Chapter 2: Things Go Back to Normal... Sort Of.
"Evan! Time for school! You don't want to be late!"
Evan turned over in his bed, then winced when he put too much pressure on his arm. It had been a few days since the "accident", and his arm still hurt like crazy.
For some reason, he had found himself calling suicide prevention multiple times. Sometimes more than once in one day. After he saw that there was something that actually, thought mildly, cared, he had been really trying to stop himself from thinking that way. But it wasn't something that he knew would come easily. He would need to take a lot of time for this to actually work.
He got up and out of his bed and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and get ready, then he went and got dressed in his room. Then he was ready, so he went downstairs to get breakfast.
Just as he picked up his toast, his mom came over and kissed him on the cheek. "I have to go to work, sweetie. I'll see ya later, okay?"
"Okay. Bye mom."
She smiled as she opened the door. "Bye. Don't be late for school, alright? And maybe you should bring a sharpie and have some of the other kids sign your cast."
"Got it."
She walked out and got into her car, then drove away. When she did, he noticed another car on the other side of the street that looked suspiciously like Connor's car. But the windows were tinted, so he couldn't tell who was inside.
No. It couldn't have been Connor. He should be at school by now. The only reason that Evan wasn't there yet was because he lived really close and it was only a short walk from his house to there.
Evan ate his toast and drank a glass of water. He hated having to go to school now of all times. He was certain that people were going to stare at him, at his cast. The day before his mother had recommended that he ask people to sign his cast, but he had the feeling no one would want to.
He left the house and went onto the sidewalk to walk to school. The car that looked like Connor's started driving as well, but at a slow pace so that it was almost Evan's speed, but a little faster. Fast enough that it didn't look like anything.
Maybe it was just someone that was preoccupied with their phone. That happened a lot in the area that Evan lived.
He got to his school and entered, the car that seemed like it followed him there the whole time speeding up when he got to the parking lot and driving past. Must have just been a slow driver.
Evan walked down the hallway at school. Maybe when he was done with school he could go back to the grove and try again... he shook his head. No. He would just go to the grove to enjoy himself and hang out. Alone, as always.
He was lost in thought when he literally ran into Jared, who was walking down the hallway on his phone.
"Woah! What the fuck!" Jared yelled out, stumbling a bit before regaining his balance.
"Sorry! S-sorry, I'm s-so sorry!" Evan said, hunching over.
"Dude!" Jared said.
"Sorry!"
He looked at him like he was crazy. "You can stop now."
"Oh. Sorry-I mean-I-uh..." He decided to stop talking.
Jared looked down at his arm. "I it weird being the first person in history to break their arm from jerking off too much?"
"What!? That's not what-!"
"Painting the picture-you're in your bedroom you've got Zoe Murphy's instagram up on your weird off-brand cellphone-"
"T-that's not what happened! I-uh-I well I was climbing a tree and-well-I-I fell."
Jared paused for a while, raising his eyebrow, before repeating, with a laugh, "You fell out of a tree?! What are you, like... and acorn?"
"I-no, I-"
Jared said a couple more things to someone else, cutting him off, but Evan wasn't paying attention because he had started breathing a little too hard. He took a couple of deep breaths before looking up to see that the person Jared was talking to was Connor, and he looked back down, starting to back away.
The kindness that Connor had shown Evan the other day was no doubt gone by now. He was certain that if he stuck around longer, that he was going to get shoved for no reason or he would be yelled at for being weird.
"Yeah, no, it was funny, I'm laughing, can't you tell?" Connor deadpanned to Jared. Evan was finally trying to listen to the conversation. "Am I not laughing hard enough for you?"
Jared let out a disgusted noise. "You're such a freak." And he walked away.
Evan decided that he didn't want anything to do with interaction and turned around, walking away.
"Hold on just a second, Hansen!" he heard from behind him and froze in his tracks. Connor grabbed his shoulder and spun him around so they were face-to-face. Weirdly, he didn't look mad. With the way that he was towering over him, it seemed like he should be mad, but his face said otherwise.
"No one's signed your cast," he said, pointing at Evan's arm.
Evan felt taken aback. He didn't know what he had been expecting, but it definitely wasn't that.
"U-h... yeah... no one really cares so I haven't asked a-anyone yet," he replied.
"Can I sign it?"
This made Evan even more taken aback. Why would Connor want to sign his cast? Of all people?
"Um... uh-yeah, sure." Evan reached into his bag and pulled out the sharpie that his mom told him to bring and handed it to Connor.
He took it from him, uncapped it, and wrote his name in big fat letters across the front of Evan's cast.
"Oh..." Evan said, not sure if it was a sarcastic oh or a genuine oh or neither. "Thanks."
Connor recapped the sharpie and handed it back to Evan. "Yeah. Now we can both pretend we have friends," he said. Evan saw a shadow of a smirk and Connor rushed away, book-bag slung over his shoulder.
What a strange interaction.
