Evelyn

Prologue

"I used to think they were wrong, you know? Just like how they were wrong about the Earth being flat a thousand years ago. What if they didn't know crap about love either and I was the Pythagoras of this century? But now I know, and now I realize that truly... I was the stupid one."

-- thoughts of Evelyn two years ago

*****

Born into a loving family, surrounded by genuine and caring friends, Evelyn was an idealist who thought of nothing more than love, and one day finding her true soulmate. This was two years ago in her freshman year when relationships were 'the thing' and everybody couldn't wait to be in one. Her best friend, her cousin, her neighbors, were all a part of this magnificent, joyous experience. Evelyn wasn't especially eager to be in one. She could wait. She could be patient and wait for the guy she was going to marry someday to arrive. And he did arrive, one day, on a spring morning in April, the epitome of all that was love, all that was beautiful, all that was true, graceful and perfect.

Or so she thought.

May 2nd, 2015, Rebecca Belrose, the rock of Evelyn's life, her biggest supporter, best friend, and mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Twelve weeks later, she lost the battle, leaving her children and husband battered and bruised.

The following weeks were nightmares in Evelyn's mind, but she thought she would get through. She still had the best dad in the world, a kind and supportive brother, and a group of friends to get her through the tough times in life, but oh did she have another think coming.

The news pierced through her heart like a bullet; they were moving, leaving California, leaving the land with all the childhood memories she had ever made, leaving her friends and leaving her knight in shining armor whom she had been sure she would marry someday.

Except he wasn't a knight in armor, but a snake disguised as a rose.

Used, betrayed, trash-talked about, the hot topic of all rumours (and none of them good), Evelyn couldn't believe she had been such a naive, foolish child. Couldn't believe there was no such thing as happily ever after, couldn't believe... that he was no prince. That there were no such thing as princes and that story books and reality rarely ever coincided with each other and the ones who she loved would do nothing but hurt her in the end.

Her prince, now her tormentor, broke her beyond repair, turned her friends, one by one, against her, but never once did he deliver hurtful messages to her personally. Oh no, he didn't even break up with her himself. It was the rest of the school who told her he didn't love her anymore, and he never had. It was her classmates who told her that she was a slut and everybody she was sleeping around with other boys, and it was the captain of the soccer team himself, whom Evelyn had never spoken to in her life, who confirmed that she had slept with him while still in a relationship with her knight. It was the girls on the cheer leading squad, girls whom she had once been friends with, who scorned her and scoffed at her pathetic appearance, offers of sympathy for her deceased mother long gone and forgotten.

But never once did the prince say a word himself, so at first, Evelyn thought it had all been a misunderstanding. Her prince didn't truly hate her, it was just what society was saying. They were probably jealous. After all, who could resist those sapphire eyes and dimples? But then, he himself stared at her, emotionless, that Wednesday during his soccer practice, almost as if wondering why in the world someone like her was talking to someone like him. And that's when she knew.

She had been used.

Used for her popularity, used for her name, she herself had been played in the game.

In the two weeks leading up to moving day, Evelyn cried her eyes out, in the privacy of her own bedroom and the school's restroom, heartbroken and abandoned, but then she remembered she still had her brother and father and that they still loved her and did not hate her. So she felt a little better. Screw her 'friends', screw her 'prince', she would be gone soon and there would be nothing more to say.