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evangeline blackwood

"If ⅓ of 3 is 1, ⅓ of 9 is....?"

"3?"

He sounds hesitant, nervous even.

I smile encouragingly, "Hey, that's right! You need to have more confidence in yourself, little man."

"Shut up." He shuffled away as I ruffle his hair, cooing. 

"Eh, I hated maths for years but, trust me, you'll learn more if you practise."

"Practise makes perfect, yeah yeah." He rolls his eyes, repeating the phrase that my Mums always try to push into him. He pauses for a second, as if he was questioning himself. "Evan?"

"Yeah??"

"Was Jonah good at maths?" I hate how quiet his words are.

I pause for a moment, thinking.

"He was incredible." I admit honestly, smiling at my little brother gently. "I've never met anyone that smart before."

He stays quiet but nods his head.

"You don't have to be scared of asking me about him, you know?" I lower my voice, meeting his eyes. Those wide, but unusual, green eyes that he got off my father that contrasted heavily with his black skin.

Jonah had a green eye too. One green with a brown freckle and the other as dark as mine.

"I know." He tears his eyes away from mine, "Mums just don't like to speak about him."

"It's just hard, little man." I ruffle his hair, "But he's your brother so you deserve to know whatever you want to."

"Evan? Atlas?"

"Yeah?" I look up from Atlas to see my Mum gazing at me. Her eyes drop to his maths homework before she gestures towards the door.

"Support group."

I bite my inner lip, choosing acceptance rather than rebellion. There's a million things that I want to say, a million things I want to shout. But I keep my mouth shut, not wanting the trouble.

Especially in front of Atlas.

"Okay."

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Have you ever lost someone who meant the entire world to you?

I don't speak about Jonah that much. The reason why is the attention, I hate it, and the pity. The other reason why lies with the actual murder itself and how, no matter how hard I try, I can never get it out of my mind.

I don't like to speak about him, but I never stop thinking about him.

It comes in waves, never truly going away but the intensities change over time. Sometimes it comes without warning, entirely submerging me in the memories and nightmares until I'm left drowning. Sometimes, it's slow. Not quick or unexpected, it creeps up on me. And that can be worse. It's like putting a frog in a pan of water and slowly increasing the heat until it's too late.

I might have saw Jonah's death coming at the time but I didn't believe it would happen, I didn't believe the world could be so cruel.

And now I have to live with the trauma. Everyday.

I snapped out of my thoughts as I'm directly addressed.

"Why are you here today, Evan?" My Mum speaks to me as if she doesn't know. I can physically fucking feel everyone's eyes on me.

I bite my tongue, holding back all the vulgar language that I want to scream and shout. I want to scream at my Mums for making me come here, I want to scream at Jonah for fucking leaving me.

I just want this to stop.

I want it to stop hurting.

Adonis is here. He's sat next to me again. His sister isn't.

The younger one, Phoenix, is here instead, looking as bored and uninterested as I am.

"I'm here because..." I hesitate, exhaling deeply. "I lost my brother."

Mum doesn't reply, she just looks at me expectantly.

I tear my eyes away, staring at the wall covered in children's drawings. I bite my tongue.

"How does it make you feel?"

Don't snap. Don't fucking snap.

"You know how it makes me feel." I mutter, swallowing the lump in my throat.

"Not everyone here does." Phoenix and Adonis are here. I don't want them to see this side of me.

Don't make me do this, Mum, please.

If I start talking, I'm scared I won't be able to stop.

This isn't me.

"It makes me feel ...lost." I wipe my eyes, ignoring the way I can physically feel all their stares burning into my body.

I'm not saying anymore. I can't.

Ashanti's birthday. Atlas' birth. My 13th birthday. Morgan's first day at school. Adonis and Julian arguing.

"Matilda?" Her turns to the next person and all I can think of is that those people are still out there, no distractions are working.

They never got arrested. Never got punished for slaughtering my brother.

"Eva?" The nickname slips through his lips easily. Adonis' Manc accent halts the toxic voice in my mind. My attention fix's on him. He hands me a note, "Open it once you leave."

My Mum speaks over him. "Phoenix?"

"No."

"Phoe." Adonis elbows his brother, who responds simply by sending him a glare.

"No."

"Dad said-" His mumble trails off as his words quieten.

"I don't care, I don't need to see some shrink. I ain't depressed and I ain't mad." He grabs his coat, storming out the door before Adonis manages to stop him.

He smiles at my mum sheepishly, "I'm sorry about him. Thanks for today, ma'am."

Adonis rushes off after his brother and I can't help but hope that he would've stayed.

The paper almost seems to burn my hand at Adonis' absence so I open it. Scribbled in hideously neat handwriting is a quote from one of the arguably best novels of all time.

'We need never be ashamed of our tears'*

It acts as a small comfort that maybe someone else understood my desire to not speak about the horrors that stained my past.

I get through the rest of the session in complete silence, only speaking when spoken to and, even then, replying with short and blunt answers.

The moment that clock gets to 7, I'm gone. Without looking back, I walk through the door and head to the park, where I know Ashanti and Logan are already at.

"Where've you been, man?" 'Shanti's grinning widely, sat on the climbing frame. Logan's on his phone, not acknowledging my arrival.

I clip the back of his ear, "Don't be rude."

"Calm down, Blackwood." He winces, jumping up. "Little bitch."

"Yeah,do you want to say that a bit louder?" I smirk, stepping towards him.

"Sorry." He says in a high pitched voice, chuckling.

"Are you good?" I ask, sitting on the asphalt with my knees up.

"Logan invited one of the new kids. Forgot his name but its the gay one." Ashanti grasses him up, Logan flushes red.

"Oh? Apollo?" I hum suggestively, "Pretty fit, mhm?"

"Understatement." Ashanti mumbles under her breath.

"Hush." I scold, "Don't let Morgs hear you say that. Speaking of, they're over there."

The figures get closer to us until they're within earshot.

"New kids." I greet, waving sarcastically at them.

Apollo sits on the bench next to Logan with Phoenix on his other side. Rory and Morgan join Ashanti on the climbing frame and Adonis sits beside me on the floor.

"I'm bored." Ashanti pretty much screams, making all our ears hurt.

"Let's play a game seen as someone." I direct quite blatantly at Logan, "..forgot to bring the merchandise."

While the idiots all argue about what game to play, Adonis lowers his voice and asks me a question. "What merchandise were you referring too?"

"Bud and vodka." I shrug, "Logan normally sorts it for us because all the shops round here know mine and Ashanti's family so, despite our age, it ain't easy to get shit."

"Fair enough." He goes back to staring at the ground. "Are you a stoner?"

"Wouldn't go that far." I try to keep my eyes away from him so I don't look like a freak. "Just have it when I go out."

"Same here." He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively and I laugh.

But halfway through the laugh, I pause upon a sudden realisation.

He heard me talk about Jonah at the support group.

Adonis seems to notice my change in mood and sobers up at bit, his lips forming a small smile.

"What's the dumbest way any of you have ever been injured?" He turns to the group, but I could tell he was mainly addressing my friends. A part of me wanted to think that he was making an effort with them because they've all barely spoken, but I was probably just blowing things out of proportion.

"Dunno, what about you?"" Ashanti shrugs, tearing her gaze away to look at Adonis' younger siblings.

"Donnie broke his leg once seeing if you could actually slip over banana peels like in the movies." Orion says with the most nonchalant expression I've ever seen in my life. "Long story short, you can."

Ashanti bursts out laughing, Logan snorts and I have to bite my lip to withhold any laughter that was begging to escape me.

"Thanks a lot, Rory." He hissed, narrowing his eyes jokingly.

"No problem, big bro." She widens her smile sarcastically and shakes her head.

Phoenix looks really uncomfortable sat on the bench, even though he's next to his brother. He almost seems to shrink into himself, hesitant and somewhat fearful. The bags under his eyes that seem to stretch for days, I've never seen someone look so physically tired before and it's almost scary.

He seems to notice me staring at him pretty quickly and sends me one of the harshest glares I've ever received in my life. Regardless, I send him a small smile and direct my attention to my phone as it beeps.

Mum #1

Come home soon xx

It beeps again

Mum #2

Need a chat, get back to the house by 9.

Wow. Blunt much.

I check the time and see that I've got 16 minutes to get home. From where I am in the park, it'll take me around 7 minutes to get back without taking the backroads.

Fuck it.

"I'm off." I announce, standing up and brushing the dirt off my back.

Adonis stands with me and awkwardly stays still as I hug the others, aside from Phoenix who I just verbally bid farewell to.

"Wait," He says with a hint of hopefulness. Once again, weirdly, he takes a small piece of paper out his pocket with a pen and writes on it, before scrunching it up and handing it to me. "See you soon?"

"Will do." I hug him quickly before tearing myself away and walking home.

Despite the winter sky being almost pitch black, even though the time is relatively early, I can almost relax in the silence I'm greeted with. It's peaceful. Helps me forget the horrors that can be hidden in the darkness, the same horrors that were so blatant in the light.

Jonah died in the light. The sun was shining so brightly that day, I doubt I'll ever forgot it. It juxtaposed the situation so heavily, how something so utterly wrong and heartbreaking could occur on a day that brought others so much happiness and serenity.

I'm almost home when I open the piece of paper in my hand.

It's a phone number, which I assume is his, with a sentence below it.

'Some birds are not meant to be caged'*

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion and amusement at the blunt randomness of the note and yet again the quote. I love literature, everyone who knows me well enough is aware of that.

So how does Adonis Walker, the boy who I've basically just met, know that?

I open the front door and lock it as I get into my house. My shoes are off and my jacket hung up as the conversations in the living room halt.

"Evan?" I hear my Mum walk through the living room as she shouts my name.

"I'm home, going up to my room." I dismiss her quickly, the exhaustion almost becoming overwhelming.

"Baby, come here." Her voice is surprisingly soft, Cami must be home too.

"Mum, I really can't be both-" My breathing halts, I stop talking. The door opens to reveal a man with dark brown skin and forest-green eyes.

My brother's eyes.

He's dressed in that typical, khaki-green uniform and I swear everything around me stops.

"Dad?" My throat closes up, my eyes started to sting. "Dad."

I rush to him without a moment's hesitation. His arms embrace me and I melt into his hold.

"I thought..I thought." I hiccup, tightening my hold on him.

"It's okay, Princess. I'm home now."

Confession: I wish my Dad wasn't in the army.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

* 1. Great Expectations

* 2. Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption, Different Seasons