Chapter 66 - Back to School

Going back to school was stranger than Evan had imagined. He had no idea what to expect but rather prepared for the worst, and in the end, it was completely unnecessary. No one frowned at him or gave him a biting look anymore. Kieran and Josh weren't even at school, and Evan didn't find out until later from Lola that they'd both gotten the flu over the holidays, so they were staying home.

It also meant that Aiden had no one to spend time with and couldn't avoid Evan. I mean, he could, but since both Lola and Angie were sitting with him at lunch, he decided to sit with them. Not once, however, did he address Evan and avoided any conversation with him. And as much as he felt sorrow, he already considered it progress that his once best friend was sitting so close to him.

"How was your break?" Lola decided to make a casual conversation. Her once pink hair had been dyed blue, so Evan knew her answer when it came to holidays. Apparently, it was time for a change for her.

"Good," Aiden mumbled, continuing to eat his sandwich as if the conversation didn't even concern him.

"Angie got drunk and called everyone dude," Evan snitched, for which he earned an elbow to the ribs. Lola snickered at that and covered her mouth.

"It was New Year's Eve." Angie immediately defended herself. She waved her hand as if it was no big deal, and since it was Angie and it was a conversation with their friends, she had nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone already knew her anyway, so she didn't have to pretend.

"Sounds like you had a cool New Year's Eve," Lola caught on to that right away, expecting more details.

"It was fine," Evan said. Not that he didn't want to tell her more, but he was afraid all it would take was one word, and he might give her the wrong idea about Ryan. The last thing he wanted was for everyone to think he'd cheated on Kieran.

"Yup," Angie confirmed his words, "We spent some time obediently with our parents and then snuck off to watch the fireworks with our friends."

"You have friends in North Hallson?" It was the first time Aiden had used a full sentence since he'd sat down with them, and it turned out he'd been listening in on their conversation after all.

"That's exactly what Rory asked. As if we couldn't have more friends," Evan spoke up without thinking. He knew it wasn't a good idea to talk to Aiden, as it could very easily burst this fragile bubble of false friendship they were now in, and now he had no choice but to wait for his reaction.

Aiden paused as if he also had no idea what to do now since he hadn't anticipated this situation.

Fortunately, Angie decided not to wait for either of them to recover and continued the conversation as if nothing had happened. "We have two friends there. It's not much, but we assessed that we're too good for North Hallson."

"Speak for yourself," Evan interjected. He, unlike his friend, was aware that it was just the opposite, and the fact that he didn't fit in with their community wasn't because he was better than the other wolves.

"You never talk about them." Lola's confusion was spot on since she was right. As much as Evan had avoided Ryan in the beginning, he'd also avoided talking about him. He'd made a secret of him, and though he didn't like the idea, he had no idea what to do about it.

"Michael gets on my nerves most of the time, and Ryan just recently moved in," Angie explained simply, and Evan was glad he didn't have to get involved in the topic just yet.

"Who doesn't get on your nerves," Aiden assessed quietly but still loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Excuse me. I happen to get along with everyone. I'm just not in the mood for you sometimes, or you're annoying," was her reply, which from her tone, she meant completely.

"When have I ever been annoying?" Aiden asked, and Evan hoped his best friend wouldn't answer the way he thought she would.

"Are you sure it's not the other way around?" He decided to interject quickly before she could break the brief peace that reigned at their table.

Angie immediately pierced him with her gaze and scoffed.

"The answer for both of you is now." She pointed her fingers at the two boys and then moved closer to the blue-haired girl and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, laying her head on one of them. Lola automatically put her head on hers and patted her shoulder in a sympathetic gesture.

Evan made another mistake of the day when he shifted his gaze from the girls fleetingly to the blond boy across from him, and their gazes met for a moment. It wouldn't have been strange at any other time, but in the current situation, it was more than a little awkward, and Aiden's gaze literally trapped him.

There was silence at the table, and though it might have been pleasant for the girls, Evan felt awful. He didn't know which was worse, Aiden ignoring him or being forced to sit next to him and having nothing to say to each other.

Evan cleared his throat as if to say something but then thought better of it. He had no idea what he could say that wouldn't make him angry with his words, and he didn't want to take any chances.

"What about you, Lola? How's it going with Aaron?" He eventually couldn't take it anymore and not only broke the silence but also tore his gaze away from Aiden as well.

"Great. I also met his brother's girlfriend, so now sometimes we double date at their place. I've kind of started to like staying home instead of going to parties. I wouldn't have believed it myself if someone had told me a few months ago, but it's true," she eagerly took to explain, though she couldn't quite use her hands to gesticulate because of Angie.

"That's awesome. I'm excited for you." Evan answered her honestly. When it came to their clique, he and Kieran had always been the inseparable pair, and since Evan had messed that up, he was glad there was someone to replace them. He wished Lola had the same thing with someone that he'd once had with Kieran. However, he had to admit that he had wanted that for Kieran more. Evan was glad that Lola was happy, but he desperately wanted to see Kieran happy.

It was selfish of him to think so, especially when he cared about Lola just as much as he did about Kieran, just in a different way. In fact, deep down, he suspected that Kieran's happiness was one of the things that kept him from triggering the bond with Ryan.

"At least someone's in a happy relationship." Aiden's words were directed at Evan, no doubt about it. They were bitter, as was the taste that suddenly appeared on Evan's tongue.

"I wish I was too," Angie whimpered, releasing Lola from the embrace so she could stretch out dramatically on the table. It gave Evan a chance to relax, at least for a moment, as she steered the conversation away from him.

"Aaron has friends we can hook you up with," Lola offered, but Angie just shook her head at her suggestion. She didn't give her any explanation, though, and Lola didn't seem to mind since she didn't ask any more questions.

"I'd say I have friends I can hook you up with too, but you know everyone, and they're not exactly the best choices," Evan decided to take a risk and joke it off. Luckily, his girl friends supported him and laughed about it.

"And I'm not even that picky." Angie finally picked herself up from the table and returned to her original position. Just in time, as the bell rang, signalling the end of their break.

And that was how the last lunch of the week with Aiden sitting down with him ended. He didn't even show up in the cafeteria for the rest of the week. Things didn't change until the following Monday, when Josh and Kieran returned to school as well, and their group was split in two again.

One thing has changed, however. Josh and Kieran were no longer scowling at him and giving him strange looks in the middle of the day. Even when their eyes fell on him, they didn't pretend to look at the white wall, but occasionally they even happened to nod in greeting. Evan was puzzled by this and didn't want to get his hopes up, but he was more than glad for this progress.

However, even this small progress stalled and stagnated for the next few weeks. The only thing that changed was that Clara and Millie finally decided to talk to both groups again and took turns with who they sat with at lunch.

Another small change, but Evan was finally starting to breathe better at school and wasn't just focusing on when his day would finally be over, and he'd see his favourite cousins.

Speaking of the Saunders family, one thing has changed in North Hallson as well. No longer were they just meeting at Evan's house, but Evan and Angie started going to Michael's house. And his mom was thrilled about it.

"I love your mom," Evan admitted one evening as they sat in the living room of their home playing Monopoly. Angie was sitting almost on the doorstep, having been caught cheating and taking money out of the box when she thought no one was looking. Ryan and Evan sat comfortably next to each other, with Evan having his legs draped over Ryan's lap and Ryan's palm ending up on Evan's knee. They didn't even try to pretend that they weren't what they were, although they hadn't admitted it out loud to anyone other than the people in this room yet.

"Apparently, you have a crush on my family." Michael nodded his head toward his knees where his cousin held him, and Evan stuck his tongue out in response.

Michael looked relaxed as he leaned his back against the couch, but that wasn't all. The more time Evan spent with him, the more words they exchanged and the more he learned about him. Although they had known each other for a long time, only now was he really getting to know him and realizing that they understood each other more than he had ever imagined.

"Then you're the exception," Evan couldn't help but remark.

"Thank God," Michael stated dramatically, "At least I don't have to worry about you asking me into the threesome."

Angie, of course, started to giggle at that, but Evan wasn't amused and just opened his mouth blankly. The idea of sharing Ryan was unimaginable to him, and then there was the fact that it would be incest. The idea was just completely twisted, and he needed to get it out of his head as soon as possible, or he would throw up.

"I'm seriously trying to get that thought out of my head. Eww." Ryan clutched his head as if the thought was physically killing him.

"Agreed."

Michael just rolled his eyes as if they were exaggerating.

"What are we playing?" Fortunately, this conversation was closed with the arrival of Michael's mom. She automatically walked into the living room, stepped past Angie, and sat by the game board, watching their progress. Not that it was extremely big since no one wanted to sell anything to anyone, and so their game had been stagnant for a while, despite Angie's cheating.

"Monopoly. Although I don't know if I'd call it playing," Ryan replied.

"Oh, I hate Monopoly. It's no fun if you don't cheat," commented Michael's mom.

"That's exactly what I'm saying." Angie was more than pleased by her comment and moved away from the door to sit closer to her.

"It would be fun if Michael sold me the railroad," Evan claimed.

"You didn't offer me a good price," he immediately protested.

"I offered you five times the original price," Evan argued.

"For the railroad? That's not much," Michael's mom interjected, and he smiled in delight at her words.

"I think we need a different game," Ryan stated. His words also drew his aunt's gaze to him, and Evan saw her glance quickly at the way they were sitting, but she didn't comment on it.

"We have UNO," she suggested.

"You claimed you didn't have UNO!" Angie immediately turned to Michael and threw the few cards she had in her hand at him. He covered his face so they wouldn't hit him, but otherwise, he didn't defend himself and just shrugged his shoulders.

"That's because he's terrible at UNO," his mom revealed, and he scowled at her as if she'd spilled his biggest secret.

"Now I want to play UNO even more." Angie's smile was almost devilish.

"I'll go get it, and you clean up." Michael's mom obviously didn't need more and immediately stood up and went to look for the said game.

Evan, despite being comfortable, decided to leave Ryan's lap and began putting the cards in the box. Ryan immediately started helping him, and eventually, Angie and Michael joined in, although they did most of the work.

They had just closed the box when Michael's mom came back into the room, holding a box of coloured cards.

"I hope you're ready to lose." Angie automatically turned to Michael, who snorted in response.

"You're not a tough opponent."

And although Angie was determined to show him otherwise, it was eventually revealed that Michael was really terrible at UNO, but Angie was even worse.

"I've never seen anybody not win a single game," Ryan chuckled. Apparently, even he couldn't stay nice when it came to such bad luck.

Angie immediately glared at him. When she was losing, she turned into a sullen child, and finally, someone other than Evan saw it.

"Don't worry, we'll find another game." Michael's mom decided to comfort her, although the corners of her mouth twitched as well.

"We should do this more often," Evan stated. However, his statement wasn't just because he was enjoying the sight of Angie, who couldn't admit defeat, but overall, he hadn't felt this relaxed in a long time. He had fun all evening and felt almost like a little kid.

"You are welcome at our place any time."

"I agree," Ryan reached up to Evan's ear and whispered so that only the two of them could hear. Even though his aunt was still in the room, Evan pulled him closer by the waist and rested his head on his shoulder, leaving his hand on his back.

Of course, his aunt didn't miss the gesture and gave them a small smile that indicated she had an idea of what was going on, but she didn't say it out loud, as they didn't either. Evan was grateful for that and returned her smile.

Another reason why he felt at home with them.