Chapter 19 - Evelyn Mosby
"Hello Archer" Evelyn said.
"It's you again" I said "Why won't you just stop coming in my dreams already? you're gone anyway"
"It feels good to know I appear in your dreams" She said as she took a seat on the couch in front of my bed.
Her voice was so deep and husky that it felt unreal.
"It isn't fair. It isn't fair how you played with me and I am still here dreaming about you" I said, frustrated.
"Open your eyes Archer, this isn't a dream" She smirked at me.
"I will close my eyes, and when I open them again you will be gone" I said, confident that it was a dream.
She said nothing but stood there smiling at me.
I closed my eyes. One...two...three.
I opened my eyes again expecting her to be vanished but found her sitting right where she was about three seconds before. Goosebumps were formed on my arms as I realized it was no dream.
Evelyn Mosby was standing in front of me.
She continued to smile at me, her dark red lipstick on. "Want to go on a walk with me?"
We were walking in the middle of the road with no cars to be seen, since it was midnight now.
I still couldn't bring myself to believe that this was reality and not a dream.
"I have so many questions" I said.
"You will get the answers to all of them Archer. Be patient" She said.
"No, I can't be patient anymore" I said, as I stopped walking and turned to face her.
"Is this a game to you Evelyn? Are you aware of all the damage you caused? How many people you've actually hurt playing this stupid game or whatever it was of yours?" I said.
I was getting mad now. I always wanted to find Evelyn and planned to talk to her, but never had I imagined our first conversation to be like this.
She looked at me for a brief second, before turning away and continuing to walk.
"Did you not hear me?" I said as I caught up with her, but she was staring at a building right in front of us.
A tall building made of complete glass. It was exactly as I saw it in my dream one night, in which I talked to Evelyn. We were here, right in this building. I imagined it even though I had never seen it before.
She walked inside the building and I followed, having no idea where she was leading us to.
She kept walking and I kept following, until we were in a room.
The room was exactly where I had the conversation with Evelyn in my dreams.
"I've been here" I said as she continued walking forward to the corner of the room "In my dreams" I finished and she chuckled.
She stared out side the glassy wall of the building and I stood beside her now, doing the same.
"Do you realize" She finally said "How many people that you meet each day in your life are fighting through the battles we don't even know about? How many people want to just end their lives because they don't see a purpose in living it. And all the other people don't see that, they don't see that someone is in need of help. That certain someone needs to be saved. Trust me Archer, if we knew what the others were going through we would be so much more kind to them"
"What do you mean Evelyn. What is the point of this now?" I asked. Where was she going with this?
"The point Archer, is that people spend forever trying to find the purpose of their lives. And when they can't find it, they throw it away" She smiled sadly, still looking outside the window even though my eyes were still set on her perfect face.
"Evelyn Mosby" She said, pretending to be another high-school student "The most popular and pretty girl that everyone is after and loves. She has everything that a person can ever need" She smiled sadly "That's what I was considered Archer"
I stood there silent, staring at her as only one question appeared in my mind. Who was Evelyn Mosby?
"But there was one thing I needed. The purpose. The purpose to live, and to be alive. I never found it honestly, and maybe that is why it always hurt. So I did what I thought was right for me" She said "I went away"
"What about your parents?" I asked, my voice a whisper now.
There was clearly way more to Evelyn than the world ever knew.
"I honestly didn't expect them to care. Like yes, they would have cried for a while but then I knew they would get over it" She shrugged.
And even as she said that, I couldn't see her as a rude person.
"It's not enough" She said, her voice even deeper now "To just have the air to breathe and a place to rest your head. A person needs so much more"
I gulped.
"Look outside Archer" She said, and for the first time I forced my gaze away from her face and to out where there were so many lights of other buildings that made the night bright, it was a breath taking view.
"How many people are living there, and hardly anyone knows the purpose of the life. I see them getting up every day following the same routine they do, and then go to sleep again. I believed, if I could make difference in the life of a single person, if I could give a single person his purpose, I would be able to die peacefully. Because I knew I had no point in living anymore, so I decided to give someone else the live I would dream of" She smiled for the umpteenth time, very sadly.
"And so you picked me" I solved the puzzle.
She continued to smile staring out of the glass.
My heart was beating fast in my chest, and I wondered if she could hear my heart beats too.
"I can feel my heart beating in my chest" I voiced my thoughts.
"That's the way you're supposed to feel for your whole life" She finally turned to me "That's when you know you're living right"
I remembered that in my dream I asked Evelyn to dance with me once we were done talking, but she had to go because she did not have enough time since it was a dream.
"Evelyn" I said.
She looked at me, waiting for me to continue.
"What do you think about the confidence of a person?" I asked her, wondering if her reply was going to be the same as it was in the dream.
"Confidence is the key to achieve what you want in life" She answered simply, just like she did in my dream.
"Can I have the dance?" I finally gained courage and said the words out loud.
She looked at me for a moment and then smiled.
"Yes" She said putting one of her hand on my shoulder as I put mine on her waist and we started moving, with no music playing.
"Evelyn?" I said again.
I had to ask this. I had to know what was going to happen, this question was bothering me ever since I first entered in this building and it was time I finally let it out.
"You will be gone by morning won't you?" I asked finally.
And her guilty eyes told me everything I needed to know.
"What are we doing here?" I asked her following into the same museum where two deaths took place in the history, one in front my eyes.
"I missed this place" She said, as she finally walked on the roof with me following behind.
We both sat down on the small wall, with our feet tangling downwards from where both the people jumped.
"If I could fly" She said out of nowhere "I would know what this world would like like from up above and down below"
"You can see the world from right where you are" I pointed out.
"I'd like to look at it from every single point, that's the fun of it" She winked.
After a few moments of silence she sighed.
"It's time for all your questions, I am willing to answer them" She said finally.
I didn't know where to start. There were so many questions in my mind that I didn't know where to begin and where to end.
"Why did you choose me?" I asked, the first question.
"I told you, I had to give someone the purpose of life. To teach them what fun is" She answered.
"But why me? You could have picked anyone at all" I asked.
"I've noticed you from day one Archer. We never talked before but I knew enough about you. I knew that you were someone who would do anything for the people you love. I knew that you were probably the only one who would go so far just to find out about me, even though you were yourself not even sure if I was alive" She answered and I looked down.
"Why make it seem like a suicide? You could have simply ran away" I shot my next question.
"If I told them I was running away, they would have known I was alive. Then they would have looked for me and so they would have had hope that they will find me" She said "Hope is a killer Archer. It kills a person"
"Eric Turner. Why did he commit suicide?" I said, coming off to more main subjects.
"This is a hard one" She chuckled "Eric was a good friend of mine. We never really talked in public but we knew each other very well. One day we made a deal, that we would give up on our lives one day because we didn't have a purpose to live. He gave up his life by suicide, I gave up my life by passing it to you" She said "He was always suicidal. No one knew though. People never know though, do they?"
I didn't make any comments on it as I passed to the next question "Why did you often visit the museum?"
"It was my secret place. I felt more like home here than I did at my real home. I knew people came here when they lost their purpose for life. And to change that --- because I felt like changing it --- I came here to actually find my purpose for live. This is where all my plans were made" She admitted.
"Ben loved you. Did you not once think about him?" I asked.
"He didn't love the real Evelyn, Archer. He never loved this me. He loved the me I was pretending to be -- scratch that -- forced to be. That's who he was in love with. The guiltiness of faking it with him would have killed me anyways" She answered.
One after another the questions kept flowing out of my mouth.
"That birthday call. Was it you?" I asked her.
Her lips pursed together in the form of a thin line.
"I wasn't sure if I was going to call you honestly" She admitted "But I knew I had to. To give you hope"
"But hope kills" I countered, repeating what she said.
"Don't you know, we have to be dead to feel alive" She smiled.
"I guess your questions are over?" She said getting up from the wall, and walking back inside the building after I hadn't said any words for a few minutes now.
"Evelyn?" I stopped her, as I too got up from the wall.
I had one last question.
"Have you ever been in love?" I asked her.
Since this is the night I am supposed to answer all your questions honestly..." She smiled for real this time "Yes, once"
I wanted to ask who it was but I didn't. It was like I didn't want to hear the answer.
"Let's spend the night together Archer. Doing anything and everything that you think of that will make it fun for you" She said "Before I will be gone for real"
I thought about it and nodded.
Because looking at her I realized, that this whole world is made up of people. People that we see everyday. People who are fighting their own battles inside that we don't know about.
And in the world that was made of people, Evelyn was the most broken one.