Pictures of You

Chapter 25

25

Drew

God, here we go. I’m nine parts intrigued about what sixteen-year-old Evie might have said about me to Rose, and one part gearing up for an explosion.

Evie stares at me, dumbfounded. “We know each other?”

I have to rapidly work this through. I can explain everything, obviously, but the story is so complex, and she’s so emotionally compromised, I don’t know how or where to begin. Or even if I should.

Pretend we never met. Promise me, Drew. If we ever meet again, you will pretend you don’t know me.

Do promises pre-amnesia mean anything? What if they’ve been overtaken by more dramatic events? I can’t just keep the whole story from her. Not now that Rose has given her such a compelling teaser.

“Well, it’s complicated,” I begin, ineffectually.

Color rushes to her face and I recognize a flash of the old Evie, ready to take incomplete information and run with it.

“We met at school,” I say quickly. It’s like throwing a snack to a wild animal to pacify it while you try to work out an escape plan. “At a school photography club.”

“So were you and I … What were we?” She’s gesturing wildly between us.

An old wound rises and lodges near my heart. It’s like a long-lost battle scar that arcs up only in stormy weather. I did not want this. This reprise of Evie Hudson in my life.

But she needs it. Even this tiny preview into our past has her cheeks burning—maybe in anger, to be fair—but she’s grasping onto our history, snatching at threads so thin, everything could fall apart.

“Wait, was I a photographer too?”

Photography changed her DNA. She barely saw the world except through a lens, and what she could do with that lens just on pure instinct used to floor me. I was always half amazed, half envious at how easy she seemed to find it.

“You loved photography,” I confirm. “You were great at it. And you and I were friends.”

Rose scoffs. “ Friends? Come on, now! Drew was your best friend, Evie. Don’t you remember?”

Evie looks from Rose to me, devastated. In trying to protect her from the truth, I’ve hurt her. Again. I can’t seem to get this right.

“You acted like we didn’t know each other!”

Yes. But I don’t know her anymore. Not this version of her. When she jumped into my car at the funeral, she might as well have been a stranger—and, in my defense, I didn’t ask for this rescue role. I was just trying to get some closure and move on.

“We fell out,” I explain hastily. “We haven’t spoken in a long time. It didn’t end well. These days, we’re barely in each other’s lives.”

I can see her freaking out. Asking herself if she can trust me. Wondering if I’m going to hurt her. If only she knew our distance the last few years was at her command. Obeying that command is more about my own self-preservation. Can I trust her ? Is she going to hurt me again?

“It was your choice,” I add, my mind flashing back to the last message she sent me. The coldness of it. No fight left in either of us. Just a sad parting of ways that I regret but was powerless to prevent.

She’s still confused, and I know we can’t avoid this conversation—or him—any longer.

“Evie, you chose Oliver.”