"Right! Turn right! You missed the turn," Evelyn facepalmed as Ethan drove straight past the entrance to their hotel. The less than two hour drive felt like a ten hour one as the two tried their best to keep it as easy and stress-free as possible.

"If you're such an expert, why don't you drive?" Ethan exclaimed in frustration.

Evelyn dramatically huffed. "I literally offered to! Besides, there's no point anymore! It's not my fault you have no sense of direction!"

"You know, I'm really starting to believe what Tara told me!" Ethan shot back sarcastically, making Evelyn gasp.

"Yeah, right!" she jabbed her best friend from the passenger seat. Her and Ethan's dynamic had always been lighthearted and even a little childish. She's never change it for a thing, though. There was never a dull moment with Ethan's witty comebacks and just plain dumb comments.

Ethan threw his body onto one of the beds as soon as he made his way into their shared hotel room. "So I was thinking we could go to the pool later and you can like, take some good pictures of me. Then maybe we could go out to eat at some fancy restaurant and take some good pictures there, too," Ethan gave Evelyn an unimpressed look after hearing her plans. "What? this is my vacation too. You're acting like you just drove all the way across America."

     "Fine, but I want some pictures of us together too," Ethan got up to find the TV remote and channel guide. "Give me like an hour or two though, I just drove seven hours just for you."

     "Seven hours?!" Evelyn laughed. "You didn't even drive for two! And this trip was your idea!"

      "Whatever, it felt like way longer than that!"

     "Yeah, probably because of all the wrong turns you made!"

    
     "Why is the water so cold?!" Evelyn complained as she joined her friend in the frozen hotel pool.

     "Get over it!" Ethan rolled his eyes but his smile remained painted on his face. After Evelyn paid for his dinner, in return for taking tens of thousands of pictures of her, the two ended their night by going for a swim in the currently vacant hotel pool. "What do you think we should do tomorrow?"

     "Well tomorrow morning I want to go shopping, then for the rest of the day we just do whatever else there is to do in Palm Springs," Evelyn shrugged.

     "Cool," Ethan agreed. He wasn't good at making plans, so he just let Evelyn do all the work. "Hey, Ev?" he asked carefully, knowing the topic he was about to bring up was a touchy one for her.

     "Yeah?" she tilted her head, wondering what got Ethan's tone to suddenly get so serious.

"What do you think the ranch is like nowadays?"

Evelyn inhaled a sharp breath. She usually avoided the topic like the plague, and when she caught her mind starting to bring it up, she did anything she could to distract herself. Her childhood and teenage years were ones she never wanted to relive, let alone think about. However, as much as she hated thinking about it, her mind couldn't help but drift to it from time to time. It usually led to her getting upset and crying so she really tried her best to keep her composure in front of Ethan. "I have no idea," she answered after a while of composing her messy thoughts.

"You think it's changed?" Ethan leaned against the wall of the pool, staring up at the starry night sky.

"If you're talking about the racism, then no. I'm not sure of anything else," Evelyn placed her elbow and on the edge of the pool deck and leaned her head against her hand. She immediately began thinking of happier things to try and stop her thoughts from getting darker and deeper.

"How do you think Troy's doing?" Evelyn froze up at the simple question. She hadn't said that name in years. If she was ranting to Ethan, she'd address the sour boy as 'him' or 'you know who'.

"If he's not in the military, he's still doing his ranch militia thing. Probably playing some more innocent 'brown' girls," Evelyn moved to mess with her nails, turning away from Ethan in case she let a few of her pooling tears slip.

     There was silence between the two, which was very out of the ordinary. It was almost never quiet unless one of them was asleep, and they were both okay with that. "Come here, Ev," Ethan broke the tension and pulled Evelyn's body close to his. She let out a sigh, blinking away her tears as she melted into the hug.

     "It's okay, I'm okay. It's in the past now. That's what matters."

a/n
first chapter whattt?
i'm so excited!!!
i have been trying to
write this ish for 3 weeks
i'm not even lying.
hope you're enjoying
enough to stick around lol
wc: 818
07.25.22 / 07.29.22