Open Your Eyes

“So why were you out with Will?” I heard a loud voice say in my ear. I woke up with a jolt and smacked Evan for scaring the crap out of me like that. I looked over at my alarm clock and saw that it was only six in the morning. Did he not realize that it was summer and I had to work later? Did he not realize that it was six in the god damn morning and I wanted to sleep in today? I smacked him again just because his presence itself was annoying me.

“How did you get in?” I asked, rubbing my eyes and sitting up in my bed. He always just appeared out of nowhere and I never really thought anything of it until now. Did my mom let him in or did he take it upon himself to enter my home and make me angry? “You know, normal people don’t start bothering others until at least eleven.” He rolled his eyes at me and that alone earned him another smack.

“Will you stop hitting me?” He said grabbing a pillow to shield himself. “Your mom let me in right before she left for work. And Brooke, if you think anyone is normal, you’re pretty much crazy.” I got up and scrimmaged through my dresser for some clothes to wear for the day. I was kind of grossed out from not changing into my pajamas last night before falling asleep and I was in desperate need of a shower. Nothing would feel better right now than to be under hot water with the scent of my mango body wash wafting through the air.

“It’s six in the morning, Evan. I’m pretty sure I’m not the crazy one here.” I walked down the hall and into the bathroom that still smelled like my mom’s raspberry shampoo. I figured that I’d probably steal some of it for today since it smelled so good and it literally made your hair smell like heaven all day long. I don’t even know where she gets it from either because she won’t tell me. She states that it’s her special place and if I want some she’ll pick it up for me. What a great mom, right?

“Whatever, that’s not the point. Why were you with Will last night?” I could hear his voice echo down the hall and I knew that he was being stubborn and wasn’t going to walk to the bathroom to hold a civil conversation. Did he really have to walk all the way over to my house at six in the morning to ask me why I was out with someone? Not that he really had to walk “all the way” to my house, more like a couple of steps, but still. Who wakes up this early just to ask someone a question that isn’t even that important?

“How did you know I was out with Will?” I said walking back over to my bedroom and standing at the entrance. “How do you even know Will?” I had to admit that it was beginning to get a little freaky every time Evan knew something about my life I hadn’t told him or hadn’t remembered telling him anyways. It was like he was watching my every move somehow, wanting to know what was going to happen next.

“Long story short, we used to be friends. Best friends actually.” I stared at him intently, biting my lip. I guess it made sense that they used to be friends seeing as Will lived right across the street, but it still seemed weird to me. Will hadn’t mentioned Evan to me and Evan lived next door; he’s probably seen us together before. And Evan has told me about his friends before but never did he ever mention Will until now; until I hung out with him.

“Really? What’s the story there?” I asked pretending to be disinterested in the conversation and walking back over to the bathroom. I looked through the drawers until I found three towels; one for the floor so it didn’t get wet, one for my body, and one for my hair. Yes, I was that weird person who needed to have three towels in order to shower. I turned on the shower so that it was hot but not melting my skin off hot and waited.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re avoiding my question.” It took him less than ten seconds to get annoyed with the noise of the shower and end up walking over to where I was. I smiled at the fact that I knew him so well, even after all this time. He leaned against the door as I continued to dig through the drawers for my body wash.

“He just wanted to show me something. Does it really matter?” I threw some stuff around in the drawer getting irritated with the fact that my mango body wash was nowhere to be found. That stuff was expensive and was probably the only thing I haven’t changed about my shower routine. I’ve never been one to go out and buy the exact same products every single time, except for that one body wash that I could smell all day and never get sick of.

“I guess not,” He said crossing his arms. “I suppose I should have mentioned our history before though.” I rolled my eyes for what seemed like the millionth time this morning and instantly felt bad. I’m not normally this grumpy and it wasn’t like Evan was somebody that I didn’t want around… it was just that I’m not a morning person usually, and waking me up before my body wants to get up creates a nightmare out of me. In my defense though, I’m pretty sure he already knows that about me so he probably wasn’t taking my moodiness personally.

“You still haven’t told me anything about it.” I pointed out just as I found the body wash. I twisted my finger in the air to let him know that it was time for him to turn around and waited until I was sure that he wasn’t peaking to take off my clothes and hop into the shower. The water felt nice on my skin and it instantaneously made me feel better. I heard his footsteps enter the bathroom a little more and the door close behind him.

“We just had a falling out, that’s all.” He said, speaking loudly over the water. I guess he didn’t realize that I could still hear him properly even with the shower running. I washed my hair first, letting my mom’s shampoo lather my hair. I gave myself a head massage because let’s face it, those always feel good, even if you’re the one doing it and then I washed the rest of my body. I had to admit that it was semi-weird to be showering with Evan just a piece of fabric away from me, but we used to bath together when we were little, so I didn’t think it would be that bad.

I remember when Evan and I were bathing together before and it hadn’t occurred to us that we were different genders. We were maybe four at this point and our mothers were having a hard time separating us – probably because we threw tantrums every time one of us had to leave the other – so they decided that bath time could be a joint thing as long as we were little and didn’t show too much curiousity.

Well one day Evan pointed downwards at me and started crying and when my mom asked him what was wrong he said that he was different and that meant he was weird. I swear it took both of our moms forever to try and get it through to him that the reason he had a “wibble” as they liked to call it then, was because he was a boy. Honestly, I don’t even know what I would have done if I were them; I would have been laughing too damn hard to even begin to explain anything. I’m pretty sure I even called him wibble for over a year after that.

“If it makes you feel any better I don’t even know if we’re friends.” I said reassuringly. “Turn around.” I peeked my head out of the curtain to make sure that he wasn’t looking and then grabbed one of the towels and wrapped myself in it before grabbing a second towel and wrapping up my hair. I tapped him on the shoulder to let him know that it was okay to look now and then dug through the drawers for my make-up.

I wasn’t really one for wearing a lot of make-up but some days I liked to experiment. It was kind of like my face was the canvas and my make-up was the paint; as stupid as that sounded. I guess I just didn’t see it as a necessity to look pretty; it was just something I liked to do. Though, I couldn’t really remember a day that I had gone without wearing any. I figured that I’d give it a shot tomorrow.

I let my hair out of the towel after ten minutes passed and noticed that Evan was watching me intently. His gaze was so piercing when I looked at him that I felt a shiver run down my spine. Why was he looking at me like that? Did my hair look bad and he was just too afraid to say anything? It didn’t matter if it did anyways because this was the part before I actually fixed it up and made it look somewhat decent. I was pretty sure the only thing I wanted to do with it though was throw it up in a bun so that I didn’t feel as hot throughout the day. With all of this summer heat we’ve been having, I’m not sure why I haven’t melted into a puddle yet.

“Wait,” Evan said, as I picked up the concealer I planned on using. He reached his hand across and pushed mine back down on the counter. “I like seeing you like this.” I bit my lip and looked at him, trying to comprehend why he did things like this. I have never been so confused about a guy in my entire life. One second my stomach was a pile of nothingness to my mind and the next it was the only thing I could concentrate on because of the massive amounts of butterflies I got. I wouldn’t let myself feel that way about him though, I refused to.

I cleared my throat and tried my best to look away from him, but couldn’t. I was too aware of the fact that his hand was still over mine and all I was wearing was a towel. His fingers trailed over my lucky bracelet that I kept forgetting to take off ever since our trail ride and then he let go of my hand all together. He took a step back probably realizing how close he was to me and smiled a genuine smile that pulled at my heart strings.

“Like seeing me like what?” I asked nervously but trying really hard to make it unobvious that my voice was wavering. He placed his hand on my cheek and rubbed his thumb over my cheek bone before smiling and shaking his head and then leaving the bathroom altogether. What was that about? You can’t just do that to someone and then walk away.

I changed into the clean clothes I had picked out earlier and left the bathroom to follow him. I found him sitting on the floor, looking at the old photo album I had. He was sitting near the window where I had left the book the last time it had fallen over. It crept me out way too much to place it back on my dresser again, just to watch it fall repeatedly. I walked over and sat down in front of him, continuously making funny faces at him until he looked up and caught me. He made a face back and we sat there like that for a very long time without getting bored. It became sort of like a game to us. Each face we made was different and if one of us made the same face twice we called each other out on it. I’m pretty sure this was also something we did together when we were younger; talk about a weird set of kids.

“How come this was on the floor?” He asked randomly, ending the face-making game, and flipping through the pictures. “I remember that bathing suit! I used to make fun of you all the time for it because it was yellow.” He started laughing at this and I reached over and grabbed the photo album from him, shutting it.

“You said I looked like a duck!” I said laughing, “And then when I made you angry you would tell me to quack off.” Saying this out loud had me laughing even harder. For such a little kid, he was definitely a smart ass. He used to make fun of me for all kinds of stuff when we were younger; it was a wonder that I was even friends with him at all.

“It was your fault for picking a yellow bathing suit. At least you didn’t go for that red one. I don’t think I would have been able to stop myself from calling you hot tamale. That would have gone over great with our mothers.” I shoved him a little and let my laughter die down. I liked this feeling of remembering old times with Evan. It reminded me of a childhood that I had missed so much while living in P.E.I. If I had learned anything about moving so far away, it was that no matter where you used to live, you will always leave someone important behind. And no matter how far you go, if you ever come back, that person will forever be a part of that place. You just can’t escape it. And that’s how it felt sitting here with Evan right now. He was my forever place. Maybe it wasn’t this house or this city or even this neighbourhood that I considered to be home; maybe home was Evan.