Evangeline had never experienced being in a God damned twilight zone before. Well… until now that is. Her family life was stable, academics were running smoothly and she even made a couple of friends. What bothered her to no end was the fact that everyone had been staring constantly at her for the past month. The girl knew she wasn't Miss Universe, nor was she the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, so the whole unrequired attention was confusing her to the point of mild anger. Fortunately, Jesse cleared the whole issue in one of her more chatty moments during lunch break.

"I can't believe you're friends with the Parker kid." Her only female friend stated out of the blue. She was a rather attractive 18 year old, with wavy caramel colored hair that reached her shoulders and the warmest hazel eyes you have ever seen. Jasse was probably the friendliest, calmest and patient person Eva had encountered in all her 17 years of life. She always tried to gather all the facts before attempting to judge a person and even then she would hold her newly formed opinion silent. That's why her attitude towards Kai was a bit surprising.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Eva asked as she arched an eyebrow, feeling her mood go sour. IT wasn't intentional but Kai was her first friend here and she was being a bit protective of him.

"Well, you know I don't like to badmouth people." Jesse started with a defensive voice, crossing her arms over her chest and looking instinctively to the left then to the right. "But did you ever wonder why Kai is always alone? I mean, not even Josette can stand being close to him and she's his twin sister."

"I don't see the big deal. Siblings don't always get along. Who knows, maybe their parents forced them to do things together too much and they are taking some deserved time apart." Eva responded, scrunching up her nose then looking down at the cafeteria food.

"You don't get it!" Jesses said in a quicker, more exasperated tone. "There's rumors that Kai did a lot of bad things. He hurts people and tortures small animals! Small animals Eva!"

"I'm not one to believe in rumors. Plus, Kai is a great friend. I've had only good times with him this past month." The girl defended as she picked up her fork and started stabbing at her food. Her appetite was slowly going away as Jesse kept talking.

"Rumors or no rumors, the whole school avoids him! Even the teachers are afraid of him. Haven't you seen that nobody ever says anything if he misbehaves. That he never gets detention or sent to the principal's office? They just let him be. You should really try avoiding him yourself. I'd hate for you to get hurt." After that heartwarming speech Eva looked up from her food and around the cafeteria. And of course people were staring at her.

"Is it possible that all these people are looking at me like I grew another head because I'm friends with Kai?" she asked tentatively, dropping her eating utensil on the table.

"You've only just noticed?" Jesse asked with an incredulous tone. "Everybody's waiting for you to be next Abigail." Came a reply that made Eva that she had returned to the twilight zone a second after escaping it.

"Who's Abigail?"

"Abigail was also Kai's friend a few years back. I think we were in 8th grade then. Just like you, she befriended the freak and everything was nice and dandy. Until one day, right before classes started. Everything was absolutely normal then a really loud scream was heard from in front of the school and teachers rushed there. They found Abigail collapsed on the cement and Kai standing over her body, his hands reached out. The girl's parents wanted to take actions against Kai but no bruising was found on the girl so he got away with it. Abigail was so terrified afterwards that she moved schools and nobody knows where she is now. "

Eva remained shocked in her seat as Jesse related the story. She didn't want to believe Kai did that to the girl but some part of her trusted Jesse more than him. So, just like the other students in the school she started distancing herself from Kai to the point of completely ignoring him.

Some hidden part in her felt really guilty for just stopping being his friend like that but she didn't want to be just like Abigail. Plus, the whole school couldn't be wrong about him, could it?

Soon after everybody noticed that Kai hung by himself again Eva stopped receiving constant stares and even managed to befriend some more people. Two months into the school year and she was slowly becoming miss popularity. She never remained without a lab partner and lunch in the cafeteria had become one of her favorite parts of the day.

...

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