And all my walls stood tall painted blue

But I'll take 'em down, take 'em down and open up the door for you

And all I feel in my stomach is butterflies the beautiful kind

Making up for lost time, taking flight, making me feel like

-Everything has changed, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran.

03| Evelyn

Evelyn was going through her first day at Gateway High with a tight knot in her stomach and the oh-so-gracious scowl from her locker mate, the guy with insanely blue eyes. Evelyn wasn't planning to make friends. It was until History, nobody paid her attention, but Abigail Johnson.

Abigail sat next to Evelyn, introduced herself, saying she was assigned to help her, sent by the gracious Maisie to help Evelyn. Abigail called her 'lost soul' and laughed about it.

Evelyn didn't find any humor in it, but laughed along. She did really think she was a lost soul just floating by. Pathetic.

And thus Evelyn ended up being dragged to the cafeteria by her. Her constant chatter got old too fast. Then she spotted the scowl-faced-blue-eyed guy.

His name was Mason Stewart, as told by Abigail.

But what was disappointing was the blue-eyed guy, however, was really a big fan of scowls and kind enough to offer one to her again. Not just that, he left without any word. Evelyn is wondering how his voice might sound, laced with silk or harsh like crows. Might be the latter.

After Abigail offered her to sit with them, Evelyn smiled tightly with her lips pressed. She was then introduced to Jack Walters, a guy with midnight black hair and goofy smile. He was talking about cockroaches with Noah White, a guy with a sweet smile and blonde hair, who was ignoring Jack.

Beside Noah sat Diana Carter, her rich brunette hair falling in waves down her shoulder. She smiled at Eve. On another chair was a redhead with black rimmed glasses on her nose with a book in her hand, Rita Jenkins.

Evelyn sat down and gave all of them a nervous smile in return. The table was exactly in the middle of the cafeteria, which made Evelyn think everyone was staring at her. She reminded herself how she would hide from Abigail and sit in a corner table tomorrow. Deciding that, Evelyn opened her lunch box, which contained salads.

Evelyn was gaining weight, which was really odd for an anxious person whose stomach was constantly in knots and wanted to throw up whatever she ate.

But she figured it out why. She didn't move as much as she should. She had never worked out, after she left dancing, ever again. Her activities were going to school, doing her homework, watching TV and eating Cheetos while lying in the drawing room couch and sleeping. The same routine, every single day.

While in New York, Evelyn used to learn ballet, and she was surprisingly good at it, she could bend her body to any angle she wanted and that got her teacher, the toughest teacher of the academy agreed with her granny that she would be one of the most famous dancer one day. Later she gave up on that, right after her granny died and she left New York.

But Quinton seemed to like the fact that Evelyn could dance like a professional.

"How can you do that?" Quinton said to Evelyn looking all surprised as he saw her dancing.

"Do what?" Evelyn replied with a smile on her face.

"Dance like that, if I tried to do that, I will surely break my bones." He said in awe.

"I will teach you how to do that." She said with a wink.

Quinton went on with the conversation about how amazing it was to be able to dance like that. He was too generous about compliments. Evelyn wondered was he always that generous or it was something he made himself do just to get to Evelyn.

"Are you always that quiet?" Evelyn jumped out of her skin as Rita, the redhead with thick black glasses, pulled her out to the real world.

"No need to get scared, I lose myself in my thoughts too," She said, with a lace of concern in her voice.

Evelyn couldn't answer. She overheard Jack who was saying, "Listen, butterflies and cockroaches are from the same Phylum, so if you can like butterflies, you can also like.."

"Then imagine people saying, I have cockroaches in my stomach when they fall in love," The words seemed to make their way out of her mouth, before Evelyn could catch them.

The whole table turned to her and she gulped. They burst into fits of laughter and Jack turned to Abigail and said, "I feel cockroaches in my stomach whenever I see you."

Abigail swatted him and rolled her eyes.

Later that day, when Evelyn made it to the end of school, Abigail was right there again. She started, "So there's a party on Saturday at Noah's. You're definitely coming."

It sounded more like an order than a request, which instantly reminded Evelyn of Cecily Hill, her best friend.

Evelyn wanted to say no.

In her life, Evelyn had had enough high school parties. In Sophomore year when she was the girlfriend of the most popular guy of school, the famous quarterback Quinton Rogers, Evelyn had to go to every parties that happened in the town then. And being an "It" girl herself, she couldn't avoid parties.

Everyone seemed to like Evelyn back then. It was either for her boyfriend or for her warm smile or for her perfect figure (as said by the main cheerleader of the football team).

No doubt, parties reminded her of those days. So it was something she wanted to avoid.

Abigail thought otherwise. She didn't even leave her with an option to say no, when she dropped her off at her house.

• • •

Evelyn had to go through her whole closet to find an outfit that might be appropriate for a party. Then she decided on a top and a pair of leggings, both of them being undoubtedly black. Getting her hair curled, rubbing a sensible amount of concealer on her face, Evelyn thought she looked somewhat decent.

The one thing left to care about was her anxiety. She hadn't had any disastrous thoughts about the party yet, which was weird, as she still felt her stomach in knots, that meant she was still anxious. It felt like the silence before the storm.

Abigail pulled off on their curb, in a black SUV and Evelyn said good night to her dad who seemed to have more interest in the rerun of a football match than her daughter leaving.

Evelyn was used to it.

She yet tried to imagine how her mom would've acted to this, what she would've said to her if she was here. But mom had left, and that had something to do with her dad's lack of interest in everything other than football and old vintage cars. Her granny used to say otherwise.

Her granny told Evelyn that her mother was a gold digger and that was why she acted as if she was in love with her dad and after she 'produced' Evelyn she thought she had second thoughts, and left. Her granny didn't exactly say the word gold digger, but Evelyn knew she meant it.

"Girl, you look hot, I thought you're gonna go to the party wearing PJ's," Abigail said, examining her, up and down.

"Well, if it's a PJ party I can change," Evelyn replied, quite blandly.

"Do these look like PJs to you?" Abigail said pointing towards her outfit, a red dress that reached to her knees.

"No, it says, get out of my way, I want to have fun," Evelyn had to say when she climbed inside the car.

"Oh yeah, that's exactly it," Abigail replied. "Maybe I'll even find someone to dance with, who knows?"

"Then what about Jack?" Evelyn frowned.

"What about Jack? He's my designated driver," Abigail shrugged.

"Oh, I see what's going on here," Evelyn said while smiling.

"Do you?" Abigail said, "Because I don't. You don't know what a clown he is."

Evelyn laughed in cue.

"Noah, on the other hand, is more of a stable guy, I'd say," Abigail said, "Diana and Noah, together, reminds of every romance movie I had ever watched."

Those two of their friend group were dating, Evelyn had figured.

"And then there's our famous Mason," Abigail said, "He's like the guy with a big frown on his face but with a golden heart."

"Hmm," Evelyn made a noncommittal sound. She hadn't seen anything golden about him yet.

They arrived at the party in less then ten minutes. The house was undoubtedly a mansion that belonged to Noah's.

The party was everything Evelyn had guessed; sweat, booze and teenagers getting nestled up against each other in corners of the house or any private place they found.

Her anxiety had led her to do boring things like stay at home and never step out. Now when she did, her head was clear, and even that made her anxious. Her anxiety was like a parent to her, like her mom, always telling her that she would mess up if she did certain things.

When she finally pulled herself out of her thoughts, she found an almost drunk Abigail tagging along with her as she talked about cocktails. The sound of people shouting came to her ear as they went near the swimming pool. Evelyn caught the name Mason, which turns out to be the blue-eyed-scowl-lover-rude guy's name as told by Abigail.

And also another name, Bryan.

The story of how she met Bryan could be categorized as a meet-cute, surely. She was running to catch Jack in school during lunch as he stole her lunch box. She had fries scattered around her lunch tray and was staring at them when Jack decided it would be a good idea to make Evelyn run. She left her tray on the table and on the way out she almost, almost crashed on Mason. Mason on the other hand, too surprised to see her running, gave her another scowl, which Evelyn returned with an eye roll.

The next time, Evelyn crashed, it was stone hard abs, a head full of blondes, green eyes and a quick mischievous smile; Bryan Stellar.

"Sorry, I didn't see where I was going," Evelyn said.

Bryan, who had stood up, offered a hand to Evelyn, which Evelyn avoided with a smile and stood up too.

"Nah, it's okay. Hi, I'm Bryan," He said, not even minding that Evelyn rejected his hand. "You must be the new girl."

"Yeah, I'm Evelyn nice to meet you, but I have to catch my lunch," She had left as quickly as she could.

When she had finally returned to the cafeteria, her fries were gone and so was Mason.

Evelyn blinked and returned to the present. There was a fistfight going on at one side of the pool and, of course, a lot of people had gathered around to see the drama. The guys who were having the fight, turned out to be Mason and Bryan.

Mason got punched in his jawline, and then his throat.

"Wow," Evelyn said. "He's really getting hurt out there."

She turned to Abigail only to see her bored face, as if she wasn't even least bit concerned for her friend getting all smashed up.

"Of course, he's always the one with the bruises," Abigail said, like she was used to it.

Mason was down in the floor on his back and Bryan cursed at him. He walked away as if he was done with him, leaving him. Then he took off his shirt and got in the pool, as Mason stayed where he was.

Evelyn shook her head hopelessly, thinking why she was even at the party. To her surprise, Abigail was not beside her anymore. Evelyn was so busy watching the fight, she hadn't noticed Abigail leaving.

She looked around for her. She went back to the living room only to find it full of people whom she didn't know.

A wave of cool feeling ran down her spines and her stomach tightened. She had done a great mistake. She didn't have a ride back home, and for that she needed to find her friends.

She took a deep breath and looked around the room, and her eyes met someone else's. A guy with red face and red hair was looking at her from the distance. She didn't like the way he was looking.

You're in great trouble

Evelyn drew in a deep breath. She walked around the room with a view to disappearing among the people, and that guy followed.

Evelyn heart beat accelerated. Her breathing became ragged and quick.

This is so bad

You shouldn't have come

Minutes passed, as Evelyn scoured the grounds for the sign of anyone she knew. She only ran into people who gave her a look and turned away.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, she finally found someone whom she knew. A bottle of beer in his hand, sitting on a couch, with a black eye.

"Hey, you, you stole my FRIES!"

• • •

Rewritten.