To Duet With You

On a Friday in a cafe

It's not like she's actually expecting to see him again. The pleasantries are exactly that, things you say but don't really mean it. And yet, on a Friday afternoon she is preparing her essay for the Contemporary Literature class when she is forced to remember Evan again.

"Claire, there's a hunk downstairs asking for you." Tessa winks at her. "Finally, it was about time you had some fun."

Somehow she already knows who her roommate is talking about, which is quite easy to explain actually: Claire doesn't do boys anymore.

They approached her at first, but the disgusting jerks only want sex, so she started to avoid the male population as plague, and eventually everyone got the hint.

"Green eyes, tall, brown hair, looks like he came straight out of a magazine?"

"Yes! Is that your boyfriend?"

She shakes her head.

"No, someone I knew from high school, he just transferred here recently."

"Well, if you're not going after him, please introduce me."

Sighing, Claire just closes her book and grabs her jacket, ready to go out and see what Evan wants from her. The reasons why she can't ever get along with anyone from the Brown family isn't something she's about to explain Tessa. They are on good terms, enough so that they decided to keep being roommates after their freshman year, but they aren't that close either. Maybe saying that she avoids the male population isn't accurate. She just doesn't like to put effort into relationships and friendships. In the end it is just a waste.

"I'm going to the library. Can you please clean up your desk one of these days?"

"Why? We know your hands are itching to do it for me."

"Bye Tessa."

"Do me a favor and hold onto this "classmate", maybe that will help improve your mood, Miss Bossy."

He is sitting on the steps of the stair at the entrance, his head turning from the road to the doors after she opens them, and Claire sees him smile with something akin to relief painted on his face.

Why?

"Hey!"

"Hi Evan." She makes an effort to sound nice, but... "Now this is a surprise."

How does he even know where she lives?

"I asked around. You know, for some reason I had this idea that everyone would know who Claire Gardiner was. That you would be super popular on campus."

Since she was an attention-seeker who settled for being second best to Hannah...

"Things have changed." Claire shrugs, refusing to elaborate on something they shouldn't talk about.

Evan stands up, and being one step below her on the stairs, he still manages to match her height.

"Do you want to go for that coffee now?"

He's always been the persistent type.

"Fine. Do you know that coffee shop that's on the 4th? They have the most delicious banana muffins."

"Really?"

Those have always been his favorite.

***

She thinks it's okay to satiate her curiosity and ask why he transferred from L.A. After all, he was the one seeking out her company.

"I couldn't afford the tuition anymore." He says, as if it was that simple. As far as she knows, his family is loaded with money. Mr. and Mrs. Brown made a point to throw the most lavish parties since the first day they moved to Green Valley. As if sensing her confusion, he explains further. "My mom was helping me pay for school, but she is having some difficulties."

She's still confused, until something clicks in his mind and she realizes he isn't talking about his stepmother. Rick had never mentioned their biological mother, and neither had Evan, as far as Claire knew. So she was, in fact, still in the picture.

"But what about your father?"

He winces. "We... had a fall-out of sorts."

Touchy subject. She decides to keep eating in silence, but the thing about making conversation with someone is that you have to fill the awkward silences with anything. It's Evan who takes that step, again.

"What about you? Have you gone to Green Valley recently?"

Or maybe is retribution for reminding him of unsavory moments of the past.

"No. I'm too busy with school."

"Oh, right. You are still working on music, right? I saw on the bulletin board that the Christmas Concert is set for mid-december, so you must be busy."

Suddenly her muffin doesn't taste good anymore.

"Actually, I don't sing anymore." She says with a smile, doing her best attempt to brush it off. "I'm more interested in literature these days."

People change. He's changed too, going from the Brown's golden boy to someone who might or might not have been disinherited by his father.

"We should go. I still have homework to do."

He nods and follows her as she stands up, ready to leave the shop. But then, right when she thinks there's nothing else to say, he asks: "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why don't you sing anymore?"

She clenches her fists.

"I can't."

"Is it because of..." How much she wishes he wouldn't mention that person. He doesn't. "Because of the injuries you got then? But the doctor said there wouldn't be long-term effects."

She turns to look at him.

"How do you know about the problem with my vocal chords?"

This was something she never wanted anyone to know, for a matter of pride more than anything. So she hid it from everyone, even those who cared enough to support her through the trial, and she did not use it against Erick either.

Claire thinks of it as her secret. Evan isn't so close to her that he should know.

"I visited you when you were at the hospital."

He did?

"Or well, I intended to. But Kat helped me see I would be the last person you would have liked to see back then."

No, that would be Erick. But just like she feels his pity like a slap on her face now, it would have been so much worse when everything was recent.

She purses her lips and gathers the courage to cross the doors of the cafe.

"Claire, wait."

"We don't have to do this, you know. Being friendly, or hanging out with each other."

There's a frown that ruins his perfect face, but then she sees his shoulders falling, as if he's resigning to this truth.

"I'm sorry." He whispers, "I guess I was being selfish. Of course you hate me."

"I don't hate you," she blurts out without thinking. "I just... Evan, I appreciate what you did for me back then. Truly. You are one of the nicest people I have ever known, and I know you are nothing like your brother. But still-"

"I'm his brother." He offers a weak smile of understanding. "I know. Take care, Claire."

Both of them are supposed to go back in the same direction, but he takes the opposite road and wanders somewhere else. She stands there, staring at his back until she snaps out of it.

This was the only possible outcome of their meeting.