Evelyns POV 

--weeks later --

Things were going marvelous, I'm pretty sure I was falling in love or was in love. Everything he was and everything we were together fascinated me. The second bonfire went smoothly, everyone from the first bonfire had come except Sarah and Allison. Ashton had taken me to the movies, we had gone parasailing together which was an interesting...experience considering I was terrified and amazed all in one. 

In the back of my mind, there was always that anxiety of starting school again, but I would push that thought to the deepest parts of my mind and hide it there until I had to face it. Jax was always around, he was angrier than when I first met him and I couldn't understand what had changed. I don't think Ashton noticed and if he did, he didn't speak on it. Ashton and I weren't officially dating yet but that's where it looked like it was heading, I just kept wondering what he was waiting for to ask me out. 

I decide I've pondered enough and get up to ask my brother why I haven't seen Arlo, his best friend in such a long time. When I walk in I am left wide-eyed at what's going on in front of me. 

"JESUS YOU GUYS CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER TO LOCK THE DOOR," I SCREAM. My brother and Sadie were making out on the floor and I almost had a stroke witnessing it. Well, now she doesn't have to hide it anymore. My goodness. 

"Oh my God, YOU TOLD ME SHE WASN'T HOME," Sadie says as she pushes my brother away. 

"Babe you were never going to tell her, so I just made it easier for you," Ayden says throwing his hands up. 

"Yeah, because this way was SO much better ON HER BIRTHDAY, Jesus Ayden." She exclaims getting up and walking out of his room, slamming the door in the process. She gives me an apologetic look. 

"Sadie, I promise I don't care. The only thing that bothered me is that you told the girls before you told me." I say softly, grabbing her hand and pulling her into my room to sit on my couch. She looks so embarrassed, so I smile at her. 

"Listen I think you guys look great together, just for the love of GOD please lock the door next time." We start giggling as girls do when they're in love and she promises, laughing. 

"Well, now that, that's out of the way. The masquerade is in an hour, the girls are coming over in twenty minutes. Show me the dress you got today and oh I have your present in your brother's room." She squeals delighted.

 Oh God, for some reason I get so awkward on birthdays. Everything is set up downstairs, my parents ordered a huge cake. I chose a masquerade theme because that way I can hide behind my mask and just sneak away with Ashton. My heart begins to beat rapidly at the thought of seeing him again, he started a new internship at his dad's company so I haven't seen a lot of him this week. I had to beg my parents no party planners for this, and after some pouting my mom agreed. 

I stand up and walk over to my closet, grab the dress that is completely wrapped in plastic, and zip it down to show Sadie. I picked a long, navy blue dress with rhinestones going down the neckline. The mask was intricately detailed in a black and blue hue with a black ribbon to tie it in the back. 

"Wow Eve, it's stunning." Sadie gushes. She ran to my brother's room and back to mine completely ignoring him which made me chuckle. Her dress was a dark red shade with a red and black mask to match. I gasped at the beauty of it. 

"Now for your present! Close your eyes right now." She orders, amused. I do what she says and feel a cold chain-like object enclose around my wrist. "Open," She says. 

When I open my eyes and look down, there's a gorgeous, gold bracelet with her initials, Gianna's, Sophie's, and mine on a charm.

 "This is a present from all the girls as well, we wanted you to have something special for your 19th birthday. Plus, we ordered the same ones. They're being made and ours will be ready in about a week." She smiles. I hug her and hold her tightly. 

"How'd I get this lucky, you guys are my sisters forever," I say, letting go of her. 

"Go talk to my brother before he hates me for stealing you away," I say, rolling my eyes. She chuckles and tells me she loves me and that she'll catch up with me later. I go downstairs and tell my parents I'm going for a swim. 

"A swim? Right now?? Honey your hair, you won't have time to get it done before all the guests arrive." My mom frowns, finishing up washing her hands in the kitchen. 

I hear my dad sigh "Sweetie if she wants to go for a swim right now, let her go for a swim who cares if her hair is wet." He says, shooting me a wink. My mom looks annoyed but says nothing more about it.

 I make my way to the pool and submerge myself until I sink all the way down to the bottom. It feels so peaceful. My parents are great but every birthday I've ever had my mom uses it as a chance to invite a bunch of people She knows and those people bring along more people that I don't know or can't remember. It helps that my friends are coming but still, it ends up feeling more grown up than it should be. I swim a couple of laps, realizing I won't even have time to shower again. I take a minute to float on my back and look at the sky darkening. I submerge myself one last time and when I bring my head above water I see Jax standing at the end of the pool, which startles me. 

I swim over to him and he starts pacing back and forth. What is he doing here already, he's literally dressed and everything, just not wearing his mask yet. I grab a towel on one of the pool chairs and make my way over to him. He tries not to look at my eyes when he speaks. 

"I know I'm early but I, I wanted to give you your present before everyone else got here. I'm not big into public surprises. Happy birthday Evelyn." He says staring at my wet hair looking amused. I can smell the alcohol on his breath and we're not even standing that close to each other. 

"I get that, I'm not either believe it or not," I say lightheartedly. He takes out a small box from his dress pants and opens it. 

"I picked it up last week." He mentions. Wow, a pair of ruby earrings sat neatly in the little box. 

"Jax I can't accept this-" I start but he cuts me off. "Evelyn just take them please, I um.-"

But I cut him off now. "What's been going on with you lately Jax? When I first met you, there was this softness about you, you laughed more, and you were more engaged with all of us. Somethings off and I can tell." I ask letting him know someone noticed the change, I'm genuinely concerned because those mood changes scare me. I've had them and it leads to nothing good.

"Life, life just has this dark sense of humor with me, it's not fair sometimes."

"If life was fair I don't think I'd be here. Things happen for a reason even if sometimes we don't know what that reason is." I say looking up at him. He looks back down at me and I realize he took a couple of steps closer to me. His eyes were a storm of emotions. He starts looking at my lips and studying the freckles on my face and then looks back at my lips. 

"Jax-" I whisper incredibly confused; he leans in and that's when Sophie comes outside. 

"Evelyn, let's go get ready." She has this shaken look on her face. And I see Jax mutter a quick "Fuck" under his breath as he sucks his teeth, rubbing his forehead. 

Sophie makes her way over to us and grabs my hand. I look back and I see her shooting a death glare at Jax. He's left standing alone and I look back once more and see him make his way towards the beach. I look down at my left hand clutching the box with the ruby earrings. 

- - -

The girls and I are dressed, and my hair is still soaking wet. I had my lashes done which is the only thing that saved me since I was now rushing. Sophie stands behind me and ties my mask in the back. 

"What the hell was that, Evelyn? Was he going to kiss you?" She asks, whispering to not get the other girls riled up about it. I sigh and turn around to face her. 

"I don't know Sophie I think he's drunk or something," I say quietly. 

"He's Ashton's best friend, Evelyn, this isn't good."

"Look he was probably just drunk unless you know something I don't," I say suspicious all of a sudden, and that's when I notice her nervous twitch. Every time Sophie's nervous she starts chewing on her bottom lip. I frown, she's hiding something from me. 

"Sophie, I saw how intense you guys seemed at the first bonfire when we met him, what were you guys talking about that night?" I ask, praying she just tells me if something I don't know about is going on. 

"I- uh - Eve it's complicated, you kno- know" She stutters and now I know something is up. What is up with everyone feeling like they need to hide something from me?

"No, it isn't, you can choose to tell me the truth or not, I thought we were closer than that," I say, obviously upset. 

I walk away from her and make my way down to the party and now I'm looking for Ashton, he texted me he was here while I was getting dressed with the girls. I pass through the crowds of people as they wish me happy birthday and I put on a fake, grateful smile. 

I don't even know who I'm saying hi to most of the time because everyone's wearing masks and it's dark inside with just glimpses of flashing-colored lights. I hear the music start playing and at least my mom knows what type of music I like. I can't find Ashton in the crowd so I go up to the rooftop thinking he might be up there but there's no one. 

I look at the horizon and all of these people that came that I barely know from high school, most of them probably talked shit about me once or a couple of times but of course they came, all they care about is the fucking money. 

I sigh leaning on the railing of the rooftop and turning around, I make my way to the other side of the roof facing my driveway and the oak trees. I hear footsteps behind me and get startled, but I don't turn around, thinking it's Ashton wanting to surprise me. I feel him running his fingertips from my shoulder down to my arms. 

"Evelyn, I need to tell you something." But it's not Ashton's voice I hear it's Jax's. 

"Jax what the fuck are you doing?!" I turn around confused. "You scared me, look you're drunk okay." 

"You shouldn't be with him." He says. 

"Are you high, what are you saying? He's your best friend and I think I love him..." I admit more to myself than to him. Utterly blown away by the words that came out of his mouth. 

"I MET YOU FIRST." He yells. "I- I saved you, I can't stand seeing you with him, I can't take it anymore." He pleads. Now I'm dumbfounded and even more confused than I was before. 

"That night, that night that you overdosed. I was the one that-"

"You fucking traitor. I knew it." Ashton cuts in. "Don't you dare," Ashton says. 

Now I don't know what to say, what to think. At the party, my brother thanked him for that night as Gianna said. It all comes rushing back. 

Jax's POV-flashback

I started panicking once she collapsed and I carried her in my arms to the house she was sitting outside of, hoping this was where she came from. I knock on the door frantically, screaming for help. 

"HELP, SHES NOT BREATHING HELP SOMEBODY" I yell. 

Sophie answers the door and there she is screaming, crying calling for her parents and that's when they tell me to bring her in, asking what had happened. 

"I- I don't know I was smoking a cigarette and I saw her sitting outside incoherent and then she just passed out," I say stuttering, fumbling over my words. I stop panicking, take a deep breath, and start doing sternum rubs.

 After Ashton's brother died, I educated myself on how to help someone who could be overdosing. I start giving her CPR, and I repeat that for a couple of minutes until the ambulance gets there, CPR, sternum rubs, CPR, sternum rubs on and on again until finally, the ambulance arrives. 

Screams, cries, the girls screaming and crying looking at their best friend turning blue. I give CPR one last try and that's when her eyes start fluttering open and close, open and close, open and close. The person I assumed is her brother bawling his eyes out, hands behind his head as he looks at his little sister dying. 

The paramedic looks at me and says, "You did good, you did really good."

- - -

Evelyn's POV

Did Sophie know? This whole time she knew and remembered Jax and didn't even think to tell me that he's the reason I'm alive today. 

"You knew too?" My question is directed at Ashton. 

"Baby, look at me, look at me. I just found out three weeks ago alright. I felt like he knew something, and he told me what had happened," He answers. 

And now I feel like everyone's lied to me. I never knew they would all lie to me. 

"You guys are all fucking liars, I mean except Jax right? You wanted to tell me right?" I ask looking at Jax, tears in my eyes. 

"I didn't know how to, I didn't want to make you relive that," Jax answers, he starts trying to wipe my tears away and Ashton punches him in the face. 

"Don't fucking touch her. She's fucking mine and you knew that." Ashton yells at Jax, stepping away from him.  

"ASHTON, what the fuck are you doing, STOP." I plead, and suddenly I realize how fucked this whole situation is. I can't take this right now. I leave them both where they are and run down the rooftop stairs passing the girls, I hear them call after me and frankly, I don't care right now all I want to do is get away from everyone. I need to get the fuck out of my party. 

I make my way to the water, the only other thing that calms me down and I start crying.