MONDAY came and went rather uneventfully. Evelyn attended her maths test which was far easier than she'd anticipated but yet she still nibbled her lip in the following hours all the way to the Byer's house, convincing herself she'd failed.
"Hiya Eve!" Evelyn was plucked from her trance at the excited sound of Will's voice and his bike swerving around her. She spins, manoeuvring out of his way with a lopsided smile as he hops off his bike and drops it by the wall of the house.
"Hi Will!" They both head to the front door and Eve pulls out the key Joyce gave her a year ago - it wasn't unusual now for Evelyn to spend more time at the Byer's house than her own. Will had warmed to her - like all of the people that knew her, and especially his friends - but it had become something more than that. When Will came back, half vacant and skittish, Joyce would see his old-self flicker inside of him when he was around Evelyn, even if only for the briefest moment. But the more she was here, whether it was watching movies, drawing, planning campaigns for Will and his friends or seeing her at the Palace, Joyce could have sworn Evelyn was a living miracle. Will was more himself now than not. It wasn't hard to have her in the family, she melted into their hearts without them noticing. It was now odd if she weren't there.
"How was school?" Eve asks as she ushers him in the house and locks the door behind them. Will shrugs, sliding his bag off his shoulders and peeling off his coat.
"It was okay." It seems that is all Eve would be getting out of him, but then a moment passes as Evelyn takes off her own jacket and Will looks up at her from beneath his hair and says with a grin: "Dustin is convinced that the new kid at school is MADMAX and we had to follow her around all day. Me, Lucas and Mike had to cover him while he dug around in the trash."
"MADMAX?"
"The person that beat our top score on Dragon's Liar." Eve nods, knowing exactly who this girl was, having been her best customer for the past week. She tucks the short strands of dirty blonde hair behind her ear.
"I know Max." Eve muses, "She's cool."
"You know Max?" Will blurtsand Eve smiles.
"Best player I've ever seen." She taunts
"But girl's don't play video games!" Eve laughs; a noise that chimes through the house only to turn into a sharp shriek when Bob appeares from the hallway with a plastic vampire mask and fake claws on his fingers.
"I vant to suck your vlood." He sings in a painfully inaccurate Dracula impression, pulling the mask off with tears in his eyes from the pale faces in front of him. Eve places a hand on her chest and then moves it to her head, raking it through her hair and laughing off her embarrassment. Will is laughing too, rocking back and forth as he looks between a grinning Bob and a bright pink Eve. The sound gives Bob and Evelyn a warmth in their chests, the sight of him carefree forcing a wider grin on to their faces. Eve starts laughing then, placing her hands over her face.
"You scared me!" Eve chuckles, the sound muffled by her hands and Bob, mimicking her smile, shrugs, pulling off his cheap mascarade.
"That was the point!" He is giggling and having recovered, Eve looks towards the door.
"I didn't see your car?" Bob shrugs his shoulders.
"I didn't know if you were bringing yours, so I parked up the street." Though Eve thought Joyce needed her to keep an eye on Will tonight, she realised it was also their weekly movie night - and there's a chance she was invited over solely for that purpose. She smiled to herself.
"Where's Joyce?" Bob motioned to the door, still plucking at the plastic witch fingers covering his hand. Eve couldn't help but chuckle over how ridiculous Bob was.
"She just popped to the shop - you had a maths exam right?" Eve nods, looking briefly away when she sees Will disappear from the corner of her eye. "How did it go?"
"Uh.." A frown twitches Eve's face, and her features dull. "I mean.."
"Obviously, she did fine." A new voice adds to their conversation and Evelyn turns to see Jonathan Byers pulling the front door close. "I don't know why you even worry." He was saying as he passed her in the corridor, his tattered grey bag making him limp as it hit the back of his leg with each step. Bob was making a muffled sound of agreement, sipping from the cup on the kitchen counter that Eve hadn't seen before.
"Yeah, yeah." Bob was saying, "We've got a collection of those cards you use, I don't even know how you make so many. Were they all for maths? The orange ones?" Evelyn nodded, chuckling.
"Yeah, the orange ones." Evelyn used a different colour for each subject, and this was apparent when Bob had tried to test her last week and been very confused when he asked a question on Othello when she was panicking about Chemistry. As their conversation came to an end, Evelyn wanders down the hall, placing her hand lightly against the wood of Will's doorway. He looks up, smiles and moves himself to the side. Evelyn enters, taking his invitation. She perches on the end of Will's bed and he hands her a piece of the paper he was leaning on, so she can draw too.
"Hey." It is Jonathan, changed from what he had come home in. Eve smiles at him but Will barely looks up. He is scribbling on the paper he has propped up with his knees. "I didn't know what you liked, so I got a variety." He looks at the movie tapes in his hand and places them on Will's chest of drawers. "Take your pick." Will's mood seems to change, Evelyn can feel it. She looks up from under her hair to see him shrug and offers Jonathan a sympathetic smile.
"Alright." Jonathan sighs, "What are you drawing?" Evelyn hadn't thought to ask and so she lifts her head curiously at the question. "Zombie Boy. Who's Zombie Boy?" Eve holds her breath at those words, biting her lip. Already, she knows she does not want to hear the answer she is expecting. Will purses his lips.
"Me." Eve sighs, and Jonathan turns to her as she wipes her hand over her face and panic-stricken, he looks back to his little brother.
"Did someone call you that?" His quiet voice fills the room, demanding attention, and Evelyn puts her pencil down. "Hey - you can talk to me." But Evelyn knows he doesn't want too. "You know that right? Whatever happened?" Jonathan waits. Louder he says: "Will. Come on." Jonathan shakes Will's shoulder. "Talk to me."
Neither of them expected Will to shout, but he does, and both of them lean back in their surprise. All at once, Evelyn feels out of place, like she is intruding, but the opportunity to leave has clearly passed. All she can do is cradle her mouth with her hand and swallow the heartwrenching feeling tightening her chest.
"Stop treating me like that!" Will says, "like everyone else does - like there's something wrong with me." Will forces his pencil back on his page, scribbling intensely. Evelyn wants to pull that picture from him and tell him that there's nothing wrong with him - that he was the most amazing little boy she'd ever met. But Evelyn's entire existence here was a symbol of how that's a lie: Joyce kept Evie around because it made Will happy and Eve could look after him when Joyce needed spare hands. Because she felt he needed looking after, and both Eve, Joyce and Jonathan were incredibly protective over Will. So anything she was thinking of saying would be inappropriate.
"What're you talking about?"
"Mom, Dustin, Lucas. Everyone. They all treat me like I'm going to break. Like I'm a baby. Like I can't handle things on my own." Evelyn feels a swell of guilt. "It doesn't help. It just makes me feel like more of a freak."
"You're not a freak." Jonathan starts, but Will - with tears in his large brown eyes - is already speaking over him.
"Yes." Will is almost shaking. "I am." This time he looks at Evelyn too, who is chewing her thumb. "I am." And then he drops his eyes back to his coloured pencils. Eve watches him, and wonders how the lead hasn't pierced through to the other side of his paper yet. The bed shifts and Evelyn presumed it is Jonathan leaving, defeated, but instead he crosses his legs, positioning himself permanently in front of his brother.
"You know what? You're right." She hears him say, sounding angry.
"What?"
"No, I'm serious. You are a freak but do you wanna be like everyone else? Being a freak is the best, alright? I'm a freak."
"Is...that why you don't have any friends?" Jonathan scoffs, running a hand through his hair.
"I-I have -I have friends, Will." Evelyn prods him with the end of her pencil.
"I'm your friend." Jonathan laughs breathily.
"See?" His eyes fluttered between Evelyn and Will with a bashful smile, "Thank you."
"Then...why are you always hanging out with me?"
"Because you're my best friend, right? And I'd much rather be best friends with 'Zombie Boy' than a boring nobody." He pauses, scratching his face. "You know what I mean?" But the silence means he doesn't, so Jonathan clears his throat in a second attempt. "Who would you rather be friends with: Bowie or Kenny Rogers?" Will shivers, gagging and Jonathan smiles, "Exactly, there's no-no contest. The thing is, nobody normal ever accomplished anything meaningful in this world. Got it?"
"Well-" Will blinks, placing down the papers on his lap. "Some people like Kenny Rogers." And before Evelyn could place a supportive hand on Jonathan's back, a 'well-done for being the most amazing brother', Bob runs in to the doorway, ears having perked.
"Kenny Rogers!? I love Kenny Rogers!" Will and Jonathan looked back at each other and then at Eve - the three of them trying to hold back their laughter at his perfect timing. "What's so funny?" It is then the tapes catch Bob's wide eyes and he grabs at them in frantic excitement. "Mr Mom!" Bob whistls, cheering. "Perfect!" And carries on his way, turning out the room.
TV set up, Evelyn takes her routine place between Jonathan and Will, perching on the arm of their chairs. She scoops up a handful of popcorn from Will, and giggles faintly at the television while Mr Mom blares through its small speakers. She'd never seen it before, even if Jonathan stresses it's been drilled into his head with Bob around. She pops a piece of popcorn against her tongue, focusing on how it softens against the roof of her mouth, until something catches her eye. At first Eve thought it was just one of her old study cards, but when she reaches down to take it, she sees a crumpled up piece of orange A4 poking out of Jonathan's jean pocket. Evelyn snatches it from him before he can notice her fingers creeping closer and starts unfolding it as he looks up. Jonathan's attention snaps away from the screen, panic contorting his face. Through a mouthful of food and an annoying smirk on her simple features, Eve prods Jonathan's shoulder speaking far too calmly.
"A party?" She whisper-shouts, not wanting Joyce to hear, knowing she'd push Jonathan to go if she knew, taking the choice away from him.
"Yeah." Jonathan mutters, but he shrugs and looks back at the TV. "Some stupid Halloween thing. Nancy was handing them around the school - didn't you get one?" Evie shook her head.
"Nah. You going to go?" Just as expected, Jonathan huffs a no. "Why not? Of all the times to go, Halloween is the best! It's arguably the best time of year." Jonathan chuckles, throwing his head back to catch Evie's eye.
"Arguably." Evelyn scans the poster a little longer and then passes it back to him. "I just-it's not my thing." Evelyn reclines in her seat and thinks briefly about the time Jonathan and Nancy spent together last year, and when she had to pay Jonathan's bail after he got into a peculiar fight over her. Of course, he denies it was ever about Nancy and Eve knows when a lie comes from his lips. She may have never really spoken to Nancy, but it wasn't hard to tell that there was something about her that sucked him in.
"You say Nancy gave you this?" She whispers, quieter than before. Jonathan throws a puzzled look to the side and nods. "I think you should go." Eve's face has turned mischievous and so her smile was making Jonathan nervous.
"N-No, I don't think-"
"Look, I'll go with you. Now, if anyone asks, the overwhelming guilt of letting me down is just too much for your good-heart to bare. So you dragged yourself out to this lame party because you're just so kind like that and because I'm the most amazing person in the world. Then, you arriving to the party has nothing at all to do with the very pretty and intellectual girl in our year who hand-delivered this too you to invite you." Jonathan shakes his head as Eve stabs her finger in the direction of the flyer.
"She was handing them to everyone." Eve shrugs, unconvinced even at his eye-roll.
"Mmm. Well, I wasn't given one." Jonathan huffs.
"You've never spoke to her?"
"That's a lie! I asked her where Mr Thompson's class was when I moved here because I didn't know how to get to French. I'd say we're practically sisters by now." Jonathan laughs, a little too loud, and it catches his mother's attention.
"What are you two giggling about?" Joyce is grinning, and as always it is contagious. Evelyn straightens in her seat and mirroring her smile. Jonathan knows what was about to tumble out his friends mouth and mentally begs her not to do this to him.
"We're going to a Halloween Party!" Joyce turns to Bob and then scans Jonathan's face with surprised but happy eyes.
"Really?" Jonathan groans, covering his face.
"After trick - or - treating, obviously. Wouldn't miss that for the world." Eve cast her eyes to Will, offering him a small wink.
- Author's Note -
Bob is adorable