in too deep | [REWRITING]

38| E v e l y n

Tell me what you're thinkin'
Always over thinkin'
I just wanna love you, I got you
Don't have to be so guarded
Let's finish what we started
It's all I ever wanted

'Cause I got you, you, oh
You, I got you, I got you

- I Got You, Bebe Rexah

38| Evelyn

It had been a month since the party. It was almost the end of the year and that meant only one thing, Evelyn's birthday was coming. It was two days away, on 22nd December, when the school would be closed for Christmas vacation. Evelyn hadn't told anyone about her birthday. She wasn't planning to. Just the thought of her birthday made her stomach churn and her heart beats unsteady.

Before Granny died, she used to arrange big birthday parties for Evelyn. There will be so many people there and Evelyn would walk among them wearing a pretty dress looking like a princess, that was all she remembered.

She also remembered waiting for her dad and her mom to call to wish her a birthday. She never received one.

This year it might be a little different. Her father was acting more like a father less like a man burdened with her daughter's responsibility. Evelyn didn't want to think about her mother. She expected nothing for her. When there is no expectation, there is no hope, you would feel less pain, Evelyn believed. Still, her heart ached.

Evelyn closed her pen and closed her homework copies. Days had turned quieter and colder, not as cold as New York. It had a become a routine for her to just work by. Wake up, go to school, do homework, have dinner with dad and repeat.

But when she looked at Mason, she could feel the change. 

Mason was passing the days by only doing things he was supposed to. He didn't look after Mallory anymore. In fact, he didn't acknowledge her in any way. Evelyn couldn't tell why not for once Mason looked at Mallory. She had a feeling it was out of guilt.

Evelyn could feel him becoming normal little by little. He hadn't absolutely gone back to his own retarded cocky self, he laughed and joked with his friends but there was a sadness behind his eyes which he covered well. He had become more quiet and composed and it had become harder to read him.

Evelyn closed her eyes and remembered the day she had kissed him, the feel of his lips on her, warm and electric, sending a bolt through her whole body. But it was all a vague memory now. They had never repeated it. It felt as if they had left it all behind in the graveyard, the rain, the feelings, the kiss.

A sigh escaped her throat. Maybe this was how life balances it out, not giving too much happiness, when it gives back something, it takes away something.

Evelyn felt she had gotten back her dad, had grown out of her cycle of anxiety at the cost of losing Mason. 

The next day at school, she sat on their table with her friends. The school cafeteria was strange. There was two table side by side, one with Bryan and Mallory and all their friends other with Mason and Evelyn and all their friends. Both the table acted like the other didn't exist.