This War's Not Over.

Garrett was impressed with Evie’s determination to remain awake in the car. She kept the window open and managed to keep herself in as uncomfortable a position as possible so she didn’t fall asleep. Getting her inside was another story entirely and she stood pensively at the door glaring inside at the form that lounged cat like on the couch.

“Go on. Evie, it’s not like he’s going to bite.” Garrett rolled his eyes. It’s not like you haven’t already fucked him.

“No, but I might.” She responded through teeth that were gritted with barely controlled rage.

“Hey there Eve.” John greeted, one hand reaching languidly upwards to wave at her as she passed him. “You look like shit. What happened? Get in a fight with a cactus?”

“Go fuck yourself, John. It’s not like your cock gets enough of a beating as it is. Has that case of blue balls gone away yet?” She sneered, pausing by the chair.

Distantly, there was the sound of glass crashing to the floor from the kitchen as well as barely controlled laughter from upstairs, both Kennedy and Pat hardly able to control their amusement, Jared dropping a glass in shock. No one had talked to John like that in years and it showed. His eyes were wide and his jaw was slack, mouth open in stunned silence. Apparently, pain made Evie a giant bitch.

Without another word, she wandered off to her room which she was surprised to find in its original condition. Crawling into bed she figured she would shower in the morning and then get food later. Her stomach was finding the thought of eating unappealing anyway. She tugged off her bra and her shorts and left the shirt on, bloodstains and all and settled beneath the sheets, tucking an arm beneath her head. She heard the door open and waited until whoever was at the door to announce themselves.

“Evie?” Garrett’s voice was low, almost as if he was hoping that if he whispered she wouldn’t hear him and he could leave. It was a shame she was sober enough to care what he wanted.

“What?”

It was in that moment that he realized he didn’t really know why he had entered her room and the words he wanted to say wouldn’t come. The revelation in the living room, real or not, had broken up some of the ice. He had to admit, her spunk was adorable and the look on John’s face had been pretty priceless. Sitting at the foot of her bed, he thought about all the things he wanted to say, but in the end, he couldn’t do it.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for everything.” Her voice was quiet, a whisper, and he made no move to acknowledge the sound.

He wished he could believe her, but John was his best friend and he had no reason to lie, of which he was aware. Still, the apology was nice to hear, even if it felt insincere. He watched her for a moment, debating his next course of action. He could lay with her, if only for the ephemeral comfort it would bring both of them, but that didn’t feel quite right to him and he thought maybe there was something better he could do to make her more comfortable. He had no other ideas aside from leaving her and that felt worse. His lips pulled into a frown and he leaned back on the bed, his eyes never leaving her form. He knew when her eyes closed and he knew when she fell asleep by the way her breathing changed.

There was nothing else for him to do but play ‘watchman’.

--
It was two days before Evie moved from her bed. He was surprised by how much she slept, considering her sleep was usually fairly restless, and she had even popped her stitches, which he had carefully redressed, once again getting his hands soaked with her blood. At one point, unthinking, he went to lick the plasma from his fingers before memory stopped him. Her blood was bad; toxic. Ingesting it was potentially hazardous to his health.

He woke a few hours before dusk to find her bed empty and her dirty clothes rumpled in a hamper along with a towel. There was packaging in the wastebasket signaling she had probably wrapped her ribs in something, and he smelled the faintest trace of maple syrup wafting from the kitchen. Following the scent, sure enough there was a pan on the stove and traces of pancakes stuck to the inside of the pan. Distantly, he heard voices coming from upstairs and he followed the sound until he came to the library door.

The room was dark, the windows covered by heavy drapery, but he could make out three distinct forms in the shadows, as well as the glowing embers of a cigarette cherry and the outline of what appeared to be a small glass bong. He stood just outside the door and listened, intrigued by the conversation.

“What am I supposed to say to him though, seriously, you guys. ‘Garrett, I’m sorry I’m in love with you, please forgive me?’ It’s just so fucked up. I never cheated on him with John – and I wasn’t exactly kidding with the blue balls comment either – and I wouldn’t. God, I am not my mother.” There was the sound of a lighter lighting and then the end of a joint was being lit and Evie was inhaling. He forgot she had smoked pot before they had met. He wondered when the last time she had smoked had been.

“That, my friend, was an epic burn.” Pat murmured in response as he flipped idly though the pages of his book. He heard Evie laugh but knew she was shaking her head. He could see her doing all of these things, even though he wasn’t actually looking at her. He knew her so well that he could see her actions even if he wasn’t watching her.

“I was in pain and drunk. Not a good combination for making me civil.” She spoke while exhaling smoke. A moment later she was taking a long swill of what looked like Coke. At least she was steering clear of the vodka.

“Still. We tried so hard not to laugh.”

“You guys didn’t do a very good job. I heard you.” Came the reply, and there was the sound of quiet snickering. She was no doubt laughing at herself.

“In answer to your question though, you should tell him the truth. Nothing happened between you and Lothario downstairs and that’s the end of that. If he doesn’t believe you, that’s his choice, but the air is clear on your end, therefore you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Although, how did you know about the blue balls thing?” Kennedy was amazing in the fact that he typically gave sound advice. Jared would have told her the same thing though.

Evie snorted. “He told me he had a bad case of them and needed to get laid and asked if I would take pity on him. I told him to get acquainted with his hand and a sock and they would end up his new best friends.” Garrett couldn’t quite stop himself from grinning at that one. Evie was spunky when she wanted to be and John happened to bring it out more than most people. She never set out to insult him in the beginning but she seemed to be doing it a lot more often now. She lit the joint again and took another drag from it, holding the smoke in her lungs as long as she could before she blew it out in a wreath of smoky air.

“Are you going to join us or are you just going to stand there?” Kennedy asked, staring from his spot on the sofa. “I can see you standing there, Garrett. Unlike some of us here, I’m not blind.”

“Hey! Don’t crack on the freaks!” Evie cried, beaning Kenny with a throw pillow. A moment later, Evie was pinned to her chair and Kennedy was attacking her sides with his fingers, the shrieks of Eve’s laughter bouncing off of the walls.

This was how they all had been before, in the beginning of their friendship. Everything had been careless and easy. Looking back now the whole thing seemed as ephemeral and fleeting as a dream. Still, it was a comfort knowing that at least some things hadn’t changed. Eve, Kenny and Pat were about as sibling-like as ever, and God help the world if Rafe ever got thrown into the mix. Garrett remembered the last time that had happened. Eve had gotten so stoned, she slept for a good thirty-six hours afterward, after getting a severe case of the munchies for Twinkies and orange soda. Before that, however, the four of them had jury rigged a zip line from the rooftop, over the pool and beyond her hill and were using it as a pulley system to transfer weed from Eve’s garden to her house as well as a way to dive into the pool. Evie had also jury rigged a diving board to her roof.

Continuing with the playful mood in the room, Garrett stole the couch from Kenny, who decided to use Eve as a chair and Pat decided he’d lie on Garrett. There was nothing awkward about any of it. It was just four friends being stupid and having fun and for a moment, there was no vampire/human dichotomy and everything was normal and carefree. A few moments later, there was a pileup on Evie’s chair as all three boys tackled her; two of them actually aiming for Kenny.

“You know I love you guys but the leg humping has got to stop.” She attempted to eek it out with a straight face but didn’t quite make it, bursting into a fit of raucous laughter at the end. That was typically how they could tell she was baked, when her dry humor was punctuated by fits of ridiculous giggles when any other time she could deliver her one liners completely deadpan. Garrett had always loved her laugh though, even if she was high. He had almost forgotten what it had sounded like. Bells. It reminded him of the tinkling of bells over the door of a small corner shop that only close friends knew of; someplace intimate but safe. Together, they had a secret world where only friends could enter, and her laughter was the key.

A moment later, Pat did something that only Pat could get away with and barked, causing all of them to burst into side splitting laughter. Evie actually fell out of the recliner backwards, tipping it over and holding her sides, a tear slipping from her eye. While none of them stopped laughing, Kenny and Garrett did check to make sure she was alright, listening for her breathing to change with her laughter. It didn’t, which was either a sign that she was completely gone and was thus entirely numb or she was fine.

After all the laughter had died down, Evie righted the recliner with little effort and climbed back in before lighting the joint to finish it off and exhaling a contented sigh of, “it’s good to be home.”

“So, how was it, living on a boat for nine months?” The voice at the door was unexpected although merely curious and not acidic. John had apparently decided to join them, along with a quiet Jared.

“It was different,” Evie replied as she fiddled with her lighter. “Quiet and lonesome but at the same time pretty gratifying and wonderfully crowded with innumerable amounts of things for me to photograph. I think tomorrow I’ll start developing my black and whites. I did happen to transfer most of my color shots onto my external hard drive which I think Rafe grabbed, and you all know what that means.” Rafe had never been the organized one in the family and had therefore probably already lost her hard drive.

“Mmph, no, Evie, it’s on the end table in the front room.” Jared exhaled smoke and pointed in the general direction of the front room. “He dropped it off this morning.”

Evie’s eyes widened and she shot from her chair to sprint from the room and down the stairs to the front room to check to see if it was actually her drive. A few moments later she returned carrying both the drive and her laptop, which she happily booted up. She cracked into the files on her external drive and brought up all of the relevant folders to open the photos. She had always loved to show them her work because it made her feel a certain sense of accomplishment and like she was actually good at what she did, like she was worth something.

A moment later, she was making her way downstairs again and Garrett, unthinking, moved to follow. “She’s probably just got the munchies. Take a look at this.” Kennedy had always been the first to become fascinated by Evie’s eye for photography and Garrett couldn’t help but share his enthusiasm. He joined the others on the couch and began to search through her photo archives, absolutely enthralled by her attention to detail and her eye for the unusual.