by Karla Luna
Since she was inside the cart, I was pushing it around for us.
“No need.”
Well, all righty then… Wait, what? Did she have money on her? I didn’t have a job, but Mom always gave me some allowance from chores I did and stuff. It wasn’t really the typical 5 or 20 dollars, either. She usually gave me way more than I deserved, even though I told her I didn’t want that much. She just didn’t want me to actually work at such a young age. But I was almost an adult. She had to stop holding a grudge soon.
A thought suddenly struck me. What if Evelyn was drug dealing?
I took a quick peek at her but she only seemed to look around, beaming like a little kid on Christmas day. She was so intrigued by every bit of food lying around, it was like she wanted to buy them all.
After about fifteen minutes or so, the whole cart was full to the brim with all kinds of junk food, from chips and fries to donuts and chocolate cakes as well as pop and fruit punch. We had it all, with so many different varieties. Seriously! Was she planning on throwing a party? Because if she was thinking I'd ever let her destroy my house, she can think again!
“Woo! That should be enough,” she cheered, as she hopped off the cart and grinned, clapping her hands together once. Enough?! She cannot be serious! This can probably supply a small part of Africa! It was that much!
“Are we really going to get all of these?” I finally blurted out. “You’re not throwing a party, are you?” I gave her a suspicious look as she quickly bopped my nose with her index finger.
“Silly. Come on, I just want all of these food for…” she paused and averted her eyes a bit, “… charity.”
Oh, she had to be lying now. She wasn’t fooling me.
I tried to protest, hoping she’d leave more than half of this stuff behind, but she didn’t listen. Instead, she disappeared out of my sight, probably to go find some other things she might’ve missed.
I just sighed and guarded the cart, getting a few odd stares from people passing by. I chose to ignore them.
After a couple more seconds, I jumped when I heard an alarm go off in the store. And then I saw red lights.
That was when Evelyn came out of nowhere while grinning from ear to ear. She started to laugh hysterically, like some crazy person, and my heart started to speed up when I saw her run all the way toward the doors with the whole cart. Wait, wasn’t she going to pay for those things!? Oh no, I feel sick.
“Evelyn!”
Currently, we were parallel parked at some random street as I tried to catch my breath. I was practically spaced out, too, just thinking over what we had just done.
Back at the store, everyone was starting to run outside, since they had no idea what to do. The alarm sounded like a fire alarm, but I think it was some sort of security alarm that Evelyn had most likely pulled. So no one really noticed us. And we got out of there without catching anyone’s attention.
Evelyn dumped all of the food in the back of the car as fast as lightning. And then I drove us out of there before the cops could show up.
Though, now that I realized it, I didn’t even stop her from putting all of those things in the car! What was wrong with me!?
“So, we’re probably banned from that store now,” Evelyn said as she bit into a creamy cupcake with white and pink filling. I heard humor in her tone, but all I did was turn to look at her with an expression that showed how crazy I thought she was.
“What exactly did you do back there, Evelyn?”
She pursed her lips and seemed to go into Flashback World. “Uhh… I pretty much slammed my foot on some glass at the meat. And luckily, that caused an alarm to go off.”
Of course. Brilliant!
I just hope they didn’t have any cameras though, because if they did, we were in such huge trouble.
“Don’t worry, I hid from the cameras by covering my face with my hair. They hardly even had any, anyway.” I jerked back a bit when she abruptly placed her hand on my shoulder and laughed warm-heartedly. “Zavier, I’ve done these things before. It’s no biggy.”
“No biggy!? No…” I cut myself off and took deep breaths again. I almost had another panic attack because of her reckless behavior! “You know what, nothing. Never mind.”
After finally calming down, we both kept quiet as I drove us home. But once we got to my driveway, I looked at her again with the same expression I had when I saw her running out of the store with the food.
“You know I could’ve just paid for all of it? It would’ve been too much but still! It would have been better than robbing!”
“I wanted to do it the fun, illegal way, teddy bear,” she calmly stated with a wink, gulping down her Coke. “I’m sorry if I got you into trouble. But you really need to loosen up a bit.”
I just huffed, wiping one hand over my face before hopping out of the car. She came out after me and I noticed my mother coming out of the house with a cup of tea, just as I opened the back door of her car.
Dang it, what’s she going to think of this?
I didn’t have time to think of a little plan since she was already gaping at the sight of the amount of junk food in her car. “Oh my goodness, did you two buy all of these!?”
“Nope, they gave it away for free,” Evelyn immediately said with a playful smirk on her face, as she ran inside the house, yelling over her shoulder, “Got any cardboard boxes or something?”
My mother turned to look at me with raised eyebrows and an expression full of shock. But all I did was nod and shyly smile at her, while awkwardly walking behind the car to hide myself.
Gosh, how I hated lying. Or perhaps I was just afraid of telling the truth, which pretty much made me a wuss, just like Jesse had said so in the past. But what if I did say the truth and Mom sent Evelyn away? For some reason, I hated the idea of her being away from me. Probably because I think I actually gained a pretty cool friend.
Sure, she was a really bad influence on me, but I think I was beginning to like her antics. Does that sound crazy?
18: One Taste Equals Rainbows
•Zavier•
“So where do you guys keep the beer?”
When I heard Evelyn’s voice coming down the stairs, I brought my hand to my face and sighed deeply. Seriously? Did she seriously just ask me that? Yesterday, we went for a whole lot of junk food (correction, we stole), and even had to put most of it in the basement because there was just too much. And now she wanted some freakin’ beer?
Well, it was Evelyn Jo after all. I really shouldn’t be surprised.
Shaking my head, I closed my MacBook and placed it on the living room table as I took a sip of my iced tea. Evelyn came and looked at me, probably waiting for my answer, but I just raised my eyebrows at her as if I didn’t know what she was talking about. Don’t tell her, don’t tell her…
Okay, the truth was, Mom actually kept a whole ton of alcoholic beverages down in the basement. It was inside a closet with a sliding door. But there was a lock on it, so no one but my mom could get in.
I knew that if Evelyn were to find out though, she’d open that door in no less than ten seconds. A while ago, I realized locking my bedroom door at night wasn’t going to work, so I just didn’t lock it anymore. I wasn’t as paranoid as when I first met her, but I was still pretty paranoid if I had to admit the truth.
“Hello? Teddy bear?”
I came back to reality when a hand was waving in front of my face. I turned to look at Evelyn and pushed up my glasses when I felt them falling down the bridge of my nose, right where Evelyn had innocently kissed me yesterday. She was so forward. I wondered how it would feel like to really kiss her soft lips.
I cleared my throat and scratched the back of my neck as I felt my face heating up. Why was I just thinking that? “What?”
“I asked where you guys keep the…”
“No, no, don’t ask it again. There’s no beer around here. No other alcohol either.” Without meaning to, my eyes averted and went to stare at the door that led to the bas
ement. Then, I gave a fake laugh. Horribly. “W-why would you think we have beer here? Seriously… psh. Wow!”
Evelyn stared at me with her tongue inside her cheek, and then she narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“Why did you just look at the basement door?”
“Pfft, what?! I didn’t,” I looked at the door again. “I didn’t look at it.” Dang it, Zavier! Why are you such a terrible liar!? I was getting pretty good at it, you know, lying to my Mom about certain things. But I guess it just depended on the type of people I was lying to. Evelyn got me nervous, and I admit, a little scared since I knew the things she could do to me. Like possibly kill me. So I didn’t want to mess with her, and I most definitely didn’t want to lie to her. But I just did, and she saw right through me. She was good.
“What’s down there, teddy bear?”
“Nothing!” I replied a little too quickly, making me inwardly slap myself. “I-I mean, the junk food, of course.” God, kill me now.
“Are you lying to me?” she asked, and I tightly closed my eyes once she got up close and personal. She was practically sitting down on my lap and even moved her hand down my chest. Did I mention I was wearing one of my sleeveless black shirts? Along with another pair of Adidas skinny sweats I had lying around? I had slept in it, so I never took it off. But now I regretted it since she started to graze my biceps. My heart was beating like crazy and I tried hard to calm down, but it didn’t help, especially when she was this close to me.
“I, uh… um…” Just say no, say no, say… “No,” I barely whispered.
She continued to stare me down and I knew she didn’t believe me one bit. But who would’ve? I was so terrible at lying.
Can’t she stop staring at me like that though!? It’s like she’s looking right into my soul! Like a freakin’ cat!
I tried to avert my eyes, but I still felt her burning gaze, making me extremely uncomfortable that I couldn’t even look away.
And not even five seconds later, I finally blurted out the truth, “Okay, they’re in the closet downstairs just stop staring at me like that!”
She smiled and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before hopping off.
“That’s all I needed, teddy.”
What was wrong with this girl?
Like I had predicted earlier, it didn’t even take her ten seconds to break the lock open. Well, she didn’t exactly break it, but she did open it very easily. All she needed was something sharp and pointy.
She grabbed some Jack Daniels and locked the door, as if we were never even near it. Then, she smiled in triumph and hopped up the stairs while I stood there, contemplating on whether to get some of the junk food sitting on the table or not. Just to drown out some things…
But I’ve always wondered, why did my mother have liquor and beer in that closet? And why did she tell me about it when she knew I couldn’t keep secrets?
Shrugging the thought away, I grabbed a bag of small chocolate cookies and went back upstairs, where Evelyn was already chugging down the bottle of Jack Daniels as if it was water.
She smirked when she saw me and offered some. I kindly turned down her offer and went to grab a glass of cold water instead. I started chugging the whole thing down when I heard her mumble, “You only drink once.” Then she shrugged.
What?
I put my glass down on the counter and stared at her with creased eyebrows. “What the heck does that even mean?” A new version of ‘You Only Live Once’?
“I don’t know.” She pursed her lips and actually seemed to think it through. “I guess it’s my own version of YOLO.” Ah, so I was right. “Oh, God, no!” Suddenly, she shivered as if the idea itself gave her terrible goose bumps. “What am I turning into? Ugh, forget I ever said that. Please!”
“Will do,” I agreed while raising my glass up and moving to the living room to watch TV.
•Evelyn•
Humming to myself, I looked in the mirror and brushed out some of the nestballs in my hair. I hated when this happened. Did little tiny birds just come to play tug-o’-war with my hair while I was sleeping and make it all twist and shit?
Fuck!
I jumped a bit when my phone rang, startling me. Putting my brush down, I picked up my phone and looked at the caller ID.
Stormy.
She was probably calling to see how things were. Sometimes she would call and see what we were up to and if we were fine (and if we haven’t burned the house down yet). I mean, she trusted Zavier to look after me like a babysitter would, but so far, that hadn’t worked out quite so well. She had no idea about all the things we had done. I actually felt a bit guilty sometimes. But if she were to ever find out, she’d have to understand that this was my lifestyle and I was never giving that up.
This was me. And I was doing this only for me.
Yeah, sure, I was dragging her angelic son with me. But trying out new things was great. He needed to loosen up. He was too tense and seemed to only worry about schoolwork. He was a teenager for fuck’s sake. We didn’t have much time until we grew up and turned into boring, ‘responsible’ adults.
“Hello?” I answered, putting the phone between my shoulder and ear, still trying to brush out the knots in my hair.
“Hello, dear,” she said with that little cheerful tone of hers. “Just wanted to call and check up on you guys.”
“Oh, yeah, we’re fine, Stormy. Completely…” I paused to glance at the Jack Daniels on the side of the sink, “… fine,” I finished as I put my brush down and took a sip of the sweet liquid.
“Great to hear.” She seemed to hesitate a little too long and I heard some voices in the background. I knew she worked in her office at a mental hospital most of the time. I was actually so afraid I’d get locked up in there one day. “Um, Evelyn?” I shook my head to get rid of the thoughts and looked up at my reflection. My eyes looked bloodshot. “Has Davne, you know, bothered my boy at all?”
Oh, that’s right. What happened to that douche-sexy-bad-boy? Had he gotten arrested again? Oh, I hoped so. “I haven’t seen him around lately.”
“Just checking. You remember what I’ve told you?” I nodded and smiled, even though she couldn’t see me.
“Of course. Zavier’s safe and I’ll always make sure of that.” With that, we said our goodbyes and hung up. I realized it wasn’t only that Zavier was my babysitter, but that I was basically his, too.
It didn’t bother me, though. I would’ve done anything just to keep him safe and away from that bad boy.
Sighing, I grabbed my Jack and gulped a quarter of it down. Then, I took my brush again and continued to untangle my hair.
After a few seconds, I heard Zavier’s voice just outside my bathroom, which means he was most likely in my room. “Hey, Evelyn?”
“Yeah?” I responded, hearing the slightest echo of my voice.
“These brownies here are really good. Are they from the store or did you make them?”
I giggled and made a face. Me? Baking? Never in a million years. I’d burn the whole kitchen down. “Oh, no. None of that. They’re actually from… ” That’s when I dropped my brush with a loud thud, and quickly ran out of the bathroom. “Zavier, wait!”
He heard me and turned around. But it was too late, the brownie was right there in his hand, and he was chewing it without a care in the world. “These are really good,” he mumbled while moaning and continuing to eat it.
I gaped at him, but it might have looked like I was just trying to hide my laugh, which, I admit, I sort of was. “You weren’t supposed to eat those!” My voice came out slightly high-pitched, as I put my hand on my forehead.
Great, he ate weed brownies and didn’t even know it!
“Oh…” he slightly pouted and stared at his empty hands. Then, he looked up at me and shrugged. “You should really keep your food wrapped up and hidden then. You can never trust anyone around here! I swear!”
“Fucking hell, Zavier!”
He obviously wasn’t supposed to eat those
! But little ol’ me just had to leave them there, out in the fucking open! Evelyn, make sure to shoot yourself later. Got it.
Oh, the reason why I had those in the first place? Well, remember those druggies that hung out at the back of the school and offered me all types of drugs after I confronted that Willow chick? Ha, funny story actually. The leader, the guys called Mohawk, practically gave me a couple of weed brownies for free. That’s right. No charge. No catch. He just handed them to me without wanting anything in return. According to him, I was just cool enough.
Well, how could I reject an offer like that!? I hadn’t had marijuana in a while, so fuck it. But now I deeply regretted taking them, especially leaving them like this.
Dammit, what was I going to do with Zavier? A newbie on marijuana? I never had to deal with that before!
I turned to him and saw him leaning against my dresser, practically hugging it as he laughed at nothing and played with the little knobs. “For Narnia…” he whispered to himself, making me grumble and walk over to him.
I grabbed his shoulders as he seemed to stumble on his feet. Wow, the drugs really kicked in super-fast for him.
Now think, Evelyn, think! Just lay him on the bed and let him get some rest or something.
No, no, that’s impossible. He’ll be all over the place.
Ugh… what did he do with me when I was on drugs? Because I knew he never had to take care of someone like that before, too. But nevertheless, he did good. Even though I might’ve done some naughty things to him, he still put up with my bullshit and even covered for me.
Well now, it was my turn to do the same. Be good, Evelyn, for your cute good boy.
“Come here, teddy bear,” I said, as I started to pull him over to my bed, but he seemed to be pulling back. He was laughing like crazy and looking around as if amazed.
“I didn’t know you had a twin, Evelyn.” He put his fist to his mouth and tried to stifle a laugh. He failed miserably at it though, and burst out laughing. I felt irritated when he even went down on his knees and kept on laughing. “Oh wait! Triplets! You’re triplets!” He gaped at me.
