Evie's Job

70: Natalie

Evie nodded. “That’s good too.”

“I thought so. But I’m distracting you. I should let you study.”

“Nah, you’re not. I haven’t been able to concentrate all day. I said that already, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

Evie turned in her chair, to face towards Natalie. She lifted her feet up as well, getting comfortable, and sat hugging her knees. She seemed to be thinking. “So what happened with the ex?” she said. “If it’s okay for me to ask?”

“You can ask. She had an affair. It went on for a while. Eventually she left me for the other woman.”

“Oh,” Evie said. “I’m sorry.”

Natalie shrugged.

“God, I’m really sorry,” Evie said. “That’s awful.”

“I think we’d probably stayed together longer than we should have. I mean, I think that now. Because people expected us to. Friends, and work as well. Everyone.”

“All the same…”

“Yes,” Natalie said. “Well. Obviously at the time I thought it was pretty awful. I was quite upset.”

“I imagine,” Evie said, thinking. “How did it go with all the friends?”

“Not well. Which is why you might have noticed there aren’t many around any more.”

Evie nodded. “I wondered. That isn’t good.”

“It isn’t, no.”

“Well,” Evie said. “Sympathies and stuff. I’ve been there.”

Natalie thought about that, and was suddenly curious. She started wondering what heartbreaks Evie had been through.

“Do you want to tell me,” Natalie said.

Evie shrugged. “There isn’t much. First serious girl, it didn’t end well. She hurt me and I got kind of publically, embarrassingly upset.”

Natalie nodded, thinking that explained a lot. Evie’s wariness about the words they used and promises they made and her caution about what everything meant. Evie had baggage she was bringing to this, too, and Natalie wondered why she hadn’t thought of that before. It seemed bad that she hadn’t Like anyone else, Evie had probably been hurt, and Natalie hadn’t thought to wonder about that until now. It was a little surprising to suddenly realise she should have.

“I don’t want that to happen ever again,” Evie said. “Being let down by someone I thought I could trust. So I’m careful now. You might have noticed.”

“I noticed,” Natalie said. “But me too. Me either. Whichever of those is right.”

“I get what you mean.”

“I don’t want to be hurt either,” Natalie said, wanting to be understood. “I don’t want to hurt you. Not anyone, but especially not you.”

“So don’t,” Evie said. “Simple.”

“I won’t,” Natalie said. She suspected Evie had been joking, but answered seriously anyway.

“Yeah,” Evie said, seeming to notice. “And honestly, I think I always knew you wouldn’t. That’s probably why I’m here.”

“Because I won’t hurt you on purpose?”

Evie nodded. “Because I trust you.”

“Not because…. I don’t know. Whatever? Fun and so on?”

Evie shrugged. “Not especially. I mean, yes, of course, but also no. I’m here because I trust you, but I want to be here because the other stuff. Does that make sense?”

Natalie nodded. Actually it did. She felt mostly the same way.

“And I like being around someone who understands me,” Evie said. “Who I don’t have to pretend to be stupid or shallow or whatever around.”

“Same,” Natalie said. “Me too.”

Evie grinned. “Thought you might.”

“Oh I do,” Natalie said. “God, you can’t imagine. And I like working too much as well. Just while we’re saying this. And I like that you work a lot too, and that you seem happy doing it. I think we fit like that.”

Evie nodded. “I know.”

“And I like ambition,” Natalie said, since she was making lists.

“I like that you like those things.”

“But you don’t?”

Evie shrugged. “Not as much as you, I think. But enough.”

Natalie nodded.

Evie sat there for a while, looking over at Natalie. “Hey,” she said. “So something else. While we’re saying stuff. The one who broke my heart and everything, she wasn’t that serious. I mean, I thought it was, and it mattered to me a lot at the time, but it wasn’t really. It wasn’t anything much.”

“All right,” Natalie said.

“Just so you know, is all. She wasn’t serious.”

Natalie nodded.

“You are though,” Evie said.

“I am what?” Natalie said. “Serious?”

Evie nodded. “You feel serious. Serious enough. Whatever that means right now.”

“I’m serious about you.”

“I know. So don’t make a big thing of this, and get all weird at me, but you’re my first real girlfriend, now I think about it.”

“Oh,” Natalie said, surprised. “Shit, Evie, I…”

“I said don’t get weird.”

“I’m not. I…”

“I was just thinking about it, was all. Everyone else has been, well, casual. Like carefully unserious. You’re the first person I got this serious with. I mean, as serious as it is now.”

“I’m… flattered. And surprised.”

“And again, with what I just said? About not getting weird…”

“Sorry,” Natalie said, then, “I’m really not.”

Evie grinned.

“I’m still flattered,” Natalie said.

“Yay for you.”

“I am.”

“Yeah, well,” Evie said. “I wouldn’t get too smug. It’s probably as much because I haven’t had time to meet anyone else, as because I only just met you.”

Natalie grinned at her, then said, “I don’t care. I think it’s because you just met me.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not.”

Natalie got up and went over and kissed Evie, and Evie pretended to be suddenly busy, and kept reading for a moment before she kissed back, laughing. Kissing once led to kissing a lot more, and then to Evie closing her book and her laptop’s lid, and saying if Natalie was just going to interrupt her they may as well just go to bed now.

They went to bed, and Natalie was happy. This, with Evie, was good.