Waiting For You

by Natalie Ward

  The next time her real birthday came around, she stayed. A fucking miracle for sure, but a huge bonus too, because I didn’t know what the hell I was going to say. I mean we were living together; we were back on, as serious as we could possibly be. How the hell was I going to explain her disappearing again? But when I’d rolled over and found her lying beside me, none of it had mattered anymore. I hadn’t needed any excuses until the night at the station with the boys.

  “Ben,” she says, her hand still on my chest.

  I smile down at her. “For the first week or so I didn’t say anything,” I admit. “It helps with Mum, Dad, and Rach not living in London. And Paul and I were too busy working and stuff,” I say. “After that…well, then I told them you were on a course somewhere. Paul and Julia had asked us over and I just said the first thing that came to mind.”

  “Not such a bad idea,” she says, her fingers brushing against my chest, gently tugging at the hairs.

  I smile. “No, and thankfully you weren’t gone for years, so I managed to get away with it this time around.”

  Evie smiles back at me. “And now it won’t matter,” she says.

  “No, thank god, because when you came back knocked up, that definitely created questions.”

  “It did?” she asks, a little surprised.

  I laugh. “You have met my mother, right?” I ask. “She couldn’t believe we waited three months to tell her she was getting her first grandchild.”

  Evie starts laughing now. “I can still remember your face when I told you.”

  I grin at her. “I gotta admit, babe, it’s not something that had ever crossed my mind. Not because I didn’t want it,” I say. “Just that we always seemed to have so many other things going on. I just never believed it was possible.”

  “I know,” she says. “Me too.”

  “But now we have Lucia,” I say, smiling. “I really can’t imagine life without her.”

  Evie’s face softens as she leans in and kisses me. “You are such a softie,” she says, laughing a little. “If only the boys at the station could see this side of you.”

  I shrug. “Can’t help it, I love my girls.”

  “I know you do,” she whispers. “And…well maybe next time, we won’t need to wait so long before we tell people.”

  I grin at her, my hand sliding down the side of her body. “Yes, speaking of next time…I’m pretty sure we made a deal about this.”

  “There’s no more letters?” she whispers, turning to glance at the box.

  I lower my head, pressing a kiss to her collarbone. “Just one more, but it can wait.” I kiss a path across her shoulders, inhaling her scent.

  “Ben,” she says, her hand sliding onto my cheek now.

  “Yeah?” I ask, lifting my head to look at her.

  Evie smiles at me, her fingers brushing my cheek as she stares up at me. “Those other things you said in the letter, all the reasons why.”

  I smile, turning to press a kiss to her palm, which rests against my cheek. “All true, baby,” I whisper. “And there are so many more reasons too.”

  She lifts her head off the pillow now, pressing her lips against mine as she murmurs, “I can’t even begin to explain how much I love you.”

  And then she kisses me and shows me instead.

  29 February 2012

  Dear Evie,

  That’s it, baby. That’s everything I ever wanted to tell you when we were apart. I won’t need to do this anymore, because we’ve found a way so that you’ll always come back to me. Back to us.

  Thank you for always coming back to me, Evie. I’d have waited forever for you. Always.

  I love you,

  Ben x

  4:45 am - 1 March 2012

  “All done,” I tell her.

  Evie smiles as she lowers the last letter, the one I quickly wrote when I was digging out the box to show her tonight.

  “Wow,” she says as she sits up and packs them all back into the box, along with all the things I’ve kept for her. I watch as she turns and puts the boxes on the floor beside the bed before turning back to me.

  I smile at her. “So, what do you think?”

  She smiles before switching off the side lamp and settling herself against me, her head on my chest, her arm draped over my stomach. “I think I’m exhausted,” she says, her fingers brushing my hip.

  I smile even though she can’t see me. “It’s really late,” I say, as I wait for her real answer. Evie says nothing for a while, just lies against me, her fingers stroking my hip, up and down my side. It’s distracting and nice and if I didn’t know better, I’d say she was making me wait for her answer. I feel my eyes close as the pull of sleep starts to take over. We’ve been up for hours, neither of us wanting to stop reading or talking about everything that’s happened.

  “Ben,” she suddenly says, her voice low in the silence of our room.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you for telling me your story.”

  I smile, my hand sliding up her spine to her shoulder. “Our story, Evie,” I whisper, my eyes still closed.

  “Our story,” she whispers, snuggling closer. “And thank you for always waiting for me.”

  My other arm wraps around her waist, pulling her closer as I whisper, “I’d wait forever for you.”

  I feel her fall asleep beside me, her breathing slowing to soft gentle breaths against my skin. I exhale, letting out a long, slow breath. And as I close my eyes and fall asleep, I finally stop worrying.

  About waiting.

  And about time.

  About how fast it’s flying by or how slowly it’s dragging. I stop worrying about all of the seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years that we used to lose. I stop worrying about all of the time that I try to hang on to with her.

  I stop worrying about losing her or whether she’ll ever find me again.

  I stop worrying about waiting and I let it all go.

  And I just live in this moment with her.

  Forever

  When I was a boy, I met a girl.

  She changed my life.

  In such a good way.

  She taught me so many amazing things. Like how to expect the unexpected. How to want something, but also how to wait for it when circumstances forced you to. She taught me about bravery and facing your fears, about beating the odds when it felt like everything was against you. She also taught me how to laugh and how to believe in magic. She taught me about things that I never even knew existed.

  But most of all, she taught me about love.

  How to fall in love and what it felt like to be loved in return.

  And I did fall. I fell hard. I fell in love with her long before I even knew what love was. I know what it is now though, and I’m still in love with her today. I’ll be in love with her for the rest of my life.

  She disappears though, leaves me, every four years. It kills me every time it happens. It used to scare the shit out of me because I never knew what had happened or where she’d gone or even when she would come back to me. A part of it still scares me now, but the thing is, she always comes back to me.

  Sometimes it would take a while, other times it happened really quickly. Once it almost didn’t happen at all. It happens faster now though. Now, it’s just a matter of her waking up, seeing her trigger and remembering me.

  Neither of us knows how or why this happens to her and I’m not sure we ever will. I know she tries to just live her life, tries not to worry about it anymore, but I also know that it’s not as easy as that. I know deep down, she’d love to stop it. I see it in her eyes, especially the night before she has to leave me. She’d give anything to stay and I’d give anything to hold onto her.

  But it doesn’t work like that.

  I’ve spent my life trying to find a way to stop it, or at least understand it. I was only a kid when I first started, when I first realised what was happening to her, but as soon as I did, I wanted to know why. I’ve never found the
answer so far and even though it almost doesn’t matter anymore, I’ll probably never stop looking for it.

  It’s just a part of who I am.

  Just like she is.

  It’s funny, but every time she does come back to me, I actually think I fall in love with her all over again. Not that I ever fall out of love with her, far from it. But seeing her again, especially when it’s been a really long time, but even when it’s only been a couple of hours, it’s like I’m hit with all of these feelings and emotions and something, something so incredibly powerful and strong that it just about takes my breath away.

  I don’t know, maybe it’s because the force of what I feel for her is just so huge, that it takes her disappearing and coming back to me, for me to recognise, remember just how much I love her.

  I was only five years old when I met Evie Roberts. I loved her then and I love her now. The only difference is, now she’s Evie Foster.

  She’s already told you her side of the story. Now you know mine. Well, it’s all still our story, because really, without her, my story wouldn’t matter.

  I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

  Meeting you was fate.

  Becoming your friend was a choice.

  But falling in love with you…that was beyond my control.

  unknown

  The story of Ben’s letters

  When I first thought about writing Losing Me Finding You, I immediately knew how Evie and Ben’s story would all play out. It was a story that came to me, hard and fast, and once I started, I couldn’t stop writing it all down. It’s a story that’s never really left my head either, and it’s a story that’s in some ways, very personal. Anyone who has ever endured a forced separation from the one they love, will in part, understand some of the things Evie and Ben go through.

  Ben’s letters were always a part of their story. In the beginning, I wanted to include them in Losing Me Finding You, but I struggled with where they should go. Initially, I wanted to put one of them after each leap year when she disappeared. A mystery letter from Ben to Evie, with no real mention of how or why they were there until the end. But I was worried that this would feel disjointed and random.

  Then I thought I would just put them all at the end of the book, so that you could read them in one go with Evie, after you and she discover they exist. But that didn’t feel right either because I didn’t want the reader to just get a rehash of the story all over again.

  I went back and forth on this, both with my betas and in my own head, moving things around and trying to find a way to make it work.

  In the end, it didn’t. I realised that Losing Me Finding You was Evie’s side of the story and Ben’s letters, as much a part of her story as they were, just didn’t belong there. I couldn’t find a way to include them that would make me happy so I took them out, not really knowing what I’d ever do with them. To be honest, I actually just thought they’d live out their days on my computer, with no one ever reading them.

  Then writer’s block hit.

  I was in the middle of NaNoWriMo, working on something brand new and I was stuck, really stuck. So I started opening up random files on my computer, reading other stuff I’d written and hoping for some inspiration.

  When I opened the file that was Ben’s letters…I never really closed it. I don’t know where it came from, but suddenly I’d found a way to tell his side of the story, a way to tell you everything he was feeling when she was gone. Suddenly I knew how to make his letters to her work.

  And in doing so, I feel like I can finally finish their story.

  Acknowledgements

  Regina at Mae I Design, thank you for making me a beautiful cover for this novella. It fits perfectly with LMFY.

  To anyone who ever asked me about Ben’s side of the story, about the letters he wrote to Evie. I really wasn’t going to do this. I had all of his letters already written, but I wasn’t sure I was ever going to do anything with them. Thank you for loving him so much, for wanting to know his side of the story.

  As always, a big huge thank you to my friends and beta readers; Jackie, Lisa, Cathy, Nikki, Kristina. None of this would be possible without your help and from the bottom of my heart; I thank you.

  To my husband. As always, thank you for everything. I love you.