Clara sat on the bench under a gigantic tree and surrounded by many varieties of flowers and messy bushes. Evelyn sidled onto the bench next to Clara and propped up one of her feet and turned to face her left. Clara was similarly facing Evelyn, though both her feet were on the ground and intertwined.
“Tell me everything,” Clara said, practically demanded, and Evelyn bristled. Seriously, overprotective instincts or not, this type of thing rang so harshly, full of attitude, no one would believe Evelyn that Clara Williams was the one saying it. Her voice was exactly like the cool chill that brushed over Evelyn’s bare shoulders, and she hated that she always came so unequipped with stuff to gymnastics.
Her primary concern before gymnastics was always going to be making sure that she hadn’t somehow forgotten her grips, not whether she had a jacket or not.
Whatever. Time to answer Miss. Student Council President. Evelyn stared straight into Clara William’s blue eyes, a habit that she probably needed to stop and started explaining. “I don’t know if you came to that party two months back, Lilith’s party, but-”
“Yeah, I know,” Clara said, completely interrupting Evelyn. Wow, the attitude level was high right now. Either protective spirit made Clara mean, or she was only an asshole when nobody was watching except inconsequential people like Evelyn Allen. At least it made it easier for Evelyn not want to absolutely sink into beautiful blue eyes. Really, listening skills were hot. Clara should consider developing them, though she probably made up for it with the nice girl attitude she had to literally everyone except Evelyn in school.
Seriously, what the hell had Evelyn done to Clara Williams to get such a drastic reaction? Such a change in personality was honestly unprecedented, and when people saw her, they did tend to be either angry, disappointed for some reason, pitiful, or disapproving as if they had any say in her life. Or they were scared that Evelyn would do something to them, which was seriously wild, because she’d only done shit to people who hurt people she cared about. And assholes in general.
“Okay,” Evelyn drawled, telling herself to stop trying to figure out Clara Williams. Maybe she was just… An asshole at home or something. It did not need to matter to Evelyn, who just needed to interact with Clara Williams once more. “Well, I was drunk off my ass, and you better not snitch on me, because there’s no way you’ve never gone to one of the parties and not drunk any alcohol, even if you do try to convince me there’s no fucking way I’m gonna believe you. Nuh uh. Anyway, so basically,” Evelyn took a breath, firstly to speak more and secondly to shape herself for the nervousness of someone who was extremely embarrassed.
Kissing Cameron might have still made her look back with embarrassment, but Evelyn really wasn’t the type to show her flustered self at the thought of kissing the wrong guy. Though perhaps if she was, you know, actually in that situation, things would have been different. “I saw Cam, and he looks a hell lot like Liam, and again- drunk,” Evelyn ducked her head. “God, this is embarrassing. We-”
“You kissed Cameron?” Clara Williams finally looked a teensy bit shocked, her mouth slightly ajar. “You better not have been dating Liam at that point. He forgives easily, but I don’t.” Her premature warning made Evelyn sigh. “And stop adding that you’re drunk. I got that the first time you said it.”
“Okay, okay, anyway, Liam saw, and no we weren’t dating, but um,” Evelyn said, like she didn’t want to reveal Liam’s very real feelings at that time. “So he dropped me off, but he looked kinda pissed, you know, and I was so confused- like me and Liam are besties, and it’s not like I ditched him too much at the party. He’d gone off with other friends anyway, but turns out he was actually a little, how to say it, annoyed that I’d kissed Cameron.”
Clara had a small smirk on her face. “So that’s where he was off the whole day. And why he took so much longer than usual to come back.”
Evelyn nodded, though she wasn’t really sure what time Liam had reached back. Really, Cameron and Clara were letting themselves connect non-existent dots, and it was kind of hilarious. Good deduction, when the first puzzle piece is actually not meant there. “He came over the next day,” Evelyn muttered, “then he kissed me. I was, umm… I’ve not kissed a lot of people, especially not those I like as much as Liam-”
In Evelyn’s defense, her story had some truths to it. She’d never kissed as many people as Lilith had, or even Steph had, and she definitely liked Liam, even if it wasn’t in the romantic sense.
“Anyway, yeah, I ran.” Evelyn had been extremely reluctant about adding that bit, but she knew, if confronted with something like that she would have run away, not understanding, especially if she personally had feelings. She was good at being angry, wrecking people's houses, good at destroying stuff, good at being a messed up kid, but emotions could sometimes be a big no. “And recess-”
“You and Liam time?” Clara asked, like it wasn’t public information. Really, was Clara the less lazy copy of Cameron or something? Clara was older, so maybe Cameron was the blurred photocopy of Clara or something.
Nodding anyway, Evelyn said, “It’s easier to think, then. To actually figure things out, because we both care about each other. So we worked, and we sorted things. Everything started making more sense after that, I believed he liked me, he realized I liked him, and then we kissed. Again.”
The matter of fact tone she used made Evelyn wince inwardly. Really, she did know Clara would get fooled because she didn’t know Evelyn, but Liam would have called out her lie hard and fast.
“That’s why he disappeared so often,” Clara said, almost as if to herself, and Evelyn’s eyes widened. Liam and her did not sneak around, because they were friends, not a secret, and even if they had been dating, Liam would have never let it be a secret, and if he was fine with it, Evelyn wouldn’t have wanted to be a secret again. “You don’t need to sneak around now, in fact, you shouldn’t,” Clara added, like she believed Evelyn would sneak around so that she could hurt Liam when Clara wasn’t there.
Evelyn nodded, mind still racing. Stalking was not good, but first she’d ask Liam, and then if he didn’t tell her, was marginally suspicious about it, she’d stalk him. She was not going to let some random person hurt Liam, who, good for him, knew who was a shifty person or trustable. Maybe Evelyn was a bit paranoid, maybe Liam had gotten a friend he was sacrificing their time for, maybe that was what made her so protective. A feeling that could slip into anger easily. How fun.
She did know she couldn’t choose a random time Liam wasn’t at home and Evelyn wasn’t either for some date time. She could only use times they were together, because apparently the entire house knew Evelyn’s schedule, which wasn’t really creepy because Evelyn’s mom also knew exactly where Liam was at all times, so that if he was stranded or slightly late and Evelyn couldn’t do anything, her mom would help him. And if he was at his internship or part time job and needed to be picked up because he was absolutely exhausted.
“When was your first date,” Clara asked, a little politer this time. “I know Liam’s schedule, obviously know yours, I think Cam said he mentioned it-”
Time for interjection and being a perpetual annoyance the way Clara had been a little while back. Though Evelyn was no way near as pretty an annoyance as Clara Williams was, she was at least a little bit close. “We went to a lake, one week after that recess. Liam’s part time job had ended, yeah, the one at that really dark themed bakery, and he’d begged his boss, who was actually a nice person, which by the way, surprised me too.”
Clara’s raised eyebrow said all she needed to say about Evelyn’s rambling, but when Evelyn had interrupted her face had twitched a bit, so good.
Pretty people really could not judge people about rambling. The only difference between Clara or Evelyn rambling was that Clara got enough pretty privilege that people let her continue without talking over her. “He got a cupcake, and he dragged me to the lake.”
The lake was not really nearby, but Evelyn had taken her motorbike, slammed a helmet on both of their heads, one of the helmets specifically doodled with Liam’s name, and gone as fast as she legally could. She was great at getting out of trouble, but the police department in her town was also trash and did not care enough about middle and low class families whose things got wrecked. Rich kids were different, and Evelyn did have different ways of going for them. Just not something that could be blamed on her if the police department bothered to try, which they usually didn’t.
“We, um, kissed-” Evelyn tried to explain, but really, explaining that to someone’s cousin had no un-awkward way around it. Clara flushed red, for the first time ever, her cheeks dusted cutely in red, and Evelyn hid her smile.
Clara’s lip curled before she looked away. “I do not need to know that,” she said, effectively ending that part. “What happened besides you kissing my brother?” The thought of Evelyn kissing Liam seemed- not exactly disgust Clara, but did make Clara give Evelyn some slightly judgemental eyebrows, though the judgment was unclear.
“He made me do tricks on the sand and tried to copy me, got a large picnic lunch and made me pay for his favorite soda.” All of that was true enough that Clara smiled. Evelyn didn’t mention some stuff though, like how he’d showed her his favorite fish and stood in the same place for close to half an hour to take pictures, like how he had tried to teach her parkour, something he’d been learning recently, which Evelyn was actually decent at. He had split the cupcake and then pushed her down a small hill.
A small hill covered with greens, not steep at all, though good thing he had managed to catch her before she ended up in the lake, unable to stop her own velocity. It would have been incredibly frustrating, but Evelyn had been wearing her old part time job’s clothes, and those getting dirty was no problem to her. She would love to shove the dirty clothes in her boss’ face, showing the sacrilegious thing she had done to the company’s things.
Not that she had done anything truly sacrilegious according to her, given that rolling in the mud was literally no big deal. Still… If she said that to the older man’s face, that would be fun.
Fingers snapped in front of her face. “I do not need you dreaming about my cousin in front of me,” Clara said, and when Evelyn looked at her properly, Evelyn could see that Clara had finally decided to believe it.
Really, it was kind of embarrassing that Evelyn day dreamed enough about annoying her ex-boss that it convinced Clara that she was dreaming about a date with someone she really liked. “Um-” Evelyn muttered, not at all embarrassed. Evelyn did not get embarrassed. “I thought you wanted to know everything about it though.” She smirked. “Is it the incest thing, I mean clearly you don’t actually want to hear it, which, by the way, gives me so much relief-”
“There is no incest in my family,” Clara said, and this time her demanding tone was actually appropriate, and Evelyn gave a small laugh and shut her mouth as Clara launched forward to shut Evelyn’s mouth with her hand. “That is utterly disgusting, and never say anything about that again.” Evelyn nodded frantically, holding in laughter and Clara removed her hand from Evelyn’s mouth.
“Okay, okay, but seriously, you guys do have an unhealthy obsession with Liam’s relationship,” Evelyn pointed out.
“He sneaks out all the time,” Clara said. “We were trying to figure out where to. Makes sense now.”
Okay, Liam was about to be interrogated, hard. Evelyn was curious, and she was going to find Liam and confront him soon, because her curiosity was itching. They did not sneak around, sometimes they did, but that was usually when Liam had the insatiable desire to graffiti over a homophobe’s house, and the homophobe was very attentive so they couldn’t do it when the homophobe was awake.
Evelyn tried not to think about homophobes, the fear they sometimes sent crawling through her, the jumpiness anytime she was around someone rumored to have bullied gay kids, being around anyone in general when the cheerleader was in her vicinity, wondering if the girl would out Evelyn. All that extra tension had made Evelyn get mad, wreck people’s lives like they wrecked other’s.
“I am not telling you what we do when he snuck out at night,” Evelyn happily pointed out and Clara gagged.
“I’m not asking,” Clara said, forehead wrinkling with a frown. “No more sneaking around like you’re still a secret. My baby cousin is worth more than that. You better remember, as much as you can ride a motorbike, I can punch your face and trick teachers into believing me over you, whatever you say.”
Her face was odd, all pinched up into a grimace, but it cleared out in a second and she glared at Evelyn before getting up.
“Let’s go, I can hear Liam shouting,” Clara said. Evelyn focused a bit more, away from Clara’s blue eyes.
She focused back on the house, manor, really big house, whatever, and could hear Cameron screaming at Liam to shut up, and Liam screaming after his cousin like a wild animal. Honestly, Evelyn could imagine the scene, as she knew Mrs. Walker had captured something like that once. Cameron and Liam running down the spiral stairs in the house, Liam almost jumping on Cameron, and Cameron absolutely running for his life. Liam had painted the picture, and he’d said he and Cam kept no secrets.
So really, Cameron not knowing Liam’s actual secret, Evelyn not knowing it, made it all the more curious. Liam could keep secrets, everyone could, if they tried hard enough, it was a simple thing, but seriously, who was Liam hanging out with?
Insatiable curiosity aside, Liam was going to be interrogated. Hard. She knew he had to be hanging out with someone, maybe someone the school hated, maybe an older guy, which by the way, was not good because the older guy could be a pedo and Evelyn was going to ruin that man before he did anything to Liam.
Really, a little protective instinct was fine.
Evelyn walked through the house, towards the main door. She looked back for a second and saw someone walking in the same kind of outfit she wore when biking outside of the fence of the Walkers’ house before Clara’s laugh drew her attention.
Evelyn flushed as she saw Clara’s mouth split open into a wide grin.
Seriously, she needed to stop thinking about Clara Williams.
