How to Live | ✓

eleven

>>eleven

"My real name is Christen," Darren said one day, as they sat at their usual spot, with a prelude of nothing.

Evelyn paused as the words dissipated into the air, not really knowing what to make of his statement.

Real name?

"Did you hear me?"

She snapped out of her slightly disoriented state. "So... you lied?"

He was quick to reply. "No. Well, yes, but not because I was trying to hide my real identity or anything. I just... When my parents decided to move, I decided that I wanted a change. A fresh start of some sorts, I suppose."

"Oh," is all what Evelyn said, letting her breath linger after the single syllable.

Suddenly, she thought back to a few days ago, when they'd encountered Audrey at McDonalds. She'd sworn she thought she heard Audrey say something a long the lines of "Hi Chr" before she was aptly cut off by Darren— Christen— Darren.

The expression on Evelyn's face must've alarmed him as he became frantic to reassure her. "I know, it was stupid. I'm sorry I didn't tell you after we became friends. But I— I never feel like the same person when I'm around you, and I was worried if I told you my real name, all of that would just go away. I'm truly sorry—"

She flinched, for some reason, without meaning to. "Don't say that."

"Don't say sorry?" He asked, his voice a mixture of confusion and dubiousness.

"Look, what you did wasn't bad. Either way I don't care whether you're a Christen or Darren. I just care that you're you."

"Oh," he said this time, slightly surprised.

What she said was true, but the thing that she couldn't find herself to verbalise was that she was jealous.

She envied that he could do such a thing. She wanted to be able to do what he so easily could.

To escape himself like that.

There wasn't a time when Mother was never on her mind— corroding each and every thought, slowly moulding her into the shape of a person she didn't want to be. Evelyn could go around calling herself whatever she wanted, but it wasn't her name that made her her.

It was everything else.

"Do you worry, " she whispered, feeling the words form on her lips like it had a mind of its own. "That you'll grow up to be a horrible person?"

It had been a while since she'd let herself be plagued with such thoughts; everything in the past few weeks were almost like floating on a cloud.

But now that they were here, now that he was slowly opening up to her, they'd seem to snuck back up on her like the creeping rise of a tide.

He had no idea what kind of person she could be— what dark thoughts lived inside her soul.

Maybe it wasn't fair to let him believe she was someone else.

Darren's eyes flashed and she thought she saw something in them that she didn't want to see there, but she didn't take her question back.

"I worry that I'll become a person that I don't like."

"But... what if you already don't like yourself?" Her voice was so quiet that it sounded like an exhale. The wind carried it away before it could develop into something more, and silence fell between them.

In her periphery, he moved forward. Slowly, so slowly, like he was approaching a wild animal, or a scared child, he reached for her hand.

All her life she'd been so inclined to hide away from any attention, or touch, or act of intimacy, for the fear of what it'd lead to. But in that moment, as he leaned close, she realised something painful.