Nathan's POV
Ev's Aunt Manon saw us almost immediately as we arrived in the car park at the train station. Although we were quite a hard group to miss - Tom, Max, Seev, Jaybird and myself were accompanied in first class by Ceallach, Sasha, my mum and Jess.
She jumped up from her car and elbowed her husband, who was sitting on the hood of his, and rushed over to us. Her young face was in front of mine in an instant, her spiky black hair looming very close to my forehead. "Hey Nathan!" She said, before giving me the biggest hug. I don't know what it was with Evanna's family, but they were always so happy. I was suddenly really glad we had decided to host the ceremony here. Ugh ceremony. I hated how formal it sounded.
Manon moved on from me and, presumably under specific orders from Ev, went straight to my mum. She had been feeling a bit tense for the whole journey - worried about meeting so many new people, little did she know she had absolutely nothing to worry about. Before I knew it, Manon had my mum giggling all over the place, completely at ease as they joked together.
"Alright, half in my car, half with Steph!" Manon called pointing to her husband who grinned at us. But as we all split up, Manon made sure to guide my mum over to her car which I thought was really thoughtful. Jay, Tom, Seev, Max and I all joined Steph in his much larger car. We stuck on the radio, singing along to any song we recognised and talking over it when we didn't. Steph, only about 7 years older than Max, was easy to speak to, helping to poke fun at me with all the others.
We arrived in the village where Evanna lived a while later and as we drove along the dirt path the white sands of the beach caught my attention. I saw a sign saying Closed to the Public 6th - 7th September and my stomach tightened.
"This place is sweeeet!" Max let out a low whistle once he had hopped out the car, neatly parked behind Manon's. He looked over to the scorching sun and the glistening, inviting waves almost hungrily.
"I'll say!" Siva breathed, his eyes unfocused as they lingered on the almost blindingly white sands.
"Woah, we'd better brace ourselves. I can tell Siva's already planned to be getting up early for some sunrise meditation." Jay laughed his booming chuckle which was always more entertaining than the actual joke he was telling.
"My brother, Ev's dad lives here. If you'd like to come inside." Manon took um under her wing once more. Jess, who had been here once with us before just strolled in after them her face stretched into a seemingly permanent smile.
"You coming Nath?" Ceallach called over to me as he followed Sasha inside. I could hear girlish giggles coming from the back garden and I wondered if Ev was there.
"Nath - you do realise that the faster you get your butt inside, the sooner you see Ev?" Tom asked cheekily. I grinned and tried to roll my eyes casually. But I increased my speed all the same and propelled myself towards the door.
I joined the crowd of people gathered in the bright hallway, cluttered as it was with boxes. I think I could take a guess at what sort of thing they contained. Gemma, Ev's eight year old sister, was already in Jay's arms - they'd sort of bonded for life over Christmas when she'd met Neytiri.
Manon dragged us all through the house to the sunny garden and Natalie pounced on us. Imitating the actions of her sister-in-law she introduced herself to everyone. I let my eyes wander past her, to where Ev's sister Renee was wobbling around after her dad wearing a tiny pink prom dress. I think I could guess what that was for too. It was only just dawning on me that it was actually happening.
I strained my neck to see Evanna, Siva laughing when I still wasn't his height, but she obviously wasn't here. I edged forward to where Natalie was talking to my mum. They were chatting about preparations and stuff, mum seemed at home instantly offering to stick the kettle on for everyone, and I hated to interrupt but I had to know where Ev was.
"Natalie - " I started, I felt her large brown eyes on my face. It was strange that despite how they weren't biologically related, Natalie's expression was set in the same way as Ev's - the same intense gaze, the same wide eyes. It was hard to ignore how similar their faces suddenly looked which made me slightly uncomfortable. "Where's Ev?"
Natalie laughed and met my mum's eye. They shared a look. "She's down at the beach with Briony, I think." My forehead crumpled slightly and I wondered why she was there when all the preparations were going on up here, it was unlike her. To answer my unasked question Natalie continued, addressing my mum too. “Evanna's been ill, the poor soul. She was really sick last night. I think everything's just getting too much for her.” My mum frowned and said something in response but I wasn't listening.
Evanna was still ill? We'd spoken everyday and she'd never mentioned it. I left the group of chattering people to their own devices and made my way out of the house. As I approached the beach, I made out two people sitting near the water's edge. I recognised Ev's auburn hair spilling out from under her large rimmed sun hat over her bare arms, her head slumped against Briony's shoulder who had her arm around her.
I felt a pang of jealously as I looked at Briony with her arm around Ev. I rarely got to take care of Ev, half the time because she was more suited to looking after me than the other way round, but also because she hated to appear weak and tried to squirm out of getting taken care of whenever possible.
“Hey,” I said, stopping just next to them. Briony looked up first, her face splitting into a grin, she threw her head back.
“Thank God!” She laughed “Nathan's here!” Evanna jerked up as she heard my name and looked up at me. Her face was blank at first and then, when she was able to squint past the sun and recognise me she screamed and jumped up to hug me.
I wrapped my arms around her warm body as she slammed into me. “Nathan, I'm so glad you're here.” She mumbled into my shoulder, exhaling heavily as though she'd been holding back her breath for a while.
“Hey there.” I said laughing. In amusement I looked over Evanna's head at Briony who was getting to her feet, she just smiled at me.
“So are all the boys here Nath? You sister? Everyone?” Evanna pulled back and brushed the hair from her face. I nodded, taking her delicate hand in mine.
“Wait – Jay's here?” Briony gaped, looking back up to the house in horror.
“Yeah.”
“Oh my god!” She bent down and tried to squeeze her feet back into her sandals hurriedly. “My dad's up there, helping Henle with the organising! Oh he can't be near Jay!”
I caught Evanna's eye and she shrugged at me. “Err, why is that exactly?” I ventured. She groaned and didn't answer.
“Yeah, what happened with you two? Are you going out?” Evanna asked.
“No. We – we - fine, I'll tell you.” Briony sighed and faced us, crossing her arms “We kissed up in Scotland. We kept kissing for a while, for a few weeks, but nothing further happened.” Her voice was thick with implications. Evidently, this was making Briony bitter.
“If you kissed for that long, how did you breathe?” She ignored me again but I saw Evanna's lips twitch into a smile.
“And then Jay said he didn't want anything further. And that was 'End of'. Queue awkward avoidance for the foreseeable future.”
At the same time, Ev and I began to offer our condolences but Briony squirmed away from them. “Whatever. I don't want him talking to my dad. I just don't think I could handle it. I'll leave you two alone.” And with that she took off sprinting up the beach.
Evanna sat back down again and tugged on my hand, wanting me to join her. Hunkering down beside her, I asked “So why are you here when everything's going down up at the house?”
She laughed. “That's sort of the problem. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother more than anyone else in the world – well, more than most people - “ She winked at me, nudging my ribs. I was stunned “ - But I can't take any more organising. She's so into it. It's doing my head in.” She laughed and leaned into me.
“Do you mean that?” I asked my voice sounding oddly separate form my body.
“Yeah – she's totally overdoing it. She wrote up a plan!”
“No not that – I mean about you loving...” I felt awkward and stopped. “Ev, you love your mum more than I knew it was possible to love another person.”
“Yeah, well I love you more.” She said simply. But I could tell from the way she was examining the sand under her splayed fingers that she was trying to hide a blush. “It sounds cruel to say it but...Nathan, you have to understand, it took me years to learn to love my family. I was a white kid living with two beautiful, bronze parents. I resented them for making me leave, for taking me away from Lorraine and the others, for picking me over them.”
It had never occurred to me that Evanna had ever felt this way. She looked so delicate as she sat beside me, tracing a long, thin finger through the sand only grazing the surface. She wasn't looking at what she was doing, hadn't realised that she had been tracing my name. “But with you it was the most natural thing in the world. It took a few months to get to know you and a few days to realise that I loved you.” She looked at me and my heart actually ached. How was it possible to long for her, to desire her as I did when we getting married the day after tomorrow?
“You shouldn't stress about the wedding. I'll take care of what I can. You won't even notice it's happened.” I told her, seeing her face relax. She put her face close to my own, looking at my mouth as I spoke.
“You promise?” She breathed. Her eyes flickered up to my eyes sceptically. “I really don't think my mum will back down that easily. And it's only going to get worse until the wedding, right?”
“We still have tonight.” I shrugged.
“I'm sort of counting on that.” She giggled, putting her hand on my shoulder and pushing me down, leaning on top of me. I grinned at her cheekily. Evanna had this way of bossing me around or trying to be in control and still managing to make it completely adorable.
“I love you.” I told her.
Her smiled slowly disappeared and she nodded saying “I know,” before leaning down to kiss me. Her hair, warm from the sun, fell around my face and I tasted her apple chapstick. She sighed and got up. “We should go back.”
But she got up too soon and wobbled a bit as she fell off balance. I stood quickly and steadied her. “Your mum said you were sick last night.” I told her as we began back up to the house.
“Yeah. Just a wee bug, though. It's getting better though!” wasn't convinced.
“Maybe you should go to the doctors just to be sure.”
“No. No I'm really, really fine.” She was a little more forceful this time.
“You're really not, Ev.” I said quietly. “Will you go to the doctors?”
“No!” Ev said, dropping my hand. “I'm not going back there! I'll just find out that some other part of me doesn't work. I'm already infertile -” she whispered the word having not told anyone else yet “ - let's see what else they throw at me!”
“Evanna, I don't get it. It would just be silly to get scared about this!” I tried to reason with her.
She was quiet for a while before replying “Well what if I am?” Her big blue eyes met mine and suddenly I understood, she was scared of what else she might find out. She'd found out so much by accident lately – the fact she was infertile, the fact she had a brother – who hadn't responded to her wedding invitation which had cut her up – and she was petrified of what else she might discover about what was supposed to be her life. I got that.
She stood a little distance away from me but I crossed it quickly and she let me put my arms around her. We walked like that back up to the house. As soon as we arrived, Evanna was smiling once more – back to her self which I was relieved to see.
As the day drew to a close, I decided to take Evanna to a hotel overnight rather than stay with her parents. Charlie and Briony went to their dad's and Manon drove her husband, Sasha, Ceallach, my my mum and Jess to the hotel while Steph loaned us his car and I drove me and the boys to the same place. Ceallach, in the car in front, kept shoving his nose against the back window and I chuckled, his silliness distracting me. Evanna was in the back with Siva playing temple run on his iphone until she got carsick and had to take a break.
The hotel was in the city, near Manon's house so we booked rooms, and split up as the hotel was busy and rooms were limited. Mum found me and hugged me, it was quite embarrassing. I heard Jess snigger, all the boys guffawed, Evanna prodded Tom's arm as he laughed particularly loudly. Mum hugged Ev as well which took her by surprise. She caught my eye and I winked at her she blushed and looked away.
It was nice to know that even in all this craziness that I still had the same effect on her that I always had.
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Hello there!
Hope you liked that even if I'm still keeping you hangin But I loved seeing your speculation from the last chapter. You all seem to have come to the same conclusion....hmmm interesting;)
Well overdue dedication to EstrellitaBeltran - she's brilliant and super lovely and has just started her own fanfic so it'd be cool if you checked that out:)
Thanks so much for all your comments last chapter, joking aside, I absolutely love you guys.
Until next time x