Ten

          Evan’s cottage is smaller than the lighthouse one, but it’s also cozier. Once we walk through the back sliding door of the sky blue walls, we’re instantly greeted with the smell of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Once my eyes adjust, I follow Evan down a hall and a turn to the right, where we locate the delicious scent.

            “Hi, Mom,” he says casually. He speed walks towards the oven, where his mother is taking a tray with oven mitt towards the counter.

            “Ah- don’t touch, Evan,” she says, trying to sweep the tray away from him as he reaches towards the cookies. “They’re hot.”

            “I brought a friend,” Evan replies. He doesn’t move his hand. “Her name is Bam. She lives in the lighthouse at the far end of Mermaid.”

            For the first time, Evan’s mother looks towards me. When she meets my eyes, she smiles, creating premature wrinkles around her mouth and along her face. Her blue eyes match Evan’s, but are a paler shade of blue, making her look tired. Her blonde hair, a contract to her son’s opposite, is tied in a loose ponytail.

            “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Bam!”

            Evan takes his mother’s distraction as a gateway for a cookie snatch, and despite her fast reflexes, his mother lets him win.

            “Evan,” she sighs, but there’s a smile on her lips. When he’s shoving his mouth with the chocolate, he leans against the counter and hands one of his treasures to me.

            I shake my head. “I think I’ll wait until they’re cool.”

            Evan shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

            Evan’s mother sets the metal tray on the counter and starts removing the cookies with a spatula. She gets through three cookies before Evan takes another.

            “So what are you two up to?” she asks. She looks at Evan with scrutiny, as if she’s trying to tell if he’s doing things he shouldn’t be. “I didn’t expect you back so early.”

            “I saw Bam on the beach and decided to bring her back. It’s getting dark out already. I think there’s a storm coming.”

            “That’s what the news has been saying. You better not let poor Bam walk home in a thunderstorm, Evan.”

            Evan turns away, letting his hair create a shield from both his mother and I. “Yeah, I’ll take her home when she wants to.”

            Upstairs, Evan’s room is exactly across from his parents, making the entire second floor tiny. His bedroom is smaller than mine, and his walls are painted navy, making the space look tinier than it actually is. Most of the things in his room match the dark shade of the walls – the comforter, a small deck, the bedside table. Even with the small daylight streaming in through two windows, the room is very dark.

            Evan sits on his bed and gestures around the room. “Welcome to my home.” His tone is sarcastic. “What do you want to do?”

            I take a seat at his desk and swivel left and right with my legs. “I have no idea. What do you want to do?”

            “Oh, God,” Evan moans, falling back on his bed. His arms are spread out beside him. He almost blends into the mattress. “Let’s not turn into those kids who just ask that question back and forth until the day is over and repeat it tomorrow.” He fingers the fabric on his comforter for a few moments, thinking, before he sits up slightly and leans back on his hands. “Want to watch a movie?”

            We end up sitting side by side at the head of the mattress, watching the small screen of the computer atop the desk. I’ve never heard of the movie and despite owning it, Evan said he’s never seen it either. For the first ten minutes we watch in silence. Quickly, I start to tune out of the movie and eventually stop paying attention entirely. Evan does the same.

            “Feeling better?” Evan asks.

            “Great conversation starter.”

            “Sorry,” he says. “So how did you end up lost, again? Mermaid isn’t that big.” Evan smiles but I turn my gaze towards my lap and start picking at the frayed ends of my shorts.

            “I wasn’t lost at first. I went downtown and found Hadley. Then I left…”

            “And then you got lost.”

            I nod.

            “Why did you leave?” he asks. “I thought you were looking to see Hadley. Well, at least you were before the truck…”

            I smirk at Evan, catching the playfulness in his voice. “I’m glad I have at least one other person who isn’t so serious about the situation. My parents are ballistic. And I left because I saw somebody who I wasn’t planning on seeing here. Or anywhere, for that matter.”

            Evan’s expression changes, and for a moment, he looks concerned. But he quickly breaks away eye contact and turns his gaze back towards the computer screen, pretending to watch it. I can tell he’s not really seeing what’s in front of him.

            “I know I probably shouldn’t ask, but who?”

            My lips press into a thin line before I part them. “A person from my past.”

            He nods, as if he’s understanding. But I don’t know how he could possibly understand who that person was to me, or why I was so shocked, or how somewhere, deep, deep down, I hoped I would never, ever see them again. And somehow, not seeing them would make me forget them.

            “I know what you mean,” he says suddenly.

            Without explaining, he rises from his bed and stands on his feet. I hesitate, not sure if I should follow him but he immediately drops onto his knees and turns around. I stay seated as he crawls underneath his bed so far that he only sticks out in view from the knees down. When he returns after a bunch of shuffling noises, he places a wooden box that resembles a small treasure chest on the bed.

            “My dad got it for me when he went on a trip to the Bahamas for work,” Evan explains. “He hoped I would put books in it.”

            I raise my eyebrows. “And did you?”

            Evan smirks, but his eyes don’t continue the gesture. “Nope.”

            As he opens the top of the chest I remove my back from the wall and scoot over towards him. I sit on the opposite side of the box and cross my legs, watching different expressions cross his face. Things I can’t see make noises I can’t decipher as he digs through the wooden chest.

            He goes from sad to angry to smiling and then back to sad before he hands me a picture.

            A faded photograph reveals a smiling man who’s a little round around the edges sitting in a chair. In his arms he holds a small boy, standing on his knees with short, black hair. Evan’s grinning in the photograph, and when I look up, I can see the resemblance.

            “My Dad died in his sleep.”

            Suddenly, the paper feels like a weight in my hands. It’s as if I’m holding a bowling ball between two fingers rather than a picture. I hand Evan back the photograph and neither of us meet the other’s eyes.

            “Heart attack,” he adds, as if to answer my unasked question.

            “I’m sorry.”

            “What I’m trying to say,” he continues while he places the photograph back in the chest and closes the lid, “is that I know what you mean. Even though he’s gone, I still see him everywhere – whether I expect to or not. He’s not alive, not here anymore, but every time I think I see him, it makes me sick. It’s like when I realize he’s dead, it’s a fresh wound all over again.”

            “Exactly,” I whisper.

            I stare down at my lap, chewing on my bottom lip. On one hand, I want to tell Evan about who I saw today, and give him a little piece of why I was so upset. After all, he just shared a huge part of his life with me. But on the other, I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want him to know about my past, or anything that happened or I did. Even revealing this small part, even if he thinks it’s insignificant, it feels like it’s too much.

            “I don’t want to rip off a Band-Aid,” I admit.

            Evan nods, slides his chest underneath his bed and stands again. “I understand.” He smiles as a loud burst of thunder cracks the silence. I flinch, a small yelp leaving my lips and Evan’s hand instantly grabs mine on the bed. As soon as the bang is over, he quickly removes it. As he turns away, I think his cheeks are copying mine.

            “That was loud,” I mumble. I hadn’t expected the first call to be so sudden.

            “It didn’t sound very good.” Evan walks to his closet beside his desk, where the movie is quietly playing. Two people are having a heart-felt conversation on the screen and I think it might be a key part in the movie. I turn away from the screen. “We should get you home.”

            I watch as he pulls a black hoodie over his head and turns around. The hood hands just off his head and when I realize I’m staring, I quickly look away. I try my hardest not to smile as I stare out at the dark grey sky. Outside looks scary. The waves look like mini-tsunamis threatening the sand.

            “Not that I don’t want to spend more time with you or anything,” Evan continues, “because I do. I just don’t want to drive you home in the pouring rain. I think you’ve had enough car accidents for one week, don’t you think?”

            I grin. “Definitely.”

            A black Jeep Rubicon is sitting in Evan’s driveway as we advance into the storm. His mother packed me up a small container of cookies, telling me not to give them to Evan, who was staring at them like he could snatch them from me any second. When we step into the weather, I flick up the navy hood of a sweater Evan let me borrow. It smells like a mixture between clean laundry and boy.

            Rain is just starting to gently come down, hitting the windshield before we climb into the Jeep. Once inside, I strap on my seatbelt and take a deep breath of air.

            “New car smell,” I note.

            Evan smiles and opens the center console. When his fingers grasp what he’s looking for, he pulls out a spray bottle with the scent listed on it. I guessed right. “I take care of my car,” he says with a smirk.

            We drive the way to my house on roads I’ve never been on. Evan seems to know the route better than I do, so I stay silent as the rain starts to pelt the car. When we reach my driveway it feels like it’s too soon, so I linger in the car for a moment longer. Even though we’ve been stopped for over a minute, and his hands no longer linger on the steering wheel, Evan doesn’t say anything.

            A loud crack of lightning lights up the sky across the ocean and I shudder. As much as I’d like to stay inside the Jeep and do nothing with Evan, I have to go. I don’t want him driving home in a storm, especially one on the coast.   According to my dad, who talked all about the coast on the way here, the storms in Mermaid are much, much worse than the ones in the city.

            “I guess I better go,” I murmur, moving my gaze from my lap to Evan’s face. He’s staring at the steering wheel, looking something close to sad. When he looks at me, he gives me a small smile.

            “I guess you do.”

            I unbuckle my seatbelt and reach for the door handle just as another flash ignites the clouds. Before I can open the door, Evan reaches out and grabs my arm, stopping me.

            “Get home safe,” he says.

            “I think I’ll manage the fifteen feet to the door,” I laugh.

            Evan smiles and drops my arm. “See you soon!” he calls as I step out into the rain.

            “We still have our rumor to explore!” I yell back over the rain. I hold the hood tightly to my head as I close the door, not wanting it to blow off in the wind. It’s full on pouring as I rush towards my front door, feeling my hair and the sweater soak before I’m halfway. When I’m touching the door handle, I turn around. Evan’s still idling in the driveway.

            I give him a small wave and he grins back, returning the gesture with his hand. As he pulls out of the driveway, I step into my house.

            As soon as I smell pasta boiling in the kitchen, I’m reminded of why I left. My dad’s home now, most likely in on whatever story my mother told him as soon as he walked through the front door. At first, I’m nervous, ready to face whatever punishment or guilt that’s going to be thrown at me. But as soon as I burst into the kitchen, words leave my mouth without my head processing them first.

            “What is Cade’s mother doing in Mermaid?”