✯ E V E L Y N ✯

"Do you know why you're here?"

The sight of a blonde woman behind her desk blurs for a second before she comes into focus. I shrug my shoulder noncommittally, dropping my gaze to my legs in skinny jeans. I pick at a loose thread on my thigh and ignore Dr. Paige's quiet sigh.

I hear the shuffling of papers and the scribble of a pen on a page; I hear my quiet intakes of breath; I hear the stupid birds outside Dr. Paige's office; I hear the clock mounted on the wall, ticking; I hear everything. My senses are sharpened, my defense is raised up, my whole body is tense and on high alert.

"Evelyn, it's been ten days and you still haven't spoken about what happened," Dr. Paige says quietly, and I glance at her to see a calm but wary expression on her face.

I hate that look. I hate it so much. I hate the way she and everybody else looks at me, like I'm some stupid, infantile dimwit that can barely refrain from splitting her skin with something sharp. I hate the way they cast me pitying looks but don't want to help me; deep down, all they want is money. Just like every other money-grabbing psychiatrist I've been to.

"Well, if you haven't fucking noticed, I don't want to be here in this place," I snap, and briefly feel guilty for speaking disrespectfully to an adult before I remember who I'm talking to. A psychiatrist. Someone who's supposed to observe my behavior, pretend to be interested in my problems, determine whether or not I need to be sent to a psych ward and report back to my parents on everything we've discussed.

Dr. Paige doesn't flinch, her brown orbs drilling into me. "I know you don't want to be here, Evelyn. I know you're going through a rough patch, but that's okay. Everyone does, and it's not such a bad idea to ask for help—"

"Help? You think I should ask for help? Four years ago, when Evian died, I asked for help, and what did I get? A daily meeting with the school guidance counselor. After-school therapy sessions. Pitying looks from everyone who knew either me or Evian. That's what I got. Not help."

My chest heaves after yelling, tears spilling over my lashes as I try to keep them at bay. Dr. Paige stares at me inquisitively for a moment before she jots something down in a black notebook. Anxiety kicks in, my heart thudding and racing, and I drag my sharp nails along my forearm to distant myself from my crazy heartbeat. Scratch, scratch, scratch.

"And, if you were to ask for help now, how would you want us to help?" she questions calmly.

The walls are caving in on me, an invisible hand grasping my neck and choking me. "I don't want help. I don't need anyone's help," I choke, burying my face in my hands as grief takes over me. My shoulders hunch with sobs, shaking uncontrollably as the image of Evian is implanted in my brain, etched in my mind.

"If you don't need help, then what do you need?" She doesn't stand up to hug me or comfort me. She scribbles some other words down, and that's when I reach my breaking point. Something tips me over the edge, and I break.

I quickly get up, shoving the chair aside and knocking it down with a loud bang. "I don't need anything, especially from you," I scream, pointing my finger at her. My face is no doubt blotchy, and my hair sticks to my cheeks but I ignore it. "I don't need your fucking fake pity, or your sympathy, or your stupid questions, or anything from you! You don't care about me; all you care about is the money my parents will be paying you for triggering me and asking me dumb questions."

I swipe my baggy sleeve across my face, my voice breaking with every word. Dr. Paige doesn't look the least bit shocked or surprised, and I stun myself by flipping over the coffee table between us, the glasses once upon it smashing once they hit the ground, and the table itself breaking into splinters of wood.

"Leave me the fuck alone," I whisper, feeling satisfied at the fleeting look of angst on Dr. Paige's face. "Maybe instead of asking me why I'm not talking, ask me how I feel. How I'm feeling inside. Do you want to know how I'm feeling inside?

"I'm dead!" I sob, my voice raising until it can't possibly get any louder. "I'm fucking dead. Everyone keeps stabbing me with their words, and I'm going crazy inside. I'm losing my mind. So go ahead: send me to a psychiatric ward with other people who hear voices and see things. That's where I belong, right?"

And with that, I storm out of her office, slamming the door behind me as I leave an earthquake behind. I lean against her door for a minute, scrubbing my eyes as they continue leaking with tears until my eyelids are puffy.

My gaze drifts around the waiting room outside Dr. Paige's office, landing on a girl with neon purple hair. Her steely eyes cut into me, and I stare her down for a few seconds before leaving her behind.

∞

The wind blows my straggly hair everywhere, obscuring my vision of the greenery in front of me. My feet are dipped into the pond water, my toes wriggling with the fish that occasionally tickle my feet.

I lay back on the grass, glad that I stumbled upon this quiet utopia a year ago when I was looking for sanctuary. I'm in some sort of forest that's on the outskirts of the city, a hidden place where no one goes because of the large, scary 'PROHIBITED ENTRY' sign near the mouth of the forest.

I rip a handful of long grass from the ground, letting the blades slip through my fingers and flutter onto my stomach. A light laugh escapes my lips when I feel a fish nuzzling the sole of my foot.

"I think laughing out of nowhere is the first sign of craziness," a female voice says all of a sudden, close enough for me to know that the person is directly behind me.

I tear more handfuls of grass, scrunching them in my hand and then dumping them back on the dry forest floor. I hear the birds stop singing, sensing a disturbance in the peace. "I laugh to myself a lot, so send me off to the nearest psychiatric hospital," I drawl out absently, twisting my upper body to take a look at the girl behind me.

Of course. It's Purple Troll, her purple hair trailing down her back and face free of makeup. She stands behind me, a passive look on her face that switches to caution and curiosity when our eyes meet.

"As if seeing you at where I work isn't enough. Are you following me?" I ask noncommittally as I turn and lay back down, throwing my arm over my red-rimmed eyes and blocking out the sunlight peeking through the trees.

There's the slight crunching of leaves under shoes before I sense a presence beside me, and an arm brushes against my left one. "Don't flatter yourself," Purple Troll says, her voice sweet and husky in my ear.

I shift my arm slightly and turn to her, watching her look beyond the pond and into the depths of the woods. "So what are you doing here? Making sure I don't drown myself?" My question is half-hearted, and her crystal eyes flick downwards to look at me.

An amused smile takes over her lips at my question, and she gazes at her fingernails ruefully. "Something like that, I guess. You can yell up a shitstorm, you know that?"

I move my hand so it's back over my eyes and let out a sigh. "You heard all of that?"

A short laugh echoes around us, and I hear her picking at dry leaves. "The walls aren't as soundproof when there's screaming involved," PT tells me, and a strong gust of wind makes my hair whip my cheeks.

I can just picture PT, legs folded and shoulders slightly hunched as she crumbles the leaves at her feet to dust. "Hey, I need to know your name because I can only think of you as Purple Troll," I say as I hoist myself into a sitting position like her, our knees touching.

A laugh bubbles out of PT, her head tilting back in amusement. The white sun is between her face and the sky, the light peeking from behind her lavender hair and briefly blinding me. "'Purple Troll'?" she giggles, confusion showing on her face as she tries to stop her laughter. I point. "Oh, right, my hair."

"Yeah." I crack a smile, now staring ahead at my feet that I dip into the lake. Lily pads and water lilies float on the clear surface of the water, but there isn't a frog in sight, which I find amusing.

"Calliope." I turn to her. "My name's Calliope but people call me Lio. It's Greek." Interesting. I nod, and from the corner of my eye I see her tie her hair into a high ponytail.

It's silent for a while, the occasional rippling of water breaking the silence, before Lio speaks, "This is the part where you tell me your name so I don't have to ask and sound intrusive."

I give her a wry smile, a laugh escaping my lips. "Evelyn," I quip, gesturing to myself with my arms wide open.

"Evelyn," Lio muses, squinting at me. Her fingers play distractedly with the laces of her scarlet sneakers. "Lovely name."

"Thanks," I reply dryly, hiding a smile and lying once again on my back. Lio lies supine beside me, her ponytail tickling my cheek.

We both stare at the greyish sky in tranquility. Lio hums a song under her breath. The corners of my lips upturn at that, and I watch the clouds above crawl at an agonizingly slow pace through the sky.

Soon enough I'm sucked into a whirlwind of thoughts, both good and bad, forgetting about the purple-haired girl beside me and the seaweed wrapping itself around my toes. My pulse increases, fluttering in my neck and my wrist, and my hands shake as I rub my forehead.

"So, what are you doing here in the first place? Isn't this place prohibited?" Lio wonders.

I prop myself up with my elbows behind me. "Yeah, but there's nothing out here except this lake and a couple of foxes that don't come near you if you don't go near them," I say, suppressing a yawn. God, I'm tired. "And besides, I just wanted to clear my head and be in peace.

"Which I was," I give her a pointed look, "Before you stalked me and gate-crashed."

Lio shakes her head bemusedly, a weird look on her face. "It wasn't a party," she points out, tossing a stone in the air and squeaking when it falls on her nose. "You were alone."

"It was a party of one." I catch movement from the corner of my eye, and see a small red-brown fox wandering back into the thick greenery. "But whatever, your company isn't too awful. I'll take what I can get."

Lio scoffs, but I can sense her smile. All of a sudden, when the wind changes direction, my phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to see Eva's name as well as the answer or decline button. After a moment of hesitation, I slip it back into my pocket.

Lio looks at my vibrating phone, her eyebrows crinkled together. "You're not gonna answer that?"

I shake my head, my mood dampened. "It's my parents," I tell her, letting my eyelids drift shut. "They can wait."

"Won't they be worried that they don't know where you are?"

I snort unattractively at that, then backpedal to her words. "How do you know they don't know where I am?"

Lio probably shrugs, something I've noticed she does often. "I don't know. Just assumed, I guess."

"Well, you assumed correctly." I huff when a raindrop falls onto my cheek, and another on my nose, and quickly get up. "Just great."

Lio stands up as well, brushing dry grass from her jeans and smoothing out her wrinkled band T-shirt. "Come on, let's get out of here before it starts raining heavily."

We quickly make our way back to the broken, wired fence separating the forest from the city, and by the time we're out in the open, it's drizzling.

Lio begins heading east and onto a road I'm not entirely familiar with, and I have no choice but to follow her since I don't exactly know where I'm going, seeing as there's thick fog creeping around our feet and torsos. "Where are we going?"

Her purple ponytail is swishing behind her as she continues walking with a skip in her step, despite the rain. "I know this great new café just up ahead." I fall in step with her, hugging myself tightly as I regret wearing such a thin sweater. Just my luck, I grumble, just as an old-fashioned café looms ahead.

Before we can push open the door, a surprise shower of rain drenches us, and I hear Lio's yelp as I just stand with my shoulders hunched and eyes screwed tightly.

Today's just my lucky day. But even as I'm thinking this, I let out a giggle.

∞

"So, you're 17, right?" Lio asks, wrapping her slender fingers around a mug.

"Um, yeah," I say, "Don't mind me, just wondering how the heck you guessed that right."

She laughs a little too loudly, drawing some attention from customers having a quiet lunch. I mean, even if she didn't raise her voice she'd still draw attention from people. She's extremely pretty, with her bright hair like a mane down her back, kind eyes, pink upturned lips and an interesting fashion sense.

"You just look seventeen." I narrow my eyes curiously at her.

"Well, if I had to guess, I'd say you're around eighteen, not older than twenty, but you dress like a fourteen-year-old." I tear off a piece of my croissant and pop it in my mouth, entertained by her expression. She scowls at me.

"Well, excuse me if the clothes I feel more comfortable wearing resemble a fourteen years olds' clothes—"

"You're excused," I tease, laughing at the unimpressed look she shoots me.

"—and I'm eighteen, not twenty. Goddamn," she finishes, sipping her herbal tea with a casual air. She discreetly and none-too-gently kicks my shin, and I yelp, earning a wicked glare from an old lady sitting on her own a few booths to the left.

When I look back at Lio she's smiling with her pearly-whites. "You're so abusive," I whine, still feeling the ache from the impact. I throw a piece of my scone at her, and she narrowly dodges it.

"And you're so childish," she teases right back, tutting at me like she hadn't started this.

"Whatever." I push my uneaten chocolate cupcake towards her, wiggling my eyebrows in a way that says she should try some, but she shakes her head. "C'mon, try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it."

She puts her hands over her face as I chant those two words, a short laugh bubbling out of her. "I'm lactose intolerant," she tells me, and I instantly stop chanting. "Wow, the only thing I can do to get you to shut up."

"Screw you."

"You wish." She winks with a smug smile and I roll my eyes, scoffing.

"So, since you're eighteen you must be finished or in your last year of high school, right?" I ask, covering my mouth as I talk through a mouthful of a strawberry scone. The food here is to die for, seriously, everything is so fresh and warm.

Lio finishes off her tea. "I'm in the 12th grade." She adds a heavy sigh, rubbing her eye. "It's stressful as fuck and I haven't even gotten through the first third of it."

"That sucks." I don't even want to think about school right now. "I'm in the 11th grade, also known as the Grade That Nobody Could Give A Hoot About."

She suddenly bursts out laughing, head thrown back and eyes closed light. She looks so pretty. "'Give a hoot about'? I have never heard anyone say the word hoot in my life," she giggles, on the verge of dying from laughter.

I crack a smile, still not sure what's so funny about what I just said. I glance out the window. "Oh, look. The rain has cleared up," I point out, gesturing towards the clear sky. It really pisses me off how the weather can go from great to awful to good again.

"It has," she agrees, before her eyes land on me. There's this weird thing that happens to my heart when she looks me in the eyes. It flutters, or something. And I kind of flinch when we make eye contact, because of her eyes. They're extremely light in color, almost silvery-blue. "You don't sound too happy."

I shrug wordlessly. Eva and Charlie are going to be pissed at me for storming off. "If you've got to go then don't let me keep you," Lio says earnestly, a worried look on her face.

I stare at my fingers for a split second, trying to make up my mind. The decision is simple, though. "Nah, I can stay for another hour or two."

She grins broadly, but it tones down a bit with uncertainty. "You sure?"

I muster as much contentment as I can possibly muster, smiling widely. "Positive."

Eva's going to yell at me while Charlie gives me a disappointed look. What's the harm in staying a little longer? All I'll be doing is delaying the shitstorm.