Adam and Evie (Part 2; ON GALATEA)

2

*A/N: Pretty long chapter ahead! As I mentioned in my profile announcement, this is a combo of what I originally planned for chapters 2, 3, and a scene from part of 6. Please let me know what you think, as I'm still working out writing kinks and this isn't professionally edited. Thanks so much for reading, and now back to the show!*

2

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Anadale, Connecticut

Adam

I thought I'd experienced one of the most bizarre moments of my life when I found out the girl I'd been best friends with since we were kids was secretly "in love" with me in an over-dramatized reading of her songbook—by my now ex-girlfriend—in the school courtyard in front of our entire freshman class.

Yeah. . . that happened.

But then a few weeks later, that exact same girl ended up moving 3,000 miles away across the country to California with her family—who were also pretty much like my second family—and never spoke to me again. Needless to say, that was a pretty big shock to my system.

But as if things couldn't get crazier, that girl went on to become famous, and not just random viral video on the internet famous, but celebrity. Chart-topping, award-winning artist by the age of seventeen with millions of fans around the world and millions of dollars to her name. I'd always thought she was special and destined for big things, but all of that was on a whole other level.

Though, even with all of those past experiences, nothing compared to the past few weeks—when it turned out the new girl "Brittany Marshall" was actually not so new after all.

The last thing anyone expects is that the person sitting next to you in English class is actually a disguised celebrity. And somehow, the fact that we all had the "small town, everybody goes through the grades together and knows each other" connection made the whole situation even weirder.

After Evie's big interview, where she talked about why she'd done the whole hideaway incognito thing and told the world about her daily dealings with her anxiety, Roosevelt was doing all kinds of weird shit to get our spirits up—like drowning the courtyard and school in Halloween decor and offering candy everywhere—and to check in on our mental health. I wouldn't mind the last one if it didn't require me getting to school earlier than I usually needed to.

Typically, we only needed to meet with our school counselors at the beginning and end of the year, but with this new "healthy minds" initiative, they wanted to experiment with required bimonthly check-ins—a once every two months, fifteen minute 'hey, how're you doing' conversation. So I'd heard, some of the talks ended with students getting a sheet of paper with references to some local, more "professional" counselors. It was pretty much the school's way of indirectly saying they were really worried about you. I wouldn't necessarily say I was surprised when I saw Julie Dunston crying to some other girls in the hallway about getting one, just because I saw Julie Dunston crying in the hallway about everything. So maybe it wasn't so bad, if the people who needed help, and didn't know where to go, were getting it.

When it came to my meeting at 7:15 before school started, I wasn't expecting to talk about much. Mrs. Browne had been my counselor since junior year. She knew me as much as she needed to, so these meetings were all just going through the motions. The typical—

"How are you?"

"I'm good."

"How are classes?"