What would you do?

Evan

Chapter 9

Evan was here. What was he doing here I stare at him. I see his eyes move in my direction and quickly look down at my lap. I wait for everyone to do their check in. He was the last one to go. The lady says "Evan your turn." I look up at him and wait for him to talk. "My name is Evan, I am 16 years old. I go to Riverwood high school." He pauses and looks at me and everyone else does. I guess they did pay attention to my check in. That makes me a little anxious. What if they listen to me and I said something wrong. I pushed the mortifying thought out of my head and looked at him back. Almost daring, cancer kids have guts too. I smirk at my own joke. Evan continues, "My mom died and I had one trigger this week." I look up at him once again. Most kids just said they didn't have triggers; probably because they would rather not talk about it. "There is this girl in my grade," he pauses and takes a breath. "She has terminal cancer, my mother had that. That is how she died and I feel bad for her. I don't want her to have to die such a painful death like my mother." He says emphasizing painful. He looks over at me dead in the eye. This time i don't look back at him, I get up and almost fall down over my chair. Everyone looks at me. I feel tears start to form in my eyes. I turn my head and walk out of the room. Why did he have to say painful. I started to breathe really fast I sobbed. I ran down the stairs and past the reception lady and out the door. I pull out my phone and look at the time there was still 20 minutes left I sat down. I knew my mom was probably sleeping at home so I didn't call her, I didn't want to make her drive over to get me. I sit down on the sidewalk still crying very hard. I will just wait 20 minutes for Matthew to come and pick me up. I pull my knees into my chest and bury my head inside of them. I let out a huge sob and take in a deep breath. I couldn't stop crying. I shouldn't be so upset but I am. I hear the door open. I look up from my knees expecting to see the lady who ran the group but instead I saw Evan. I put my head back down and sniff really loudly. I am embarrassed for crying so hard, I am not really a mobby person. He sits down beside me. I look over at him and just stare at him sadly. "Why did you say that? Why did you have to say painful?" My voice cracks and I look back down at the ground. I suddenly feel big strong arms engulf me in an hug. I at first get tense, he knows that Brad is my boyfriend. But then I loosen up, I lean into his arms and buried my head in his shoulder and start to cry even harder. How have i not used up all my tears yet? "I know it is hard. I understand" he say "I'm so sorry I said that it was a jerk move for me to do I just," he hesitates and his voice kind of cracks. "I don't know why I did it. I', really sorry though" I feel a teardrop on my ead. He was crying to. I couldn't believe it. Bad boy evan was crying in front of me and to make it worse/better, I dont even know what to think of this anymore I was crying into in his arms. I wrap my arms around him. "Why does this happen?" I ask. "What did I do, or my dad and your mom?" What did we do" I say loudly into his shirt. "Nothing." he responds plainly. I nod and cry a little more. I sit up out of him arms and look at him we both don't look very good, I give him a slight smile. He kind of laughs and says "I may have told them that you were the girl." I sigh and look away I didn't want anyone to really now at the group. "Sorry, it was the only way I could come out to say sorry, I figured you wouldn't want Miss Miranda to come out." I nodded my head I guess that is the ladys name. I stand up and look at my phone we have 10 minutes. "We should go back inside before they come outside." I say. He nods his head in agreement and stiffly stands up. I turn around and start walking to the building he follows behind me. I pull at the door which was slightly heavy. He stepped and front and pushed the door opened. He gave me a little smirk and I blushed and put my head down. I can not believe that I just opened the door the wrong way. He goes down the hallway to the room with ease. I am glad he is here that way I would not get lost on my way to the room. I guess he has been coming to these meetings for a while now. We reach the room and he opens the door. We both walk in, Miranda gets up and says "I am glad you decided to join us for the end of session." We both look up and nod. I walk back to my seat but Evan does not. He walks up in front of the semicircle. And opens his mouth like he is about to say something important but pauses and looks at me. I look back at him, staring right into his icy blue eyes. "I want to say that I am sorry to amanda for saying that, I shouldn't have done it." I smile and say thanks. He nods his head but says "I'm not done though, we all know that when you are different, people treat you differently. Well amanda does not want to be treated differently so if any of you treat her differently for having cancer you are gonna have to go through me and you don't want that." A big smile appears on my face. I start to blush, Evan walks back to his seat and sits down. Sometimes I wish that Brad would stand up for me just like Evan does. He does sometimes and I appreciate that but, I don't know, it just isn't like how Evan stands up for me. The rest of the time we played a game since we had time left. At the end of the group we did something called a goodnight circle. It's where everyone holds hands and you say goodnight to the person who died. We all got in a circle and I was next to Evan. He reach out for my hand and I put my hand out. He grabbed it, everyone was going around in the circle and then it was my turn. "Goodnight dad," I say. I look at Evan since it was his turn "Good night mom" he says then he squeezed my hand. And I think everyone knows the type of hand squeeze that I am talking about. That squeeze that just tells you that they care and that everything will be alright and even if it won't, it makes you think that it will. And in that moment that is enough. That is enough to get though.