Just Making Things Harder

Everyone always says that money can’t buy you happiness. Well, I can’t completely agree with that. Everything else in life has a chance to hurt you, go wrong, and mess everything up. But money is what can replace it. Now, saying all this isn’t my way of stating that I’m rich and get everything I want. I just wish it were that way.

The name I was given when I was born was Candice Marie Ray. My parents were two high-class people, even though they were certainly not the most wealthy. They expected me to be just like them in moral, be perfect. They soon learned, I was going to be far from it. Not the farthest, but I wasn’t going to be what they wanted. When I turned 16, I filed to get my name changed. And the girl speaking now, well lets say the only asset of her previous name that she kept was the last name.

The girl now, explaining her life to you, her name is Kyle Evvie Ray. I know your first question is “Isn’t Kyle a guy’s name?” Typically, yes it is. But what can I say, I wanted to be different. From what I see, I have achieved that.

My mother and father still refused to call me Kyle or Evvie or any other variation some would come up with. The rest of my family eventually got used to it, but they just couldn’t. I hardly ever heard them say my name, the only time was when they were scolding me, and at that point it was my mother who called me “Candice Marie”. To which I blatantly ignored. Though, it didn’t matter to me what they called me. They didn’t matter in the long run.

My life was going perfectly for me. I had colleges lined up, begging for my entrance. Scholarships ready for whichever of those colleges I picked. All in all, this was my way of trying to please my mother and father. I was the failed child, completely different from what they wanted. So I long ago decided that I was going to be the best in school. The best I could possibly be.

The thing is, I didn’t want any of this. My family meant nothing to me at this point, because I could never make them happy. Even with all the success I had achieved so far, it wasn’t good enough. My parents would continue to strive to make me better until I was that perfect girl they always wanted. Even so, they both knew I would never become that.

To be honest, my mother has said that she wish she’d never had me. Even as far as I had come, she didn’t like who I was. She openly admitted to me once (Maybe a year ago?) that she wished she had swallowed me. You can’t imagine how that felt, on one side knowing your mom didn’t want you, and then on the other, being forced to have that mental image of your mom giving head. Not a pleasant thing to visualize.

So here I am, struggling to be perfect without being perfect. Doesn’t make sense? I know. I don’t want to be perfect, but I want to seem perfect. And to everyone outside my family, I did. Everyone in my school wanted to be me. Only because I had perfect grades, a whole life ahead of me, talent, and I was supposedly pretty.

Why do I say ‘only’? Because there was one huge thing I was missing. Friends. I had one friend, one GOOD friend. His name was Cameron Finnegan Clarke. I hardly ever said his whole name, though. I either called him Cam or Fin or Finny. Only time I ever said Finnegan was when I would tease him for it, which he hated.

Cameron was the best friend any girl wanted. He was attractive, sweet, caring, and just all around an amazing person. And before you start to wonder, yes I have a thing for him. No, I refuse to do anything about it. Neither of us want to risk things by there being an “us”. So we stay the amazing friends we are. And you have no idea the hate I get for it.

Cameron, being as attractive as he is, attracts a lot of girls. But I haven’t once seen him have a girlfriend, and I’ve known him since elementary school. He’s outgoing and funny, but I never see him talk to people. Only people I’ve ever seen him speak willingly to is me, his brother, his parents, and teachers. Anyone else, he usually stays as quiet as possible to. It’s odd, really. I get hate from girls because they envy my contact with him, because he won’t give them the time of day. Not every girl, but a lot of them. And one girl in particular.

Olivia James is the most popular and liked girl in our senior class. No, scratch that, in our school. She’s pretty, smart, has a way with people of all kind, and everyone likes her. Well, everyone but Cam and I. She views me as her rival, of sorts. Only because of him, and because I have the highest grades and college acceptance. She wishes she could have her life, with mine in addition to it. It’s funny though, because I don’t even give her the satisfaction of me acknowledging her existence.

Just like most people do to me, when I’m not being forced to do something for our class.

“Kye? Kyle? Hello?” I heard someone say. I looked around and noticed Cameron standing right in front of me with a confused look on his face.

“Oh, hey Cam. What’s up?” I asked innocently. He just shook his head at me.

“I’ve been standing here for like the past five minute. School was over 10 minutes ago, what are you doing?” He asked me, smiling like he always does. I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Sorry, I just got caught up in my thoughts. Lets go.” I stood up and grabbed my bag off the floor, heading out. As we walked down the near empty hallway, Cameron through his arm over my shoulder.

“So, where are we going today, Ev?” I smiled. Even though I had known him before I got my name changed, he warmed up to my new named quickly, generally transitioning back and forth between them and the nicknamed he would give me for them.

“Well, I don’t have work today. So we could either go get something to eat and go to my house or..” I trailed off, leaving room for his suggestions.

“Food and your house is good with me. It is Friday, you know what happens every Friday night” He said, a little smile playing on his lips.

I did know what happened every Friday night. Since neither of us had a lot of friends, we never went out and partied or anything. On Fridays we would go back to my house, break into my parents liquor cabinet and get wasted. They were never home on Friday nights and always knew he stayed over that day, so we never had a problem.

It became like a ritual for the two of us, getting wasted on Friday, me waking up with a hangover for work on Saturday, and fighting through the day just to come back home and drink again with him. That was our weekend.

We didn’t exchange anything else as we emerged from the school. The few people left turned to look at me, different emotions hiding behind their watching eyes. Jealousy, lust, boredom. It wasn’t an unusual thing.

When we got to Cameron’s car, he opened the door for me. He was just that kind of guy, and I thought it was immensely sweet. Once I was in, he shut the door and quickly walked around to his side and slid in. Him and I had a pattern going. One day, I would bring my car, and pick him up and take him home or whatever we had to do. The next day, he did the same except with his car. That way, it saved money, and it wasn’t just one of us having to spend more.

As we drove away from the school, neither of us spoke. The only noise in the car was the music he was playing, my humming along, and his tapping along on the steering wheel. We weren't much of the talking people. We only got into conversations when we weren’t doing anything else at the same time.

We were somewhat the perfect pair. We understood each other without even having to say a word. Knew when to talk and when to be quiet. He was the best friend I never thought I’d have, and I did.

The rest of the night basically when as we had planned. We went to a little diner, one of our favorites, and then headed to my house. My parents had long figured out we broke into their liquor cabinet and would always try different ways to lock us out, but eventually we’d figured out a way in. Our personal favorite was Jack Daniels, of course. And with that in hand, we were usually wasted by 10.

“Kyle. Hey, Kyle. Evvie. Eevee” Cam slurred from beside me, repeatedly tapping my arm.

“Whaaaaat” I replied, smacking his hand away.

“You’re so preeeeetty” He laughed, a big goofy smile on his face.

“Go to sleep, Cam” I mumbled, laying down. Cam was always the hyper one after we drank. It just made me want to chill out and sleep.

It took about another fifteen minutes until he finally laid down beside me and let me cut the light off.

“Gooooodnight Eevee” He giggled, wrapping his arm around me and snuggling up to me. I was used to this too. He very occasionally liked to snuggle when he was drunk. Even sometimes when he wasn’t.

“Goodnight, Finny” I mumbled sleepily before passing out finally.