Carry Me Home

Nineteen

Evelyn

It's snowing. A day after Christmas and it's snowing. It hardly ever snowed on Boxing Day but was still cold and frosty, yet that never stopped those addicted shoppers from leaving their houses early in the morning to be first in line for the notorious Boxing Days sales.

Gazing at the sky with my book and a box in my hand and campus filled with snow made me not notice the sinewy figure at the other end of the place. He just stood there with his brown hair falling into his eyes due to wind that accompanied the snow.

But he didn't move.

He just stood there. Watching me. And I sat there watching him. He suddenly started walking step by step. A shadow of a smile was painted on his face and gradually one was being drawn on mine too. He started taking longer strides to  close the distance as quick as possible and soon enough he was right in front of me.

"Happy belated Christmas," I said softly, presenting the wrapped box in front of me. He gladly took it and started to unwrap all the excessive wrapping paper that adorned the box. A pair of headphones came out of them but they weren't just any headphones. They were Star Wars branded headphones. His grin grew bigger when he noticed the stormtroopers on either side of the headphone. He put the headphones back into the box and enveloped me in a warm hug in this cold weather.

"Thank you, Angel," Rowan ruffled my beanie clad hair and engulfed me in a hug yet again.

"Now about yesterday, why did you get me drunk?" I pulled away from his embrace and crossed my arms to provide a barrier between the two of us. He scratched the back of his head in an attempt to look cute but I held my guard and did not react.

"In my defence you took those drinks in as if they gave you an extra dose of life in return."

"Really?"

"Uh huh."

"Well shit," this time I was embarrassed and copied his previous action of scratching the back of my head. "Did I do anything stupid whilst drunk?"

"Well you... nevermind I don't think you did."

"You're lying."

"No, I'm not."

"Lies."

"I'm not lying, Angel."

"I can hear the deceit in your voice so stop lying."

"I'm not saying anything. You're going to have to work out what you did," and with that statement he walked away.

Every single day of the Christmas holidays was filled with me wondering about what I did that drunken day. What exactly did I do? It couldn't have been that bad... right? Rowan never mentioned that incident again after our encounter on Boxing Day, but the thought of my drunken foolishness still lingered around in my head.

"Evie, I bet he was just teasing you," Hayden thought that I was just overthinking everything but Rowan was lying. I knew it and I had to find out what exactly he was trying to hide from me. "Evie, just let it go."

"I bet you're saying that because you know exactly what I did but you're refusing to tell me."

"I left early so how in the world am I supposed to know?"

"You and Rowan are best friends - he would obviously tell you."

"You and I are best friends but we don't tell each other everything," he said matter-o-factly.

"Hayden... Honey, I tell you everything a best friend is entitled to know and that is most, if not all, things."

"You're correct there but honestly I do not know what happened between you and Rowan at Christmas. Try super hard remembering or just seduce him into telling you."