Evermore - Troy Otto

seventeen

     Katie watched in amusement from the hallway as her sister finished drying her freshly washed hair. The older girl was practically bouncing off the walls, her chipper mood radiated from her skin. Katie was pleasantly surprised to see it, her sister's struggle could be seen from a mile away. "What's got you all smiley this morning?" Katie could hardly contain a grin of her own.

     "Oh nothing..." Evelyn trailed off with a hazy, lovestruck look in her eyes. "It's just that me and Ethan kissed last night," she shrugged like it was no big deal. Katie's jaw dropped. It all started to make sense.

"No way! Tell me everything!" The way the sisters gossiped with each other felt juvenile, but it restored a slight sense of normalcy into Evelyn's life. With the whole being back on the ranch and distant father circumstances, normal was what Evelyn needed. Her and Ethan tried to pretend like things were the way they used to be whenever they spent time together, but they could never quite accomplish the full thing. They still tried, even though they both knew they never would. With Katie, things were different. Even the younger girl had a guy to gush over. He was apart of the militia, which at first made Evelyn gag, but Katie swore up and down that he was one of the few good ones. She also apparently told him that if she found out he or his friends had said one bad thing about her older sister, she would dump him in an instant. Evelyn smiled at that.

Evelyn leaned against the bathroom counter as she recounted everything she could remember about her moment with Ethan. She didn't forget to mention the old picture frame she found, how it made her sad for a moment, but neither of the sisters could dwell on that when Evelyn continued rambling on about Ethan. Katie was over the moon for her sister. Ethan obviously made Evelyn happy. He was her silver lining in this new world of uncertainty and fear.

Evelyn finally made her way to her bedroom and sighed, the enamored smile on her face never faltering in the slightest. This pleasant feeling had been the most genuine she'd felt since she arrived back at the ranch. She could've used every positive word in the book to describe her mood, until she realized that she had to take another shift in the field. She groaned. Knowing that was enough to take her cheerful contentment down quite a few notches.

Evelyn let out a frustrated sigh as she dropped to her knees in the dirt. She pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail and looked around. She hated being around all this people, she didn't like being on guard for so long, and it annoyed her knowing that she had to for her own well-being. Whatever. She was having a great day, she decided she didn't want to let this crummy chore to sour it any more than it already had.

     She palmed around the dirt for a while, handling the seeds the way Jake and Troy had shown her not long ago, or at least poorly attempting to. She barely had any idea what she was doing, and for a moment part of her was glad the ranchers didn't expect much from her. She spent most of her childhood basically on house arrest, she didn't have the time to learn how to garden.

     "We should stop meeting like this," Evelyn looked up and was greeted by her favorite of the two brothers. She typically would've been annoyed by the sudden presence of someone else, the southern heat never failed to spoil her mood and cause her to snap at anyone that crossed her, even if they were being polite.

"We've only met like this twice, Jake," she smiled softly at the older man and brushed the annoying flyaways out of her face.

     He didn't respond to that, he only naturally observed her for a moment before he made his offer out of courtesy. "Need help?" He gestured towards her hands.

     "Yes," Evelyn desperately answered. Her shoulders deflated.

Jake knelt beside her. "I wanted to apologize, Evelyn," she looked over at the man to study his complicated, almost unreadable expression.