Chapter 2 391Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqtn2QBRQvC
The summer before tenth grade rolled around, and Jaime was no longer on my mind. That summer I was focusing on one thing and one thing only: to have fun. So far, I was doing great. I rolled down my backyard hill multiple times a day and swam as much as I could.
Today was one of those days where the sun was high in the sky, the wind was slightly rustling the beautiful deep green leaves of the trees, and the temperature was about eighty degrees. It was a perfect day to roll down hills. My backyard had the largest grass hill in the neighborhood, so it seemed wasteful not to roll down it whenever I could. And yes, I was almost sixteen, but I just couldn’t resist the hills. It was as if they were calling me. I could smell the sweet aroma of grass as it breezed past my face. Birds tweeted in the background and everything seemed right in the world.
In the middle of one of my rolls, I could hear the stomping of feet along the stairs that were parallel to my yard. My backyard was surrounded by a fence, and the neighbors put in steps along the fence to make it easier to get down the massive hill that cut our lawns in two. I tried to open my eyes, but all I could see was the blur of trees and bushes. Then I heard the fence at the top of my hill open. I yanked my body upward so that it would start to slow down, and before long, I was lying face up toward the crystal blue sky. Someone joined me. I didn’t even look; as long as they weren’t there to murder me, I didn’t care. It was almost peaceful.
It stayed like that for a few minutes. I didn’t look at them; they didn’t bother me. But all silence seems to come to an end eventually. One measly finger appeared in my line of site and just as it did, it jabbed my forehead, hard. I knew who it was, just from how they poked me. Something that resembled anger was bubbling inside me. I propped myself up on my elbow and looked their way.
Evan. His eyes looked different today. The lack of eyeliner was working in his favor. Today’s blue skies matched Evan’s eyes perfectly; they were glowing, bright, and warm. He must have ditched the trench coat, good for him, it was not working for him anyways. Instead he had on some jean shorts and a plain red tee. The stranger I once saw every day at school was gone; my friend was back. He was grinning as I rubbed my forehead. He always used to poke my forehead so hard that a red mark would form. I used to not mind, but he had been out of my life for almost two years; I wasn’t about to tolerate it now.
“What the hell are you doing?” I growled, standing up and backing a few feet away.
“Mel, I…”
“You don’t get to come trespassing into my backyard, harass me, and think you can get away with it. I am not your best friend anymore!”
At my last statement, he took a few shocked steps back. His face had turned from the happy, beautiful boy back to the sad, emo one. I wanted to take it all back; to tell him that I would be happy to be his best friend again, that I had been aching to see him like this for two years, but something inside of me was holding back.
I couldn’t forgive him, I just couldn’t. He had left me with no one else to turn to. He pretended that I didn’t even exist. He made me cry for days, no months. He made me miserable. I had been completely lost without him. He couldn’t just come back. It wouldn’t be fair. But seeing him made my head spin.
Before I could tell him to get lost, he took a few steps forward. I instinctively took two steps back. He kept moving forward, silently. I just kept moving back, my heels scraped against the cement of my patio. Shit, I was already on my patio, that would mean…
Boom! My back collided with the side of my house. I fought for air as the wind got knocked out of me. Evan took another step forward and was suddenly right in front of me.
“Listen to me,” Evan whispered, taking my hand and gently massaging it. He used to do that to help ease my stress before a big test. I used to like it but now… I tried to object, but he put a finger to his lips. “I am so sorry that I left you. It was the worst mistake I ever made. You are and always will be my best friend. Whether I am still your best friend is up to you, but god, please let me be your friend again. I’ve missed your irritated expressions.”
Sweat rolled down my fingers. I couldn’t tell if it was mine or Evan’s. I was getting so warm. And even though we used to stand this close and hold hands when we were best friends, now felt very different from those times.
“Please,” He murmured. His eyes bore into me like a battering ram and suddenly all my walls came crashing down. I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Don’t ever leave me again,” I said, pushing him off me and running back to the hill.
I could see his smile even from the back of my head. Man, it was radiant.
Every day that summer after that, I would go to Evan’s house which was only a few doors down and lay on his bed with him for hours. It was like everything magically went back to normal. He would have a book open, and we would sit there in silence, the only noise being the flipping of the pages. That was my favorite pastime except for when we were in my backyard, rolling down hills as if we were little children. Sometimes we would even ride our bikes down it. Bad idea, especially because the hill was very uneven. It was an amazing summer. We spent every waking minute together. It was all very surreal.
“I’d never given much thought to how I would die,” Evan whispered in my ear. I was in my backyard, reading Twilight, one of the worst yet greatest novels ever. He knew the whole movie by heart, so him reciting the first line of the book was not at all surprising.
“I thought death was the only thing you ever thought about, emo boy,” I spit back, not even looking up to greet him.
“Oh god, you are so right, emo people just constantly think about killing themselves every waking minute.”
I glanced up just to make sure he was one hundred percent joking. That radiant smile of his was plastered on his face. Something else caught my attention. He noticed me looking and ran his hair through his dark brown hair.
“You like?” He grinned. The once long and curly hair was now a short and cleaner cut. It made him look older, and that made me utterly speechless. He looked so mature. He looked so handsome.
When I didn’t answer right away, the smile vanished. And when I saw that happen, I immediately stood up and grabbed his hair.
“It’s so short. You look just like Robert Downey Jr. minus the sexy scruff.”
I knew me comparing him to Robert Downey Jr. would make him happy because he was a literal freak about the movie Iron Man, but he did look a lot like Robert which was kind of freaky.
Evan snorted and watched me as I continued to run my hands through his hair. It felt so weird and different. It felt so right. He no longer looked like the sad little emo kid. He looked like Evan Nas.
“You look great, buddy.” What a lame reply.
“Thanks,” He said, patting my back. “We should go for a swim today.”
I glanced at my above ground pool and then back at Evan who already had on swim trunks.
“What if I say no,” I said, pointing to his trunks.
“Then whatever, but it’s like a million degrees out here so we should.”
“Want to invite the neighbors too?”
“Uh, yeah, sure, if they’re around.”
I didn’t pay much attention to his very uncertain response and ran up my porch towards my room. I could hear him following me. Before I walked inside, I stopped him.
“Just stay out here and swim in the pool until I come back. Okay?”
He nodded. I would’ve let him come with me years ago, but unfortunately my body was going through some weird changes, and I didn’t really want him there to see. If I was uncomfortable with my own body, he would have probably been even more uncomfortable. I pulled on some green swim trunks and a swim shirt because, yet again, I looked really bad without one. Before I went down to the pool, I knocked on the neighbor’s doors. All the people were gone. I cursed and made my way down to the pool. I don’t know why, but my heart started to beat faster. I could see Evan floating on his back near the side of the pool. As quickly as possible, I stalked over to where he was, and splashed him with as much water as I could push at him.
Before I could run away, he splashed me back and grabbed both my arms.
“Hey, let go!” I yelled, trying to pull away, but his grip was like steel.
“Not until you apologize,” He whispered, his face was so close that I could tell he had already swallowed a lot of chlorine.
I turned my face away.
“Fine,” He said.
Suddenly I was being pulled into the pool, up and over the edge. Evan whipped me in and then grabbed me again before I could stand up. He held me bridal style and I knew what was about to happen.
“No, no! The pool is too swallow.”
“What color am I thinking of?” He grinned.
“Uh… green!”
He dipped my head into the water and I gasped when he let me back up.
“Guess again.”
“Blue.”
“God, you’re lousy at guessing.”
Another dunk. Only one more chance left.
“Magenta,” I said, trying to change it up. The only reaction I got was a small head shake, and suddenly I was flipped upside down into the water. His body moved away from mine and I was just floating there. The water was just the right temperature. I turned myself over and floated on my back with my eyes closed. With the sun beating down on me, I could see the multiple veins in my eyes. Everything felt good. It was like I was floating in space; oblivious to life on planet Earth. I could have laid there for ages.
Evan grabbed my arm and pulled me along the length of the pool. The heat of his hand radiated throughout my body.
“I want to stay here forever,” I whispered.
“That would be perfect.”
The hours flew by and soon it was completely dark. Evan and I were each on a floaty. The moon was directly overhead and I tried to count the stars around it. Most of them turned out to be airplanes though. Evan was hanging onto my floaty and spinning us around. I tried doing that to him, but he had a lot more upper body strength than me.
“You know, I did actually think about dying,” Evan whispered out of nowhere.
I glanced at him and was surprised when the night shadows formed dark circles under his eyes. He looked like he did last school year. He sucked in a deep breath and continued.
“My friends used to harm themselves all the time with razors and scissors and even their own bare hands. I tried the razor thing, it almost made me pass out. I also tried using my own two hands. I couldn’t bring myself to making more than one scratch though. My friends made suicide attempts look normal. I also thought about just taking pills because I did feel like killing myself sometimes, but something always held me back.”
He looked at me and gave me a small smile.
“I think it was because I knew I would let you down. I knew it would make you miserable. And I also just wanted my friend back. If I would’ve killed myself, then how would I have gotten back to you.”
I didn’t know what to say. My breath came out in short shallow increments, and I could feel my chest tightening. He almost killed himself. He had almost done it. And he was absolutely right, I would have mourned for years. I would have blamed myself for not saving him. I might have even gone down the same path that he had. I took a deep shaky breath and met his gaze.
“I’m glad you didn’t. I’m so happy that you’re back here, with me.”
We floated there for hours more. My eyes grew heavy, and suddenly I was asleep. It was the best sleep I had ever had.
“Mel…Mel…”
It was still dark. The moon was still high overhead and Evan was still right next to me.
“It’s three, you should go to bed.”
“Okay…” I looked at him for a second and then added. “Let’s go to my room, then.”
He grinned, but said no, and pushed my floaty towards the ladder.
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“We should go to the park today.”
Evan came up to my front door with his bike in hand. I couldn’t believe it; he never wanted to go to park.
“You finally want to? Yes!”
The park had been a big thing for us, but since we hadn’t hung out for two years, the park didn’t seem like a big thing anymore. I had tried to convince Evan to go to the park for several weeks, but he had always refused, saying it would be boring. I don’t understand why he changed his mind now, but I was not going to argue. Monkey bars, here we come!
“Yeah, we’re meeting Willow there.”
Oh, so there was a catch.
“Who’s Willow?”
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