Pictures of You

Chapter 58

58

Evie

“I’m sorry,” I say, over and over, anxious to pull myself together. Until tonight, I hadn’t known how severely I missed Drew, and how quickly he steadies me. It’s like coming home and meeting an earlier version of myself. One I liked more.

From some deep, sensible, grown-up part of myself, I dredge the self-control I need to reverse out of this meltdown and morph into his support person. The wrong shoulder is being cried on. “What can I do?” I ask.

“Take it one step at a time …” he suggests.

“No. What can I do to help you ?”

He shrugs, defeated. Stares ahead. Sips his wine. In my imagination, he’s that sixteen-year-old boy again who ambled into the art studio and put his feet up on the desk, not wanting to be there, difficult home life looming larger than everything else, while I pushed him to do even more.

“Come with me to Mum’s funeral?” he asks.

“Of course I’ll be there,” I assure him.

“I mean come with me,” he clarifies. “Sit with me. Stand beside me while I shake hands and make small talk with people I’ve never met.”

Like his date ? No, that’s not what this is. Funeral dates aren’t a thing.

I take his hand. “Ride or die, remember?”

I’m so glad he bamboozled me with that camera flash at my graduation. It seemed to startle me out of my reality. That we saw each other, just days before he needed me for this crisis, feels somehow fated. Of course, meeting up with Drew is exactly what tipped Oliver into a silent rage before he ruined the celebration dinner.

“You need to eat,” I announce, aware that the bottle of wine is disappearing fast, along with my inhibitions. “What do you feel like?”

“I feel like not making a decision,” Drew says, rubbing his forehead. His hand is shaking; he’s probably in shock. I rack my brain for first-aid information. What am I meant to do? Watching someone drown in freshly inflicted grief is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

I google the Thai takeaway we used to love, while Drew occupies himself reading emails on his mum’s laptop. I haven’t had Thai in years. Oliver hates it.

As I scan the menu, I realize it’s the first time in months I’ve been free to decide. How has it taken me so long to see all the ways Oliver chipped away at my preferences? And my friendships. Did you see how quickly Drew ran away at your grad? It’s the formal all over again. He’s hiding something. You can’t trust him, Evie. It’s only now that I’m realizing the extent to which he’s been planting doubt in my mind, convincing me to let everything go, piece by piece, while he replaces the discarded parts of my life with larger and larger pieces of himself.

I place the food order, put my phone down, and twist my body to face Drew’s on the floor next to me. He’s staring at the screen of his mum’s laptop, expression falling, eyes welling.

Without even speaking, he passes the computer to me. His head drops to my shoulder, hot tears seeping through onto the fabric of my shirt as I read the opening words of the message on the screen from his mum, written this morning.

“Darling Drew …”