve managed to find each other so far, so I know it will happen again.”

  “But what if it doesn’t?” I say, frustrated. “What if I never find you, never even remember you? What if I lose you forever?” My voice is shaking now as too much champagne over dinner finally lets my worst fear be said out loud.