Dear Evalynn Hansen

ONE

AN: So, I'm going to apologize in advance because I wrote this back in 2019 and it's kind of cringy in a few places, but since my other Evalynn stories are on here, I decided I might as well post this one on here, too. Updates every Saturday. Enjoy!

Evalynn hated being the younger twin. Evan constantly treated her like instead of minutes separating them, there were years. It really wasn't fair since personality wise, they were practically the same person. One example: They both really liked trees. Which was why she jumped at the chance to become an apprentice park ranger at Ellison State Park the summer after their junior year. Unfortunately, Evan had had the exact same idea. And then he claimed she was the one who copied him.

And so it went, them arguing any time they ended up in the same space. She shouldn't have been surprised, then, when her depression got worse. It started out small, unassuming, but escalated quickly until the darkness clouded her mind and she slowly lost the the will to function. Her anxiety didn't help much, if anything, it made everything worse until she finally made the decision to end it.

The trees. It made perfect sense in her mind that that was the way to do it. So she began scaling the smaller ones, learning how to get to the top the fastest. She was preparing for the big one. It was in the center of the park, the tallest of them all at forty feet from base to tip. Of course she would use that one. Two weeks before school was supposed to start, she set the date.

She made her way to the tree on their lunch break, when no one would be around to talk her out of it. Hoisting herself up, she started the ascent slowly then picked up speed as she got higher and higher. Before she knew it, she was thirty feet above the ground. She made the mistake of looking down, and that's when her foot slipped. As she felt herself lurch forward off the branch, she made a split second decision and let go.

All she remembered after that was opening her eyes on the ground. Her left arm was numb and she couldn't move it. She lay there for maybe ten minutes, dazed and confused why it didn't work, but also sort of relieved it didn't before she heard voices approaching. She hadn't quite gotten enough air back into her lungs.

"H-help," she called, her voice weak and breaking from the lack of air.

"Evalynn!" Evan's voice shouted.

A second later, she was lifted into someone's arms and set inside a car.

"Hang on, Lynn. We're going to get you to the hospital," Evan's voice told her.

"Have you called your mother?" someone else asked.

"Not yet. I'm doing it now," Evan replied.

"S-she won't p-pick up," she said weakly.

"I'll leave a message," Evan mutters.

After leaving the message for their mother, they pulled into the hospital parking lot and Evan lifted her out of the car and carried her inside. Her arm had started to throb and she allowed the pain to knock her out, leaving her oblivious to the process they go through with the doctors for the next few hours. When she woke up again, she was laying in a hospital bed with her left arm encased in a pristine white cast. Evan and Heidi Hansen, their mother, sat in plastic chairs nearby.

"Oh, sweetie, we were so worried. How are you feeling?" their mother inquired worriedly.

"F-fine. I'm fine."

Evalynn kept her eyes trained on Evan, who refused to look at her.

"Evan said you fell out of a tree."

"Y-yeah. I-I fell."

"Oh, honey, you scared me half to death. Don't do that again, okay?"

"S-sure. Okay, Mom."

She silently thanked her brother for allowing her the lie that keeps a somewhat content smile on Heidi Hansen's face. She didn't need to know what really happened. What Evalynn was really doing climbing that oak tree. She just hoped she didn't ever have to admit it to her.