Chapter #32New and Old Friends and Faces by: rugal b.   "Well hey, I know how much you'd love to be surrounded by that," you tease him before deciding not to bring up the possibility of a switch. "Maybe I'll get you some pictures or something."
"What about letting me touch your tits," he asks.
"Yeah, okay buddy you've negotiated yourself out of those. I'll just tell you how great it is instead," you continue teasing.
"Well I plan on taking a detour under a different face at some point," he says. "If this stuff with Eva doesn't work maybe I'll grab Marc. His girlfriend hot?"
"Attractive enough," you say. "You'd tell me if you moved under there, right?"
"Maybe, maybe not. How bad does this girl have it for him anyway?"
Real bad is what you'd say and in all honesty she probably wouldn't care if it was somebody else under his face. But you don't want Caleb to know that so you play it off a bit. "It's nothing beyond a little crush," you tell him. "There's other guys too. Be glad I didn't decide to take Eva."
"You were seriously considering..." he trails off, "Low blow, man."
"I'm just getting you back for that," you tell him. "The idea of having you inside of me is nasty."
"So you'd be willing to get railed by Marc?"
"I--I don't know," you say as you cloak yourself in Evie's persona. "I've never even... ohmygod! You're so gross!"
"When did you turn into such a girl," Caleb snorts.
"When do you think? I've got lunch with friends anyway so I'll talk to you later or something."
With that you end the call and know that you're going to need to shower before you go out for lunch so you decide it's for the best to just keep Evie's personality at the forefront, letting it guide your actions. It proves to be a wise decision as you feel the warm water run over you and know that you're sorely tempted to check out your new body further. But for Evie this wouldn't be the time for such actions so she's able to temper any desire you might have and you're able to go through the shower without incident.
Afterwards you take the time left until lunch studying for Mr. Fernandez's class and then watching a bit of TV. Once noon hits though you barely have time to say bye to Mrs. Cummings or Evie's father, who's coming in around the same time, before you're at the door.
* * * * *
"So she just bitched you out right in front of everyone like that," asks Paulina Nowak while you take a sip of some water.
"I don't even remember what happened, I think I messed up a pass or something and she just really got on me," you tell her.
"I can tell you that Jenny's not losing sleep over Hannah going to you guys," Melanie tells you. "From what she's said Hannah was... assertive I think is the way she'd put it if she wanted to be diplomatic."
Melanie tucks a piece of honey-colored hair behind her ear and you can't help but notice Evie's own jealousy. The past year has been kind to her as she's started getting in shape, grown a couple of inches and started filling out more and her blue eyes seem to have locked her face into a state of perpetual amusement. She's on the prettier end of the spectrum and a far cry from the somewhat dumpy girl she was in middle school, she even started going out with a nice-looking guy from Eastman's JV team.
"It's just dumb, I don't know why you put up with it," Lindsay adds.
She'd been with Evie and Melanie on the freshman soccer team but by the end of the years knew that it wasn't her thing. This year she's been more focused on drama and acting which is something she's more passionate about. She's also the sister of Ms. Cho who was your English teacher last year which she's somewhat resentful of as it sometimes causes people to think she has things a little easier.
"Do you have to even wonder why," Paulina teases while making kissy noises.
Paulina and her family immigrated from Poland when she was nine which leaves her with a slight, though largely faded, accent. She's the tallest of all of you and still growing. As a result she plays on the girls' JV basketball team where she does pretty well for herself; there's talk that if she plays well this year she'll be moved up to varsity next year. Her parents own Nowak's Authentic Euro Deli where you're eating lunch.
"It's not that," you insist while blushing. "Well okay, not exclusively that. Anita's been helping me out a lot with practice and personal training and stuff. I figure if she has my back I can deal with Hannah even if it gets hard to some times."
Lindsay takes her glasses off and holds them up to a light and squints. "That's it," she asks as she wipes them with a cloth, "Because I'm pretty sure you can do that stuff on your own without having to deal with all the crap that comes from sports."
"It's not that bad," Paulina tells her. "I've heard Almida can be a problem but we never interact with her. Usually it's Kristy or Nia if one of the varsity members comes down to help us and they're pretty nice."
"I think it's just Hannah," Melanie adds. "She caused a lot of problems for Jenny last year too."
"Uh huh, have you even heard about what goes with the football team? Or the cheerleaders," Lindsay asks.
"How would you know any of that," you ask.
"Because Charles Hartlein is in the drama program too," she replies. While nobody in your group has ever interacted with him, Charles is a notoriously flamboyant and outgoing gossip hound; notorious enough that even people at your level are aware of him. "I mean okay, so he doesn't talk to me specifically but I'm able to overhear things all the same."
"What kind of things?"
"Well I mean that's not what's important," she states. "What is important is that I know some of the other cheerleaders don't seem to like Chelsea Cooper because I always overhear Charles saying how such and such leaked something to him or to someone else who got it back to him. That whole world just seems like everyone out to get one another, Evie so I don't know why you need to get caught up in it. You don't even need it if you want a boyfriend; there's Andy you know?"
She's referring to Andy Jensen, another friend of Evie's who she shares a few classes with and makes no secret of his crush on her. He's not a bad looking guy or anything but... "Well, I mean, I know but he's my friend and, like, what if it doesn't work out," you say. "I don't want to ruin that."
In actuality it's more like she doesn't want to settle. For Evie, trying to get Marc isn't just about wanting a handsome guy, it's about proving she can get one. Proving to herself how far she's come along. Still you yourself can't help but feel a bit bad for Andy at that thought. Is that what Lisa was doing with you? Settling until someone better came along?
That thought has killed your mood and you're a lot quieter for the rest of lunch. Once it ends you head home and spend the rest of the day not doing much of anything, a little bit of extra studying for the most part, until the evening. You eat dinner and then head out to Evie's part-time job at the Burger Palace. It's not anything you nor her enjoy but her parents aren't going to allow her to sit around either so you're able to suck it up and get through your shift. By the time you're home you're exhausted from the day's events and stresses so you do a bit of light reading before going to bed around eleven.
* * * * *
At school you listen intently to Mr. Henderson's lecture and work fairly efficiently at the assignments you're given. Evie's a smart girl, you realize, and unlike yourself actually seems to apply herself to get results. She's picked up on the French you're learning fairly quickly which makes this a case where it's easier to assume her persona more fully and let it run things than merely playing her role. Most of the rest of her classes shouldn't be much of a problem, even the AP ones, but languages? You have a hard enough time managing the little bit of Latin you picked up.
It also becomes easier to do that because that's one of the classes Andy shares with her and your own feelings on the matter might cause you to take a bit of pity on him and, right now, you're not here to be the Evie you think she should be but the Evie that she actually is so it's far easier to keep things on a simply platonic level that way.
Once class lets out, you head to your locker and put away your French books while grabbing what you'd need for Ms. Duggan's food prep class. As you're heading over towards A-wing, however, something catches your eye. It's the confused, shaggy-haired form of Dane Matthias. He's standing there with his head down, looking at a piece of paper. He seems to find what he's looking for as he looks back up and when he does you're surprised to see a nice shiner on his left eye. You're suddenly hit by a thought: did the real Evie, the one under the mask of Dane Matthias, run into Chen? Is that where that came from? Or was it just some kind of simple accident that caused it?
He scans around a bit and then he notices you. Or at least you think he does. You freeze up, unsure of what to do. If he has noticed you, he's going to march over and probably demand his life back. It could create a scene but more than that your own self-preservation instincts are kicking in. You can't give her back her life because where would that put you? You should probably try and disappear before he can do anything.
But would that be right? You don't want to tell anyone else about the book but maybe you should talk, if nothing else to fill him in on what's expected of Dane Matthias. But that could just make things worse as well because you do not plan on giving up Evie to go back to Dane.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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