04.

My all day Sunday hangover was bad, working in a smelly restaurant was even worse, but nothing compared to going back to school Monday where I was systematically blacklisted.

I knew they’d get over it eventually, just like Amie had been an outcast when she had been caught shoplifting at the mall or Mike Stanlow had gotten caught cheating on his girlfriend with some lowlife from a public school at the next town over.

Those hadn’t lasted more than a week, and I was sure the punishment was far less severe for someone who had only skipped a party.

It wasn’t just that, I guess. Riley had gotten so drunk at Sadie’s that he’d spilled everything about Johnny and the fact that I was drinking at what he described as a white trash party house in the city.

I didn’t even have time to get pissed about that, because overhearing Sadie and Amie’s locker talk was even worse. 

They’d completely ignored me through the entire gym class, going so far as to actually playing Badminton so they didn’t have to talk to me. And, now they knew I was only a row of lockers behind them, but it didn’t stop them from loudly theorizing what I had done on Saturday night.

“I heard that Johnny is like, male model hot,” Amie says, wishfully.

“God, Riley talking about how he was going to start growing his hair out, because obviously Evie dug the dirty look.”

“Ew, I hope not. He’d totally have hockey hair.”

“Why go for some sleazy musician when she’s got the hottest guy at school hooked around her finger. I mean, I told him to play it cool, so without me he’d be running right back into her arms,” Sadie says.

At lunch, The Crew wasn’t at their usual spot, so they must’ve snuck out to do off campus lunch. I was left standing with my Diet Coke, yogurt, and salad at the end of the lunch line like an idiot. 

Looking around, I felt like I did on that first day of school in September. But, then The Crew had seen my typical good looks and had overheard how smart I was. They’d already made the decision that I needed to be part of their group so they’d called me right over.

It was so different this moment, when I heard a large whistle from the back of the caf. I wasn’t the only one to jump and stare in surprise when I saw who was calling me. Andy uttered another two words, bringing the count up to four for the entire year, at school, “Hey, Evie.”

I numbly walk down the aisles of tables, aware at everyone’s stare. I knew that one of Riley’s tennis buddies was already texting him to tell him the drama, and I knew Riley would be even more pissed at me then before.

But, I couldn’t just ignore Andy. He’d held my hair back when I puked, tucked me into bed, and even gave me his last piece of bacon at Cal’s.

I sit down across from him at a large round table, where he’s sitting alone with only a textbook to keep him company.

“Where are all your friends?” Andy asks. He’s quiet again, so much different than the loud party boy I’d gotten to know on Saturday. You would never think that this boy was dancing on the coffee table or whooping and hollering when he won a beer pong game.

“Oh...I don’t know. I guess they forgot to tell me they were ditching out,” I shrug and pop open my soda.

Andy stares at me, knowing I’m lying. It makes me uncomfortable but want to reveal everything at the same time. 

“They’re a bit mad.”

“Mad?”

“Cause I ditched the party Saturday.”

Andy rolls his eyes. “What, you’re not allowed to do anything apart from “The Crew”.” 

“Its not that-”

“Then, what, cause that sure is what it seems like. Evie, you’re allowed to have other friends. Especially friends that you’ve known for a long time, that know the real you.”

“These guys know the real me,” but we both know I’m lying.

“You sit around and let them talk s**t about you. Why? You don’t have to settle for that.”

“Unless I want high school to be a miserable existence for me, yes I do.”

“It already seems like you’re having a miserable existence.”

While we chew our food quietly, I spot a sulking Riley through the courtyard window, and Sadie, who is comforting him with more than words. I want to slap her hands away from his perfectly muscular biceps. I want to slap her in her stupid tan face.

“I, uh, gotta go,” I stand up abruptly and grab my tray. “Thanks for giving me someone to sit with.”

I toss my trash and leave quickly. I know Andy’s staring through that same window of the courtyard when I rush out there, into Riley’s arms, and apologize to him profusely. I know he’s watching as we kiss and make up.

I try to make it seem like I’m not ignoring Johnny, or The Boys, after the Saturday party, but between juggling midterms, the diner, and being the perfect girlfriend, I’m exhausted.

I fall asleep in College Composition, earning a call home to my dad from the guidance counselor.

“Are you okay?” he grills me as soon as I step in the door from school that day. 

I sigh and nod my head. “I’m fine, okay? I’m just in a hurry. I’ve got to get to work.”

“I already talked to Natalia. We agreed that you should have less shifts at the diner, at least for now, and focus more on your schoolwork.”

“You did WHAT!?” I cry.

As much as I complained about that crappy diner, it was a place for me to go to get away. Serving high college kids greasy burgers and breakfast at eight o’clock at night brought me a distraction the neither home nor school could provide from each other. And, I got to fill salt shakers and dance around to eighties music when we’d closed for the night, Johnny wiping down tables and telling me stories about his time in podunk. 

“Dad, that was super inappropriate, and not your call to make,” I chastise him.

“I’m your dad. I’m doing what’s best.”

I laugh. “My dad? I scooped you off the sidewalk out front last night because you were too drunk to come inside. I picked you up from work because you were being belligerent and if your boss had seen you, he would’ve fired your a*s. That is not something dads do.”

My dad smoked hard on his cigarette. He was a classically good looking guy; his thick dark hair shaggy, stubble on his face, tattoos on his arms, and a charming smile on his face. He didn’t look thirty-seven years old and he didn’t look like a father, but he was both.

“You need to keep your grades up, focus on school.”

“What am I going to do without money? Art supplies aren’t cheap, you know. Stuff for my school, its not cheap.”

It always makes him feel bad to know that I have to buy things for my own education. My entire savings went into the mandatory MacBook Pro we had to get for school, my uniforms and class fees weren’t covered by scholarships. I worked hard for what little money I had and it went to things I couldn’t even enjoy. 

“Well, maybe you could stop hanging around that boyfriend-”

“Dad!” I say, through gritted teeth.

“I’m just saying, its a little bit of a distraction.”

“When the f**k did you decide to be Father of the F*****g Year?” I lay it on him. I stomp to my room, grab my work uniform, and am back out the door with a pounding headache.

I decide to not go back that night.

I’m almost ashamed at showing up for school in the same skirt and blazer I wore yesterday, unshowered with bags under my eyes. I’m almost too tired and stressed to care.

Midterms week and I choose that to be the time to move into The Lost Boys indefinitely. Of course I’m welcomed with open arms, but that doesn’t mean the boys stop their nightly rituals of getting drunk, playing loud music, and being up until I have to wake up to get ready for school.

That is, if I even slept.

Sadie comments about how testy I’ve been lately, and I can’t even tell her, or Riley, or any of my friends about me and my dad’s blow up because that would just reveal everything in one nasty shock. No one knows about my current living situation and to distract Riley from asking about what’s going on, I go over to his house on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday after school and have sex with him.

By week 2 of staying at The Lost Boys, I’m breaking into my emergency stash of Adderall usually only reserved for end of the year finals, and Johnny has begun to worry.

“Tell me what happened with your dad,” he asks as he cleans the grill at work and I’m forced to hack at ice chunks in the cold bar.

“Nope.”

“We talk about everything.”

“You really want to test me right now when I have an ice pick in my hand?”

“You really going to resort to acts of violence?”

“If it gets you off my back.”

Its only when I get my French final back and the B- taunts me, my bank account is dangerously low and I need new tires for my bike, when an overweight white trash woman berates me and calls me stupid in front of the entire dining room at work that I calmly take off my apron, walk out of the restaurant, and turn into a waterfall of tears.

I’m having the most fantastic cry I’ve had in years. I cry because I miss my runaway mother, I cry because my dad’s a wreck, my brother hasn’t been home in a month, sex with Riley is awful but I keep doing it, Sadie and Amie think they’re better than me and they’re probably right, if I don’t keep up my grades I’ll lose my scholarship and be back in public school where I’ll have no chance of being qualified to go to my dream school of choice. 

When I look back up, Ben Liner is crouched down in front of me, holding a single tissue. I jump up so fast that I don’t even have time to wonder how long he’s been sitting and watching me. I hit my head on the window ledge and am back on the ground, tears of pain this time in my eyes.

“Holy s**t, Evie, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I have to steady my breath every time I see him, and now its not just because I’m mad at him for Johnny. Now, I’m mad at him for a whole slew of reasons, the biggest one is because he thinks he’s so hot and awesome that the very sight of him will cure whatever it is bothering a crying girl on the street. 

“What are you doing?” I ask through gritted teeth.

“I was just across the street at the music store and I saw you-”

“Would you like it if I went up to you and stared at you while you were crying?”

He runs his fingers through his styled bedhead. “I mean, I don’t really cry-”

“Well, good for f*****g you. You’re famous, right? Famous people don’t cry.”

He bites his lip and I know he’s trying to stop himself from laughing, which just pisses me off further.

“The f**k happened to you, Ben? Did all the booze kill your brain cells that tell you that every girl doesn’t want to have sex with you. Or have you just gone crazy from the untreated syphilis? Either way, try and listen to what I have to say, because I know there’s not much of a brain left up in there, but stop hitting on me. I’m not going to sleep with you.”

His cocky face twists into something I haven’t seen before. Quizzical? A little hurt? Confused?

“Evie, I thought we were friends.”

I laugh. “You and Johnny were friends. I could tolerate you by association. But, you really hurt him. And, you took away the one girl who he’d ever been able to stand for more than a week at a time. Just for fun. What kind of friend does that?”

Ben sighs and digs his stupid, trendy moccasin into the snow. “Its not like that.”

“Johnny has been my best friend since birth. I knew you for a couple of years. Do you think you over there looking sorry for yourself is going to change my mind about anything you say?”

“You don’t have to. Its just that Lilly-”

I grimace. “Don’t even say her name.”

Not only had she hurt my best friend, but during the time she was in Johnny’s life, she managed to get in close with me, too, and left me feeling disappointed and dejected when she cheated on Johnny. It was only a month, but for Johnny, that was an eternity. 

We spent weekends going to shows, the four of us mainly; Johnny, Lilly, Ben, and  I, sometimes Matty and Sam and Spencer would follow along. We explored coffee shops off the highway and raided frat parties, drinking their free kegs while making fun of them. Lilly would call me up and we’d go lay at the park and chainsmoke cigarettes, and after Dalle disappeared from my life once she started dating Adam, it was nice to have a female friend around again.

Lilly and Johnny dated the summer before he moved, and we’d taken the trip out to the southeast burbs to go to Summer Toast. Ben had just formed Acoustic Arson, and found it as the perfect opportunity to do some shameless self promotion. Lilly and I squeezed our skinny bodies into the itty bitty hoochie mama tank tops Ben had made up which read, Acoustic Arson, across the chest. He printed off stickers and handed out sample CDs with two songs on them. Ben had the in at Olympus Records, where his brother was doing an internship for school, but he liked to create buzz in any way he could.

After spotting Tucker scouting around the massive grounds, where stages had been set up in lieu of the usual county fair, we ended up backstage at the Tremors 5 set. They’d just been signed to Olympus and, fresh from going from obscurity to having a song playing on a commercial on TV, they were still the humble boys who we’d travelled to New York to see at a dumpy hole in the wall bar. 

Enticed back to the tour bus for a Summer Toast after party, Lilly and I let the band fill our cups with beer and light our cigarettes, making sure not to giggle too much so the boys don’t ask us how old we are.