Eight Boys and a Walker girl

51 | My Everything

51 | My Everything

E v v i e

Danny is waiting for me on the roof.

When I sent him the text a couple hours ago, I honestly wasn't sure whether or not he'd turn up, or even read it. I didn't even know if he got his phone back from being grounded. It was a mad, spur-of-the-moment little moment of craziness that even made me send it, and honestly, half of me was hoping he wouldn't come.

I scramble up ungracefully out of the skylight in the roof of the attic that used to be Ty and Julian's bedroom, hoisting myself up onto the flat tiles. From this position, I'm overlooking the street below, the houses opposite mine, the town beyond. The sky is a clear, light blue, and the air is oddly peaceful.

I breathe, and I feel calm for the first time in ages.

I catch eyes with the boy sat on the roof of the house to my left, just a few metres between the two of us. He's sat on the bit of the roof that juts out over his bedroom window, legs hanging down over the glass panes. He's dressed in a white t-shirt and an unzipped zip-up hoodie with the hood pulled up over his head, and blue jeans, and I can't read his expression.

I feel emotions that even Julian doesn't bring out in me.

Danny Reyes. My best friend since age five. Closer to me than my own brother. He's been there for me in my highs and my lows, bunked school to stay home with me when I'm sick and read to me from celebrity gossip sites on his laptop, brought me round about a hundred feel-good films and brownie mix when my dog died when I was seven, found me hiding in the park when I ran away the night my Dad left and didn't say anything, just hugged and hugged me. They say friends come and go, but Danny was the one that always stayed. Makes me laugh. Makes me smile and be happy. Takes my mind off of exams and boys when I'm stressing out, is my go-to make-up artist and stylist in a fashion crisis, and has never, ever made me feel like I'm alone.

Except recently. In the last few weeks. In his house, miles and miles away from me, no contact between us, whilst I was in the hospital watching my brother dying.

It wasn't his fault. He was grounded.

All the same, I feel it. I feel what absence from eachother has done to our relationship as I scoot closer to him along the roof-tiles, inches away from where my roof ends and the drop begins. I'm so close, I could reach out and touch his arm. I want to. I don't, though.

He lifts his head, and faces me. I realise suddenly, with a shock that nearly bowls me over, how little he's changed since the day we first met, nearly twelve years ago. I mean- he's taller, his face more mature, a bit more jaw definition, a cooler haircut. But his eyes are the same. His mouth, as he quirks the edge up into a shadow of a smile.

"I didn't think you'd come," I burst out, at the same time as he says, "I know."

We stop, and there's a moment's silence. Then we both laugh quietly.

"Jinx, personal padlock," I say, and he grins at me.

"Wow, guess I can't talk now."

"Too bad."

We laugh again, and it feels a bit more normal.

Then I suddenly take in what he said, and freeze. "Wait- you know? About..."

"Your brother. Yeah, Lauren told me. Said they'd found him. Said...he wasn't- in the best...state."

I think back to the hasty message I sent to Lauren on WhatsApp near the beginning of the weekend, straight when we found out that they'd found him. Jamie was still in a critical condition then. I guess, in a way, he still is.