Chapter 65
65
Evie
I know it can’t have been my first kiss. I must have had a thousand kisses by now. But was it like that to kiss Oliver? Did I lose myself like that? Aching to be nearer to him and part of him ?
Drew seems shattered.
“I’ve never done that before,” I confess. It sounds like a line. Like I’m trying to say I don’t usually throw myself at old friends on my parents’ back deck before breakfast. “I’ve never kissed someone—”
He seems momentarily confused.
“Only you, Drew. Twice now.”
“Evie—”
“That’s the only kiss I properly remember.” I’m not counting that horrendous experience from Year Nine.
What makes things true? I can imagine a whole world of experience missing from my memory, but if I don’t remember it, did it ever happen? Aren’t we meant to be the sum of our experiences? Surely that works only if our memories are intact. Piled up over years, shaping us into the people we become.
He’s looking at me like he doesn’t know what to do with me. Or with us. Up until now, he seemed in control of this situation, but I’ve blown that up.
“We can’t do this,” he says, shifting me from his lap, standing up and walking to the edge of the deck. “For … so many reasons.”
“Because Oliver is dead?”
“Yes.”
“Because of the amnesia?”
“God, yes.” He’s leaning back now, against the railing, trying to push more space between us, perhaps.
“Drew, that kiss was not nothing. Not even close.”
He fails to argue back this time. Just looks at me, with some sort of hopeless acceptance.
Whatever the two of us had back then, it was special. This is years of chemistry, safely contained. Explosive agents sitting beside each other on a shelf, not allowed to mix until now. And this no longer feels like it’s just about our past. It’s about our future.
It’s as if the loss of the last thirteen years doesn’t matter at all, and we could just start right here, on this deck at sunrise.