You let the thought roll around over and over in your head as you pace around, both out of impatience and worry: the portables are the hang out of stoners, those skipping class and others of mostly low reputation and someone like Evie undoubtedly looks massively out of place in this area. You don't see anyone around and you're thankful for that, partly because Evie's own fears prey on you and you worry about what might happen if someone spots you.
More than that, you don't want anyone spotting yourself and Dane because if they do that can get back to Chen and that leaves you right back where you've started except now you've dragged Evie into this mess as well, far more than you already have as it'll be the girl proper caught up in everything; something that won't be fixed by just giving her back her life.
You're not sure how long it is as your nervous impatience continues to grow but finally Dane, or the person in his mask, arrives. By this point, however, you've decided that hanging around the portables to talk all of this out is not ideal so you tell him to wait. You text Caleb's phone and ask him if he's coming out to the hideout. He said he hadn't decided and you ask him if he can hold off on coming out for today as you have some important business you need to take care of.
He complains about that and you simply reply that you're meeting with the real Evie. That seems to shut him up and he acquiesces to your request.
* * * * *
"It's so dingy," Evie, now back to herself but still in Dane's clothes, comments as she looks around the basement.
"That's what makes it a good hideout though," you tell her. "Who'd want to come down here?"
From there you launch into the truth about what's been going on. You tell her of the book and what you and your friend found it could do. How you felt dragged along by things as your own life was uprooted and you'd ended up as Dane. How Dane's life began taking you down a road you did not want keep going down for, well, reasons that Evie herself saw. How you'd grabbed her only in a panic to get away from that road. You then tell her who you really are and she seems very surprised at that. Not that she knows who you are, just that it would be a senior guy under her face.
"So I'm sorry, Evie. I really am," you say as you hang your head. "I didn't mean to drag you into all of this crap."
"But you did. You're kind of an idiot," she replies and you can't help but feel a bit of a sting at those words. "But I guess I would be too if I'd ended up in a similar situation. So... I accept your apology. Now can I please have my life back?"
That's when you begin shuffling your nervously. "I actually... I wanted to do something to make it up to you," you tell her. This elicits a curious reaction from her. "I wanted to get a mask of Hannah and... and give it to you. Hannah becomes Dane and..."
"I become Hannah," she replies though it's more of a question than a statement.
"I thought it would teach her a lesson because of all the grief she gives you," you tell her. "Hannah could probably make things work for herself no matter where she ended up. But at the same time I have your head right here in mine and I know how you feel so I figured this could also, you know, allow you to be with Marc."
Evie's eyes go wide at that as she considers just what that would mean. You can tell what she's thinking. Marc Garner, the boy who's been occupying her thoughts since freshman year, would finally be her's. That's why it's a surprise when she finally does speak. There's a hesitation in her eyes that gives way to a firm resolve. That firm resolve is echoed in her voice.
"No," she says simply. "I just want my life back."
* * * * *
With that option completely dashed Evie and yourself begin planning what, exactly, you'll be doing. You come up with one plan and discard it, another and discard that too. On and on until finally you at least partially hit one that works for both of you. Evie wants her life back as soon as possible but you're not going back to Dane's life for even a minute. The solution you both, eventually, agree to is to get another identity for you. This means that you'd be stuck in the basement until some time tomorrow afternoon when she comes back after school with the mask. The problem there comes from the fact that the both of you have worries if she even can get one. Not that you think she's incompetent or anything, far from it, but this is stuff all outside what she's used to.
So that leads to a compromise. She'll go home tonight and you'll be in the basement. You won't have anything to do really but you figure it's the least that you can do. In exchange she'll come by tomorrow morning and switch out: you'll go to school in her place to get the mask while she hangs around the basement. Not wanting her to spend all day completely miserable you tell her to hang onto her phone since you won't really have use for it and if anyone does ask you'll just say you forgot it at home. It's not an ideal situation and you feel bad for sticking her down her but she seems more relieved that she'll no longer have to be Dane.
Now that you have everything set for that the really tricky part arrives. You begin tossing out names that Evie would find acceptable. The varsity soccer girls are out: Anita's already helping her and Hannah's closest friend on the squad, Tara Weston, bullies Evie worse than Hannah probably in an attempt to impress Hannah. That gives you a brief flash of Jason Lynch, Gordon's sniggering toady, though Tara is much more pleasant to look at. The rest of the members are non-factors.
That turns to the JV squad. Again nothing doing there. Luz has Evie's back and by extension so do Becca and the rest of the team. Some, you and Evie suspect, are merely keeping up appearances to not get on Luz's bad side but most of them seem genuine and either way none of them are causing problems for her.
So what about Evie's girl friends? She shuts that down before you can even utter their names. She's almost as quick when you start suggesting guy friends like Andy Jensen and Bhodi Weaver.
There's other assorted girls and guys but neither of you are sure what benefit there would be to an Eric Hines or Alexandria Hull or even that you'd want to subject them to Dane's life. But that allows inspiration to strike Evie. There's still nerves but now that she's in, she's in, and Evie, smart as a whip, hits upon a good idea. You were going to target Hannah both to help Evie and teach her a lesson.
But while the Hannah idea has fallen through you can take that same reasoning for selecting Hannah and point it towards someone else. Someone who causes trouble for Evie or her group and who might do well for a lesson in humility. After more debating you've finally narrowed it down to three groups or more broadly three groups.
First is Andrew Webb. Andrew is a teammate of Bhodi's on the boy's JV soccer team though to call them teammates implies a sense of camaraderie that doesn't exist. Andrew, from how Bhodi describes him, is a wannabe leader who sees himself as the team's unofficial captain. He constantly tries to take control of practice and combined with an inflated self-image makes him a pain in the ass for everyone. This extends to some of Evie's other friends; Paulina shares a class with him and can't stand him. But he's athletic and fairly handsome so girls like him anyway.
The next is Leslie Osborne. She's one of the academic overachievers of the sophomore class along with Laura Serrano. Both of them are joined at the hip and tend to take a haughty attitude with anyone not in their clique of which they're at the top. But where Laura generally feigns being above caring about anyone outside of their group, Leslie is her opposite. Many a time have Evie and Lindsay been on the receiving end of her barbs, verbal jabs and disapproving scowls.
The final option you've decided on is Lucy Gibbon. She holds something of an antisocial attitude and spends her days cutting classes when she feels like it and running with a posse of other girls that are rumored to get up to all sorts of unpleasant business. This has actually made her an intimidating presence among the sophomores and even the guys tend to avoid her; as the story goes Aaron Riggs tried hassling her last year and got his lights knocked out for his trouble. Despite that various sports teams have tried recruiting her and Paulina especially, likely at her coach's insistence because they share first period, has been persistent if unsuccessful.
Your hope is that you can get one of the three though, in all honesty, anyone from their groups would do.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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