The Taboo Topics

Evan

If this wasn't inner peace, I didn't know what was.

I was sitting under a huge cherry tree that was in the middle of a meadow behind my backyard. But to me, it was my own little world.

I began to daydream about great things; winning the world cup in Hockey, marrying Ella, raising our son... Oh no.

I'd forgotten to imagine a name for our imaginary kid. I'd thought of every other single smallest detail except for that one.

What names were there? John? Sean? Don? Ron? Gideon Jr.?

Okay, my imagination was seriously failing me at the moment. Besides, Ella would never let me name our kid after Gideon, even though that'd be totally awesome.

I guess I'm kind of getting ahead of myself here. I mean, Ella hasn't even considered going out with me once over the past six years... After this week, school starts, and then I only have one year to woo her before we begin our real lives.

And then we can date, get married, have a kid...

A NAMELESS KID!

This was a serious dilemma.

"What's wrong?" I hear a girl's voice that seems to come out of nowhere.

I look around, "Mum? Is that you?!"

Two legs drop down from the tree, and then the girl that's connected to them follows.

"Sorry kid, just me," The girl, with wavy blonde hair and a scrawl of freckles across her nose, rolls her eyes at me.

I jump up quickly at the sight of her, "What were you doing in my tree?"

"Your tree?" Her voice goes slightly high-pitched, but it somehow manages to sound perfectly normal, "I'm pretty sure this here is public property."

"Well," I raise my eyebrow at her, still slightly shocked, "I was sitting under this tree for more than an hour, were you up there the whole time?"

"I guess so. I fell asleep."

Who was this chick?

"I'm Evan," She practically reads my mind.

"Isn't Evan a boy name?"

The girl sighs over-exaggeratedly, "My full name is Evangeline Margerie Lorna Port, named after my great, great aunt. But she has a mustache, so I prefer to be called Evan. Well? Are you going to tell me your name or not?"

I'm taken aback by her frankness, and still tired from relaxing under the tree, "Err, I'm Jake."

Seemingly unimpressed by my name, the girl starts to walk away. I rush after her, "Wait. Do you live around here?"

She turns to look at me as I reach her side, "I just moved in over there, on the other side of the meadow," she points in the opposite direction of where we're walking.

"Then where are you going?"

"Anywhere but there," she says, slightly hostile.

I bite my lip, "Family problems?"

Evan nods, "They've always kind of hated me, 'cause I wanted to go to this special school, but they didn't let me."

"What school?" I ask out of politeness, I probably won't recognize the name of any local schools.

"You've probably never heard of it," She gets slightly shifty, but then her eyes become mischievous, "It's called Academy Of The Arts."

"You're into the arts too?" I ask immediately, a smile on my face. Academy of the Arts. she said the first thing that popped into her head.