☆ Evan ☆

"Your total comes to sixty-seven dollars. How will you be paying?"

The older woman standing in front of me rifles through her coin purse. She hands me a wad of crisp twenty dollars bills.

I open the register and hand her the change. Once the receipt has been printed and the woman exits, the line of customers is gone.

I shut the cash register and exhale. My supervisor, Layla, bounds out from the back room. She's probably in her late twenties and greets me and the other cashier with a peppy grin. "I've got to pick up the boxes of new inventory that came in this week." She turns to the cashier next to me and tells him he's in charge in the meantime. To me, she says, "You look like the undead. Have you taken a break yet?"

"No. I've been busy."

"Please, take fifteen minutes," Layla says. "Take sixteen minutes! I won't get on your case about it."

"Okay, okay. Fine," I reply as I key my employee number and password into the system, clocking out for my break.

Once I reach the break room, I check my phone. Lately, after the bullshit with Carolyn died down, I've been getting fewer notifications. I had to secure my bank account and call my phone company to make sure nobody could mess with my bill payments.

The only texts are from the AC group chat, and I smile as I read them. Peter sends a message about the eclipse; apparently, it's happening on the same day as the meteor shower.

The cashier comes into the room, pulling me from my focus. "Someone's here to see you," he says.

I turn, and my fists are clenched. "Who?"

A latent, partial piece of me—wants it to be one person in particular. I allow myself to consider why I care for about ten precious seconds. Why I care about finally holding Peter's hand, and why—recklessly, and specifically—I seek for it to be him.

His hand. I don't know why I can still feel the way his fingers embraced mine. I don't know why I'm still hung up on it.

(I think it would make this day less shit, if it was him, which is strange. Not in the way I expected it would be.)

The other piece of me knows better than to believe that. I clear my throat and repeat, louder, "Who?"

The cashier nods towards the doorway. "I don't know. Said she was your mother."

Oh. I stumble backward. My face contorts, and I can't bother to hide the way it hurts. I guess I should have known this would happen. I knew it.

"Well, tell her I'm not here. And get Layla."

The cashier stares at me. I lift an eyebrow, gesturing for him to continue. And because I have nothing to do in this break room, I start to pace. The walls are decked with white and blue tiles. Cords run across the baseboards. I complete my first loop around the room before I force myself to stop.

"I already told your mother you were on shift. And what do you need Layla for?"

"Go," I urge, and I raise my hand for emphasis. I won't do it—but that doesn't matter. The cashier—who isn't wearing his name tag, so I don't know his name, backs away.

He leaves, and under my breath, I mutter, "Fucking hell."

It takes Layla five minutes to return. During that time, I dare myself to peek out at my mother. She is dressed in a red jacket. Her long, ashy brown hair is tied behind her back. Strands of it stick to her face. And her eyes are bloodshot and filled with tears.

Layla comes barrelling into the room. She takes one look at my mother, then back to me. "What happened while I was gone?"

I shake my head. "Can you... just, tell her to leave. It's fine, really."

"Is she your mother?"

I consider my options. Of which, I have only two. "Yes."

"Good, because I was heavily considering calling the police if you said no." Layla's expression darkens. "She already knows you're here. If you need it, I can escort her out."

"It might come to that." I step into view and lead Carolyn into the break room. My mother has a way of making it seem small. She has a way of vacuuming the air from the room, of making the walls close in on me.

Neither of us says a word until Layla shuts the door.

Carolyn moves towards me. "You were here this whole time, standing there where I couldn't see. How cruel."

"Sorry." I gulp down a breath, and my throat closes over. Why am I apologizing? "Actually, I was expecting you'd show up."

"You're like your father," she says to me like it's an insult. She glares at me. I glare right back, and for every step she takes towards me, I move back. "You leave without notice. Are you going to run away, too? And become such a failure?"

Carolyn is fluent in this form of hurt. And I don't want to admit it, but I know that she's right. She was right that I should never have thrown my problems with Claire at Elaine.

If you leave, it's not the end. I am a body made from string, and how am I supposed to get out?

"Oh, I'm leaving. Maybe he won't come back, but who would blame him? You didn't want Dad here, because you knew what it would do to you. Not once did you consider what you were doing, and none of that has ever mattered. You knew I would leave. And I would take your idea of a perfect, happy little family with me. Did you ever fucking think about anything besides the world you're living in? It obviously isn't the same world that I'm in—because when you look at me, Carolyn, do you see anything? Or just your own reflection?" And it feels like I'm burning—it feels like my hands are shaking so fast that I'm going to combust.

The words are like flecks of embers, and it's going to set this room on fire. I can't control where they land—but I don't care.

Carolyn's face drops. Her mouth opens, and she grinds out, "I am not living in my own little world. Evan—"

"I don't care," I say, and I don't even know why it feels so fucking good, to tell the truth for once. "Just leave. I know you don't expect the truth from me, so you'll choose to believe I'm lying. It's what I've always done. I don't know why this time would be different. But it is, all because you don't have any power over me anymore. Because you can't keep talking at me instead of talking to me. Stop it. I think I was a semblance of a person—before you stole it from me."

"I do not live in my own little world. You know that's not true."

I think I'm going to start laughing. She proves my point without even noticing. And I'm yelling at her like it will make her change. Like she will ever be the mother she turned into on Elaine's birthday. She can become that person, temporarily, but it never sticks.

"What about that concept is so terrible for you?" I ask. I picture my mother's life, now that she's alone. Now that all the rooms in her apartment are empty, and devoid of the life that once filled them. I wonder if she blames me like she blames Adrian. I wonder if she does it so that she can't blame herself.

I almost feel guilty.

Guilty for leaving her, since that's what the rest of her family did. That was her fate, from the beginning. She was clinging onto what she had, and so was I.

Maybe she was trying to force me into staying. Maybe she thought she could prevent loneliness if she just ruined my freedom. Like it was a bargain, an exchange. A life destroyed and picked apart, all for the sake of what matters most.

"It makes me sound like I'm a crazy woman. Like you want to make me into a monster. Does that make you feel better about the lies, and about Elaine leaving?"

I sigh. A pang of sadness hits me. "I'm done with the lies. When are you going to return my money?"

"What money?" she asks innocently.

I narrow my eyes, leaning my weight against one foot. "You know what I mean. I've been saving that for years. Not for me—and it wasn't for you to take either. It belonged to Elaine."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She shakes her head at me. "You owe me. Your little painting in the kitchen was impossible to wash off. I won't get my damage deposit back because of you. When you're ready to apologize, you can come home. Until then, don't bother."

I sprint after her out of the break room as a thousand thoughts twist through my head. And a tornado of poisonous lies form on my tongue, but Carolyn moves out of the store and disperses into the crowd of people.

I let her leave.

Silence, I suppose, is a much better weapon.

☆ ☽ ☆

I tap my temple with the eraser of my mechanical pencil as I stare at my worksheet for French class, trying to prove to Peter that I can translate them without asking for help.

They're simple sentences, mostly, that I could easily find if I searched online. I'm halfway through finishing, and I'm partially listening in on Peter's conversation with his parents. His mother and father are in the lobby, hovering around and occasionally ducking away, only to return a few minutes later.

Lately, I've been catching the occasional word that I can understand. I have to focus, and it takes my brain a few minutes to make the switch, but I manage.

Dr. Delacroix says something about a buyer, (or maybe it's an investor?) and she's saying it with a tinge of annoyance in her tone. But they aren't arguing, which is why I can't stop eavesdropping. I expect the yelling to start, but it doesn't. In fact, Dr. Delacroix grins at Peter's father, and tells him, "Tu sais que je t'aime." And I understand that.

You know that I love you.

Peter scoffs under his breath and rolls his eyes. After a bit more of this chatter, his parents head out. I dip my head back down to the floor as he stands and shuffles from the hotel; I need to stop watching him.

It reminds me too much of Claire. Sometimes, especially when she was around her friends, I wouldn't move. I would just observe—like an outsider. Like trying to ingrain her movements into my memory, like packing them into my bag with me for when I leave. I don't know why I'm doing it now.

Peter returns a moment later, carrying a book in his hands. "Are you still working on that?"

"Please, don't insult my terrible French skills." I grin, and my eyes lock onto his face. He has a keen glint in his smile, and it's the look he wears when he's mauling over what to do. And my thoughts are a jumbled mess as the memories of Carolyn are playing in my head on a repeat button.

He hands me a Bescherelle. A thin, green book for French verbs—the kind my teacher preaches that every student should have. "Your skills are not terrible."

"That is just wrong, but you can have your wrong opinion," I say.

I crack the spine of the book, flipping it to the first page. In the top corner, he's written his name; P. M. Delacroix. "What's your middle name?"

"Hmm?" He lifts an eyebrow at me. I meet his gaze for a second before my eyes flicker away and I scratch the base of my chin.

"You didn't say it during two truths and lie for the club like Nicole did," I point out.

"I thought maybe you'd put a curse on me if you knew it," he jokes. I flip through the pages of the book before I locate the one I need. Peter annotated the margins in his neat handwriting, underlining certain words and leaving reminders for himself for later. "Like an old-time witch."

"Maybe I should give myself a middle name," I mutter. "I could just make one up. And it would be really silly and embarrassing... like, I don't know, Michael or something."

He pauses. I blink and say, "Oh, god, please don't tell me that's what your middle name is."

"No." He smiles coyly. "It's Matthew, actually, but you were close."

"Really?" I try to think about what my middle name would be, but I come up empty. "Like, is there a reason behind it?"

"Not that I know of," Peter answers. "I think my mother just liked that name."

I chew on the inside of my lip. Outside, a four-wheeler breezes between the trees as it drives on the roadside. The sound of its engine rumbling vibrates through the window.

I wonder when exactly I started searching for a reason. I need to know why there isn't a concrete answer for the impermanent state of my life. It isn't even about my name; I don't hate it. It's about my sense of self—and that out-of-body experience that washes over me when I step in front of a mirror. And I notice the passage of time, and I become aware that I'm staring at myself.

I say, "If I had a middle name, I think it would be Oliver."

Peter smiles. "Is there a reason?"

I shake my head. "Of course not."