The Wide Wide Ocean

Chapter 16

As I said, Owen did not disappoint my expectations, even though Evie argued, that he couldn't be as bad as I said...

He was.

I wanted to strangle him to death with a unicorn's tail.

...I have never been great with wordly metaphors.

His accent was one of the most entertaining things about Owen. Especially when he swore.

We soon found out one of the only ways to make me laugh was for him to say 'ass'. Which encouraged him to say it more often. Bothersome. He had three sisters, who bullied him just as much as they loved him. Interesting. He never chose his words carefully as most. Owen simply said whatever came to his mind. So quickly, most of the time he had to say it twice for anyone to understand. Fascinating and annoying.

By the time Evie made time to come for a visit, just before the school year, he was a bothersome parasite that I couldn't quite get rid of. Somewhat like a baby. Well, he was as loud as one as well.

Hello, Evie said with a smile as bright as the Houston Sun coming through the windows.

Oh, wow, you are jolly, said Owen.

I sighed, my face falling into my hands. What a moron.

But Evie laughed. Owen continued, deepening my misery.

Sorry, I didn't expect this grump to have a 'sunshine friend'... actually, I didn't expect her to have a friend at all.

What did 'sunshine friend' even mean?

I kind of imagined you with punk, black hair, tattoos and daddy issues written on your forehead, Owen said.

I wanted to dig my own grave... or his. But Evie stopped me from tackling him with the warmest of her laughs:

I am glad to meet you too, Owen.

I knew what she was thinking. Evie always thought I needed more smiles in my life. I always thought hers was enough. But for her... it wasn't.

We spent a whole day together. Those two conversed about our childhoods, school, me and my most shameful moments. And I laid in Evie's lap a little tired from this social call, drawing while her hand was in my hair.

It was like the old days when we were at the tree house listening to her little old violin play. It felt like Owen had been there our whole lives. I wish he was. He was kind of the friend who would stop this all from happening.

When Evie was about to leave, Owen crushed her in a hud and then scurried away when I smacked him.

Some people need to breathe, moron, I told him.

He left, complaining. And I was alone with Evie for the first time in so long. She looked so very proud as she smiled, sighing:

I am glad you met someone like him, she said.

I understood what she meant. Evie knew what it meant to me.

You don't always have to be alone, she told me.

 I am not alone, I told her.

Yes, you are, Evie said.

Evie understood many things about me. The way I laughed, the way I think, the way I spread butter on my toast. But she couldn't understand that even when I was in a crowd, surrounded by everything beautiful and significant in this world, I would still be lonely.

Because no one understood. No one knew. No one but her.

My mind was lonely in this net of souls. And I was okay with it. Because I had to be okay with a lot of things.

I just wasn't you to be happy, Evie told me.

I knew. I could have said that I am happy. But neither of us really knew what it meant. We did not have enough time to know. We had so much to deal with we forgot how to be children. How to be free of these shackles called life.

I won't lie to you, I told her.

As if to say, let me not speak, so I don't have to tell you the untruths in this cruel world.

Then don't, she said.

Tell me a truth.

A truth. A reality we often wish to escape.

I will come to happiness as close as Icarus did to the Sun, I promised.

As close as I could. I would try. Even though I did not have hope of succeeding. Evie understood.

I love you, she said.

A spear stabbed me in my chest. A sudden urge to tell her to never utter those words again shot through me. But I couldn't when I saw her moved expression and those moved lovely mossy eyes that loved me.

I know, I told her.

As she left I felt like crying. Because I loved her too.

Too much.