Chapter 9
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I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
BAM!
Evan slammed his fist against the volume button and put his shaky hand back on the steering wheel. The car was parked a couple houses down from his mother’s; Evan just sat in the seat, frozen. I had tried to talk to him, but he ignored me. I couldn’t even get him to look at me. I had made a huge mistake taking him to his mother’s house. This craziness all started because of me. I had tried to put on music to soothe him, but that resulted in him trying to break his fucking radio.
“Evan, we should go. We can’t do anything.”
Evan shifted in his seat and I heard him sigh. “That’s not true, Mel. There’s so much we can do. W-We could run away together, you, me, and Bethany. She could be ours, Mel.”
“Our what?”
“Our kid. She doesn’t deserve to live in such a shitty place…”
“And you think we could take care of her? You think we could just run away? Get a fucking grip, Evan. We have no money. We’re not even dating!”
“But I called you my boyfriend, we are.”
“You’re delusional, I’m still with Dany,” I screamed.
Evan stared at me with a burning rage behind his eyes that made me want to disappear. He looked like he was going to kill me. I shrunk back in my seat and looked out the window. In my peripheral vision I could see him typing something on his phone. From the way he was jabbing at the keys, it looked as though he was going to dent the phone. He put the phone to his ear, and I heard someone say something on the other line. I couldn’t tell who it was. Then he set it down and grabbed my shoulder.
“Get out,” He said, pushing at my shoulder.
“What? Why?”
“I-I just don’t want to fight right now. I don’t want to hurt you… I called your father and he is on his way to pick you up. He told me that he was already out, so it will only take him about ten minutes to get here.”
“You’re going to just leave me here. You fucking…”
“No, don’t say anything else. I just need to be alone.”
“Okay, okay, yeah, be alone… Jackass.”
I forced the door open and kicked the door closed. Before I could yell at him more, he sped away, leaving me standing in the middle of the street, thirty minutes away from my house. Why the hell would he do that to me? I was just trying to help him. Where was he even going? He drove off in the wrong direction. I grumbled as I sat on the curb. It was actually a nice day out. The sun was a bit sweltering, but if I wasn’t on a fucking curb, I would have been swimming in my pool. I might have even been swimming with Evan.
It was much longer than ten minutes. My dad arrived twenty minutes after Evan had left. He seemed very confused as I hopped into the passenger’s side.
“Why are you here? Why did Evan call me?”
“He left me here.”
“Why you two here?”
“Well…”
I tried to think of another reason why we could be here, but nothing was coming to my head. All I could think about was how his mother told him that he wasn’t welcome there and how she had just slammed the door in his face. He didn’t deserve it. He was a good guy.
“Mel?” My dad said, waving his hand in front of my face. I must have spaced out.
“Oh, sorry. We were here because Evan needed to give something to his friend, Isaac. Isaac lives in that…”
I looked at the house next to Evan’s mothers. It was a bright baby blue.
“…He lives in that blue house.”394Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnLPObwdQnb
My dad frowned and took a good look at the house.
“But why did he leave you here?” He asked.
“Well, he needed to go to his mother’s house right away and he couldn’t drop me back at home, so he thought calling you to come pick me up would be okay.”
God, I suck at lying.
“Where does his mother live now?”
“She, uh, lives in an apartment about ten minutes from, Brooklyn Court, is what I think the place is called.”
Hopefully that was what the apartment complex was called or else I was in deep shit.
My dad immediately picked up a map he had sitting on the dash board and unfolded it. I watched as his eyes scanned the paper and landed on a specific spot. My heart had completely stopped. I couldn’t breathe and my palms were sweating pools of water.
“Do you mean Brooklyn Corner?”
I let out the breath I had been holding and said with all the confidence that I had left, “Yes, that is what I meant.”
“Oh well that’s really interesting because one, that apartment complex is a senior living complex…”
My heart stopped again.
“And two, isn’t that Evan’s mother right there?”
I gradually turned my head to look out the windshield and there she was waddling to her car. My eyes almost popped out of my head as I deciphered what was happening. My dad was actually going to kill me. He would never let me see the light of day again. Me lying was like a felony to him. But no yelling occurred. My dad was completely silent. He watched as Evan’s mother backed out of the driveway and disappeared around a corner. I pulled at my hair as I waited for his response. What was he going to do to me?
“She’s pregnant.” Was all he uttered. Then he simply put the car into drive and drove off down the street. I couldn’t believe it. He didn’t even scold me for lying.
“You’re not mad?”
“I’m not the one who should be angry.”
“Wait, who should be angry?” I couldn’t wrap my head around what he was saying.
“Poor Evan. Why did you two go to see her?”
“Oh god, so you aren’t mad at me for lying to you?”
“Well, no, just disappointed, but that doesn’t matter. Where did Evan go?”
“I don’t know. He just told me that he needed to be alone.”
“I hope he’s not trying to do anything stupid,” My dad murmured.
“Dad, is it okay if I go looking for him once we get back?”
My dad raised an eyebrow. “I think you should just let him be.”
“B-But, I can’t. He needs me.”
“He needs you? I thought he wanted to be alone?” I glanced at my dad and was scared at how fast the wheels in his brain were turning. I had to stop being so obvious.
“A friend shouldn’t abandon a friend,” I said matter-of-factly. That would for sure cover our tracks.
“Oh, yes, that is true,” My father said, but I could still see the wheels going.
“Yes, yes, I need to be a good friend.”
My dad pursed his lips but didn’t say anything else. As soon as we got home, I jumped out of the car and ran over to my own car.
“Drive safe and be back by ten,” My dad yelled as I started to back out of the driveway.
“Okay!”
I didn’t get too far before I came to a realization. I knew exactly where he went. I whipped my car into a parking spot and ran towards the beautiful cement sidewalk. In the distance, I saw a figure sitting on top of the monkey bars. Evan, it had to be him. I sprinted down the sidewalk and was out of breath by the time I got to the edge of the park. Evan was faced the opposite way and he didn’t even look to see who was there. I listened to the wood chips crunch beneath my feet; I stopped when I reached the bars.
“I told you that I wanted to be alone.”
“You know that I never listen.”
I watched his shoulders shake and knew that he must have been laughing. I reached up and grabbed a hold of the monkey bars. And just like before, I couldn’t even pull myself up and over them. Evan leisurely turned around and then saw me hanging beside him.
“Didn’t I tell you that you needed to do more pull ups?”
Evan jumped down and pushed me up. I smiled and watched him leap up and sit right next to me. His shoulder pressed into mine, and I felt warmth radiate throughout my whole body. I placed my hand on his inner thigh. I could see a bright smile form on his face. He placed his hand over mine and we just sat together in silence.
Then after a few minutes, I slowly moved my hand up his thigh until it rested on his crotch. I felt him take a sharp intake of breath. I rubbed and watched as his face twisted in pleasure. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his gorgeous face. I had never seen anything more beautiful in my life. He tipped his head back and groaned as I rubbed harder. His hand was still resting on mine and soon I felt it try to stop mine.
“Mel…Mel,” Evan whispered, his voice a deep husky sound. He moved my hand onto his leg. “Not now, okay?”
“I want you.”
Evan sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair. There was something he wasn’t telling me. I could see it in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
Evan sat silent and then started to fidget with his shirt. I could barely take it. I needed to know what he was thinking about.
“Evan, tell me.”
“I think I’m going to move…”
“Where?”
He took a deep breath and whispered, “California.”
“B-But, why?” California was thousands of miles away.
Evan grimaced and hopped off the monkey bars.
“Mel… I need to get away. I’m going crazy. I can’t go back to the way I was, but I feel myself going down that dark and scary path, and I can’t. I can’t.”
“What path.”
I stared down at Evan and my hand flew to my mouth in shock as Evan pulled up his shirt sleeves. There were multiple cuts on both arms.
“Evan…Oh god.”
I jumped down next to him and took his arms in my hands. Evan avoided my gaze and I felt him shaking under my touch. I could feel the tears building up in my eyes. Leaning down, I lightly kissed his cuts. I didn’t know what I was doing but once I started, I couldn’t stop. I kissed all along his arms. It didn’t make the cuts disappear, but I could feel Evan’s shaking cease. As I was kissing his right arm, Evan’s other hand gripped my chin and forced me to look up at him.
He leaned down and took my lips in his. It was a slow and heartbreaking kiss. I could feel my tears flowing down my face. Evan gripped my waist and I wrapped both my hands around his wrists. He winced and grunted in my mouth.
“Still a little tender,” He muttered, in between kisses. I loosened my grip but didn’t let go. I had to touch his pain. I had to feel all his sadness. I couldn’t let him go.
Evan pulled back and I could see the pain in his eyes. I glanced down at my hands and was horrified as I saw blood covering them.
“Oh, Evan, I’m sorry. We have to bandage them.”
“No, it’s okay…Just think of it like, you know, the blood after sex.”
I thought back to Dany and the bloody sheets. I couldn’t help but grin as Evan said that. He was right. This was the most intimate that I gotten with him so far. He had shown me his pain and I had felt it.
“Evan, how did you do this to yourself? I thought you had told me before that you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.”
“I have never hurt as much as I have in the past year. And this is what happened. Once I started cutting, I couldn’t stop. And the scars have never been deep, but the more I did it, the more you could see it which is why I’ve been wearing longer sleeves these past few weeks.”
I can’t believe I didn’t even notice his change in wardrobe. It was summer and I didn’t even suspect a thing.
“Evan, what your mother did to your father was wrong, but you can’t keep doing this to yourself. You can’t use this to stop feeling the pain.”
I waited for him to respond, but he stood silent. Then he grabbed me by the shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. It was as if he was trying to show me his soul, and I couldn’t look at all his pain for long. My eyes drifted towards his Nike sneakers and I admired how bold he was to wear orange shoes. Only the confident people of the world could wear orange shoes. Then out of nowhere Evan whispered,
“Mel, will you come to California with me?”
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