by Natalie Ward
“Dadda wants to know where are you?”
I bite my lip, loving that even though I wake up with no memory of either of them, they never forget about me.
“Momma?” she asks again.
I smile, anxious to see to them. “Tell Dadda I’m in Edinburgh, baby, can you do that?”
“Yeah,” she says as I hear her turn to Ben and try to pronounce the name of the city I’ve just discovered I’ve woken up in.
There’s more rustling and suddenly it’s Ben’s voice in my ear. “Sorry, babe, I can’t understand what she’s trying to say to me, where are you?”
I want to answer, but I can’t right now. I’m crying too hard at the enormity of what’s happened this morning, of knowing this is all over for us now.
“Evie, baby, are you okay?” Ben asks, concern in his voice.
I swallow my tears, trying to get myself under control so I don’t scare him. “Yeah, I’m good, really. I’m in Edinburgh, she was trying to say Edinburgh.”
“Oh,” Ben says laughing. “Yeah okay, that makes more sense. We’re leaving now; I’ll call you back when we get closer. We’ll see you in about four hours, okay? Hang tight.”
“No Ben, it’s okay. I’ll come to you, it will save time,” I answer, loving him so much right now.
“You sure? I don’t mind,” Ben says, and I know he really doesn’t.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I say. “I’ll text you when I’m on the train.”
“Okay, we’ll be waiting at the station for you.” Neither of us says anything for a second or two and I’m about to hang up when Ben speaks. “Evie?”
“Yeah?”
I know he’s smiling again. “I love you, baby, so much.”
And now I’m smiling with him. “I love you too, Ben.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
I hang up the phone and find myself jumping up and down, laughing. Finally, we have found a way to make this work, whatever this thing is. I can’t stop it and neither of us understands it, but we’ve finally found a way to make it work. Now, I’ll only ever have to be apart from Ben for one night. Just one night and the answer to it all was so simple, it’s ridiculous.
After I take a quick shower and grab a couple of things for the train ride, I head out to the station and get the first train I can. I spend the nearly five hour journey writing, working on this story Ben wanted me to tell. I think I’m almost done now, because now, I finally feel like I have an ending for it. I have no idea if it’s going to sell or if anyone would ever want to read it, but I don’t care. This is a story that had to be told. This one’s for us.
Around four in the afternoon, I send another text to Ben, letting him know when I’m getting in. I glance at the cards in my wallet again, see the name that’s supposed to go with this Evie and this life. But they aren’t mine anymore.
I am only one Evie now, Evie Foster, and I already have a life.
The train finally arrives at St Pancreas and I’m one of the first people off it, bag over my shoulder, notepad under my arm. I run down the platform and through the gates and that’s when I see them. Ben and Lucia, standing there, waiting for me. Ben’s eyes are immediately on mine, that cheeky grin he has lighting up his whole face. Without saying a word, he walks straight up to me and wraps me in his arms. I feel Lucia’s tiny arms wrap around my neck too and the three of us stand in the middle of the station hugging as though we haven’t seen each other for months.
“Hey, baby,” Ben eventually says, kissing me. “Miss me?”
I laugh. “Always,” I say, taking Lucia in my arms as I press a kiss to her cheek.
Ben slings an arm around my shoulders and together we walk out of the station and towards the tube. “What’s that?” he eventually asks, nodding at the notepad under my arm.
“An ending,” I tell him. “I think I finally found a way to finish it.”
Ben smiles at me, his other hand tucking my hair behind my ears. It’s a lot shorter today, I lost about five inches overnight, but I like it and at least shorter is easier to explain. As I hold Lucia in my arms, Ben slides his fingers across my neck, leaning in as he closes the distance between us and kisses my lips. “Let’s go home, baby.”
By the time Ben and I arrive back at our flat, it’s already dark and Lucia has fallen asleep. Ben carries her upstairs and puts her to bed, while I head into our bathroom, stripping off my clothes as I climb into the shower. Two minutes later, Ben is sliding in behind me, his arms around my waist and his lips against my neck. I can feel his whiskers brushing against my skin, but I don’t mind it today.
“Happy birthday, baby,” he whispers, his mouth at my ear as he gently sucks on my ear lobe.
I turn in his arms, press up on my toes and put my mouth against his. Ben’s hands slide lower, until they’re under me and in one quick move he lifts me, my legs wrapping around his waist as he backs me up against the wall. He kisses me deeply, urgently, as though we’ve been apart for months, not just hours. “I love you, Evie,” Ben says, his voice husky and low.
I can’t help but smile.
This is the longest it’s ever going to be now.
Afterwards, as we dry off, Ben asks, “So, you gonna tell me how the story ends?”
I smile up at him. “Maybe you should just read it,” I say. I’ve never let him look at it before now. Not because I don’t want him to see it, it’s as much a part of him as it is me. I just wanted to get it done first. Wanted the story to be told.
“Okay,” he says. “And you’re okay with me reading it?”
“Yes,” I say, kissing him quickly. “I want you to. I want you to know the whole story. All of it.”
Ben’s eyes hold me in their gaze. “Okay,” he whispers, leaning in to kiss me again.
I walk into our bedroom and pull on some old yoga pants and one of Ben’s jumpers. Walking into the kitchen to grab some wine, I fire up my laptop on the way. Most of the story is typed up on there, but I’ll need to add the rest of it, the ending I wrote this morning, later on. I can only add to my story when I remember I’m writing it, and obviously my laptop never comes with me, so today it had to be done old school, using pen and paper. But there’s a lot to read before he reaches the end, so he can start with what’s on my laptop.
I carry it and the two glasses out to the living room, placing them on the coffee table as I curl up on the couch. It’s started snowing and I’m glad we made it home before it started to fall. By the look of it, tomorrow London will be blanketed in white.
“Ben,” I call out when I hear him rummaging around in our bedroom.
“Coming,” he says as he walks out into the room carrying a shoebox filled with what looks like letters. Smiling he takes a seat next to me, pulling me close as he wraps an arm around my shoulders and presses a kiss on my cheek.
“What’s this?” I ask, gesturing at what he’s holding.
Ben smiles, leaning in to kiss my lips this time. “You asked me once what I did while you were gone,” he says quietly.
I look into his eyes, wondering what he’s about to tell me. “Yeah?” I say. “You said you just waited for me.”
Ben chuckles a little. “I did wait, Evie, I waited as long as I had to, mostly impatiently, but I always waited for you.”
I smile, brushing my fingers down his cheek. “I know you did,” I say. “But now…”
“Now,” Ben says, kissing my fingertips. “Now, I won’t ever have to wait for you again.”
I shake my head, smiling at him. “No,” I say. “But what’s this all about?”
Ben looks down at the box of letters in his hand, his thumb flicking through them as though he’s remembering something. When he looks back up, he’s smiling as though the memory is of something good.
“I think I started doing this the second time you disappeared on me,” he says quietly. “I didn’t know where you’d gone, didn’t understand what had happened, what I’d seen that night.” He stops, as though he’s not sure how to go on.
“It must have freaked you out, seeing me disappear like that,” I whisper, not realising until I’d found him again, that he’d actually witnessed my little disappearing act on the night of my twelfth birthday.
Ben laughs a little. “It certainly was different and kinda strange, I’ll give you that,” he says. “But more than anything, I didn’t understand why. Why you had to leave again, you’d already been taken away from me once, and the second time, well it was a lot for my fourteen year old brain to process.”
I smile, my hand brushing his cheek again. “It was for me too, Ben,” I say. “I couldn’t understand why it kept happening to me. But then I couldn’t believe it when I somehow found you again, the very next year.”
“You found me, Evie,” Ben says. “Because we were always meant to find each other.”
“And now we always will,” I add on, smiling as I hold up my tattooed ring finger.
“We will,” he says, holding the letters out to me now. “And I won’t need to write these anymore,” he adds.
“What are they?” I ask, confused.
“They’re letters,” Ben says.
“Letters,” I repeat. “To who?”
“To you,” he says, smiling. “I wrote them all the times I was without you. I had so many things I wanted to tell you, Evie, in all the months you were gone. Writing them down for you just seemed like the easiest way to do that. The only way I could, at least until you found me again.”
I feel a tear roll slowly down my cheek as I realise what Ben has been doing. What he’s done all these years he’s waited for me. What he asked me to do once too.
He’s told me his story.
“I want you to know this side of me,” he says, his thumb brushing away the tear on my cheek. “I want you to know all the things I wanted to say to you, how I felt when you were gone, how much I wished you would come back to me. Because now, you’ll always be here for me to tell it all to.”
“I will,” I say, my voice barely audible.
“I’ll never lose you,” Ben whispers.
“No, because I’ll always find you,” I whisper back as my arms wrap around his neck. Ben wraps his arms around me as I crawl onto his lap and kiss him hard on the mouth. My left hand slides around his neck and moves down his chest to rest against his heart. I feel Ben cover it with his hand, lifting both of them to his lips where he presses a kiss against my wedding ring.
Both of them.
The one I leave behind.
And the one I always take with me now.
“So, what do you think, do you want to read them?” Ben eventually asks, smiling at me.
I laugh. “Are you kidding, of course I do. I definitely want to read them. I want to know your stories, Ben,” I tell him. “I want to know everything about you.”
“Baby,” he says, smiling at me. “Your story and mine, they’ve always been the same.”
“They have?” I ask.
Ben holds my face in his hands now as his piercing blue eyes stare right into my completely green ones. “I love you and you love me,” he whispers. “We’ve always been in each other’s heart, and we were always meant to find each other, Evie. That’s what our story has always been about. You and me.” And then he kisses me and I fall even further in love with him than before.
And I know now, I’ve found the perfect ending.
29th February
Today is the 29th of February, the day I was born.
And just like every other time this day rolled around, I woke up in a different home, with a different name and a different life.
Only this time, I knew they weren’t mine, because I already had a home and a name and a life.
With him.
Ben.
He’s always been the reason I’ve done this. The man who has patiently waited for me. The man who lost me when he didn’t understand why, who couldn’t stop me from going when both of us wanted me to stay. The man who couldn’t find me when he wanted to look.
But the man who protected me, looked after me, and loved me anyway.
And now, he’s the man who wrote letters to me because I wasn’t here for him to tell me all the things he wanted to say.
He always said that every time I came back to him, it was like falling in love with me all over again. I used to tell him that every time I came back, I fell even more in love with him than before.
He’s always been my strength, my protector, my one and only constant.
I love him; I’ve always loved him.
And he has always loved me.
Every four years, I used to lose myself.
And every four years, I’d have to find him.
But not anymore. Now, we will never lose each other again, now I will always find him. It hasn’t always been easy and there are some things we’ve both done that I know we wish we could do differently. But our story was always the same; it’s always been to find each other.
It’s always been about him and me.
Ben and Evie Foster.
It’s been a crazy life and I’m not sure anyone would believe it if we told them. But it’s happened, all of this has happened.
This has been our story.
I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
Time is…
too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love… time is eternity.
Henry van Dyke.
Acknowledgements
A big, huge thank you to Regina Wamba from Mae I Design. I can’t thank you enough for creating such a beautiful and perfect cover for this story. I love it.
To everyone who picks up one of my books and reads it; thank you. I appreciate all of your support and messages and reviews.
To my beta readers; Jackie, Kristina, Nikki, Cathy and Lisa. There are never enough words to thank you for everything you’ve done. You ladies are more than just fabulous beta readers, you are amazing friends too. I can’t thank you enough for not just all of the time and effort you put into helping me with these stories I write, but for everything else too. Thank you for encouraging me, supporting me, sticking by me and always being happy to read anything I throw in your direction.
To my husband, who always supports every crazy idea I have. I miss you every day that we’re apart. I love you.