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evangeline blackwood

"Evan!"

"Hey." I grin at Adonis as he jogs over to me. Morgan's trailing behind him.

"Do you want a ride home?" He asks, much to my surprise.

"Uh, sure." I reply, following him to his truck and climb into the front before Morgan gets a chance to.

"Bitch."

"Prick." I stick my tongue out at him, chuckling as he kisses his teeth. "This is a nice truck, I like it."

"Yeah?" Adonis' eyebrows lift as he sets the car in reverse, his lips tug up. "I fixed it up myself."

Mechanic overalls. Ohhh it makes sense now.

"Never, that's crazy." I say in awe. Morgan makes gagging noises in the back so my attention goes straight to him. "Shut up, Morgan."

"Is that Logan?" Adonis questions, pointing to a group across the road as we stop at the traffic lights.

My breathing hitches.

He wasn't in college today. I thought he was ill or something, probably still in bed.

Turns out he just skipped. 

Morgan grunts, I don't need to look at him to know that he's gritting his teeth. "Yeah, they're his mates."

Adonis seems to sense the tension, "Oh?"

"You see the dark-skinned one? Next to Logan." I know who Morgan's describing, I know all of them. But I look anyways. "That's Michael Jacobsen."

Brown eyes and black hair, with a black soul to match.

"White girl's Karis Crookes and the Asian one is Mo Osman."

"Are they trouble?"

He looks directly at me but I don't say anything. He starts driving as the traffic light goes green and Morgan eventually speaks up.

"They're the people you avoid in order to stay out of hospital." He phrases it bluntly, which I can't blame him for. It's not exactly something that could be sugarcoated.

I answer the question before Adonis has the opportunity to ask it, "They've known each other a long time, Lo ain't like that."

The soft humming of the radio consumes the silence as Adonis eventually pulls up to my house.

"Thank you. See yous in a bit." As I go to climb out of the truck, Adonis slips a hand into my pocket and winks at me.

I laugh it off, watching him drive away before pulling the slip of paper back out and reading the inscription.

'You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.'*

To Kill A Mockingbird.

It's literally my favourite quote.

Smiling to myself, I walk into my home.

_________________

The floorboard creaks downstairs. I can hear someone moving things around, but not like they're trying to grab something and run.

I tense up, my parents and Atlas aren't home and I know full well that they won't be until Sunday morning.

The noises continue, anxiety rises in my gut, closing my throat.

Telling myself I'm just hearing things, I keep my eyes clenched shut until I hear a crash sound outside my bedroom door.

I spring out of bed, in my shorts and tank top, and wrench the door open and swing the baseball bat that I keep near my door.

It doesn't hit the person but I hear them shuffle back, giving me enough time to turn the landing light on.

"What the fucking hell are you doing here in the middle of the night? You scared me to death!" I snap, putting the baseball bat back and going to sit on my bed.

"Thought you were asleep." Logan mutters, shuffling in after me.

"I was." I reply bitterly. As he walks into the light and I look at him properly, I gasp. "What happened?"

He shakes his head, directly telling me to drop it, but I don't care.

"What happened to you?"

"Was on a run...with Michael and Karis." I freeze but stay silent as he continues. "Some random tried taking our geer, pulled a blade. If it wasn't for Mike, I'd probably be dead."

You mean, you'd probably be dead if your 'bestie' didn't carry a blade too?

What a fucking shame.

"How'd you get in?"

"Had to climb in through the window," Logan sounds sheepish now, "Not my greatest hour."

"Did you get cut?" My eyes scan over his face and all his visible skin. There's no long gashs.

"Just a few bruises, busted nose." He shys away from the question, glare glued to the ceiling.

"Take your top off and go into the bathroom. I'll be back in a minute."

Before he has the chance to argue with me, I go to my room and grab the first aid kit before heading into the room.

His torso hasn't changed much from the last time I saw him without a top on luckily. It sounds weird to think, I know.

But when your best mate got used to getting cut up when he was a kid, collecting scars was something he barely cared about.

He's still littered with pink lines that shine so bluntly on his white skin. Now, they're joined by arrays of blue and purple.

"Thought you said there was only a few?"

"I didn't feel much." He doesn't say the exact words, but I know what he means.

I don't ask him what he had. I don't want to hear him say anything about it.

Handing him my Mum's emergency ice pack, I instruct him. "Hold it on them for around 5 minutes and take a paracetamol."

"Thanks, E." He smiles softly, his eyelids half closed. I might despise moments like this, moments when a boy who I look at like a brother gets hurt, but I love how his kindness appears to fade.

When I met Logan all them years ago, it taught me a lot.

You don't know fuck all about life unless you're at the bottom of the hierarchy, with nothing but a blade and street knowledge.

When you've got to steal your way through starving and break into deserted houses just so you can sleep for one night with both eyes shut.

He had such a hard life, most of which I've never questioned him about.

I found him on the streets. He didn't beg, or ask for food. He was just sat there. Everyday at the same corner. Until one day, he was gone.

I walked past that corner every single day on my way to school. For 2 years. And when he suddenly disappeared, I was worried. That day, Morgan and Ashanti went out with me and we found him battered in some alley. He could barely talk. We took him to hospital, phoned my parents and they got the social.

The only thing he told me was that his name was Logan. He was 14.

He never spoke about why he was on the streets but Cami told me it was because his Dad didn't take care of him or want him around.

So he spent years on the streets, witnessing things that even my darkest memory couldn't match. He saw kids die, getting shot or stabbed. Probably stabbed a few himself.

But he always told me that he did what he needed to, even if it was wrong. He was the underclass, the person who some rich kids used to spit on.

So he got tough. Fought back. That's how he survived.

His life is entirely different now. He's got friends, he's got his foster family.

But the two things that never changed were who he stuck with - Michael - and the scars.

They never seemed to fade.

"Are you carrying?"

He shakes his head, turning around so I can see there's nothing in his waistband.

"You need to be careful, Lo. The streets ain't safe no more."

"They ain't ever been safe, E." He grabs my hand, squeezing it. "But you don't have to worry. I can look after myself and I'll always protect you."

"You know why I worry. Especially when you go out and come back all busted up." I wince as he grunts, moving the ice pack to another part of his body.

"E, the guy who did that to Jonah is probably dead or inside. You don't have to worry." He's trying to be comforting, I know, but it just makes it hurt more.

How can't he know that those friends he has are the reason why Jonah's six feet under?

"You don't know that though. No one knows."

He caresses the side of my face, his gunmetal blue glistening with unshead tears. "No one will ever hurt you, E, I swear. You don't need to worry or be scared 'cause I'll always have your back just like you've always had mine."

"I can't lose no one else, Logs." I hate how my voice breaks, how I can so easily show weakness.

I'm supposed to be used to this shit by now.

He kisses my forehead, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. "Let's just go to bed."

"You getting in with me?"

"Oi." He chuckles, "I'm gay, remember?"

I snort, "I doubt I would ever forget."

"Do you remember when we were kids and I used to stay here like every week?" He reminds me as we face each other in the bed.

I grin at the memory, recalling all the times that us and Ashanti would reign terror on our homes. "Remember when we built that massive fort and wouldn't let anyone in?"

"And then Jonah ruined it." One corner of his mouth tugs up higher than the other, his eyes squinting as he laughs silently.

"I swear, Mums used to proper hate us when we did stuff like that."

"They really did." He sobers, glancing at my photograph-consumed ceiling. "I always catch myself thinking about what Jonah would be doing now if he was still here. I know it's weird because I didn't know him long, but he was going to change the world."

"But around him, the world burned." I finish off, keeping my voice light despite the darkness overtaking my heart. "He just wanted to do good."

"He did do good."

"He wanted to study medicine...cure cancer and AIDS and every disease known to man." I awed, "He never failed to astound me."

"I don't understand how anyone could ever want to hurt him."

A part of my brain begged me to tell him just what sort of people his other friends were, ask him if he knew why they did what they did. But I stay silent. I don't ask him why or tell him the truth.

Because I'm scared, terrified even. What if he finds justification for what they did? What if he sides with them? I don't want to face it and, frankly, I don't want to speak about what I saw. Or how I know that they did it.

Morgan always begged me to speak out, raise my voice and, as a kid, I always told myself that if any shit ever happened to me, I'd make my voice heard. I promised myself that if I witnessed any form of injustice, I would let the whole world know.

But when it happened, I couldn't. When I became that person, my voice was lost like all the other children whose stories were never told.

Confession: Better days are coming