Open Your Eyes

After calling Jack back to confirm what exactly I was supposed to wear to work tomorrow - which consisted of black dress pants and a white blouse - I finally decided to go and confront Evan about what had happened between us. I timed it perfectly so that if things didn't go well, I had a date with my horse already planned out. I had only seen Hansel once since I moved and to Hansel and I, that was a long time apart. In P.E.I, we were always together. I used to take Elizabeth to see him as well and we'd spend all day just riding him. I made a mental note to pick up some carrots on my way to the stable.

I packed all of my riding gear in my mom's caravan before making my way over to Evan's house. His house was built with gray bricks and had a flower bed resting right below the front window which was placed beside the door. His garage was stretched far enough out so that his door could be somewhat hidden from everyone walking up the street from the left side of it. The house looked exactly like it did when I left it except for one little detail; their mail box no longer said The Pines. It was still placed just on the edge of their lawn like before, but it was a different box. Even the little engraved marking that said Evvvvans[ was gone. I don't remember why Evan had carved that into the mail box; I think he was trying to prove a point to his parents for something.

"Hey, new girl!" I heard a deep husky voice shout from behind me. I turned myself around to try and locate where it had come from. Right across the street stood a boy at a house that was directly behind mine who was waving at me. I looked around my perimeter in case he was talking to another person who had just moved in, but this was stupid because I was the only person who was considered a "newbie" on the street. From far away the boy looked about a couple years older than I and his hair was a hazelnut colour that sat as a shag on his head. He was tall but not gangly; he looked as if he was on some sort of sports team or at least worked out a lot. He reminded me of a teddy bear. A very muscular but very harmless teddy bear. I gave him a little wave and stood there confused about what to do next.

"Um, hi." I said after standing there in an extremely awkward silence. I watched him and he made his way across the street and over to where I was standing. He stopped in front of me and smiled. From up close I could see that I had been right about everything I had seen from far away. This time, though, I could make out his eyes and noticed that they were a very sullen green colour that could make any girl swoon over him with just one look. He had a freckle right below his right eye that wasn't very noticeable but it was big enough to see. It was the sort of detail I liked to notice in another person. I was just one for liking freckles.

"My name's William," He said reaching out his hand for me to shake. I found this gesture a very appealing one because of all the people who would shake your hand upon meeting you for the first time, a teenage boy was hardly ever one of them. "You can just call me Will though." I reached my hand out and shook his hand softly.

"Brooke," I said looking up at him. He was probably standing at a height of six-four which explained why he had to look down at me. He just stood there smiling at me which made me shift uncomfortably. "Was... was there something you needed or? 'Cause I really have to-"

"I just thought I'd introduce myself to the new beautiful blonde who has been walking my street for the past week." If I was any other girl, this line probably would have worked on me. But I am not any other girl, I am me, and as for me, this line did not work at all. I rolled my eyes and turned to walk away from him. It wasn't just because of what he had said, it was also because he reminded me of Jerimiah and that really made me want to punch him in the face. I tried to remind myself that he wasn't Jerimiah and that he could just be an overly flirty boy with innocent intentions. The thought of that made me want to laugh though. "Too straight forward?" He asked, placing his hands in his pockets.

"Just a little," I said turning back around to face him. "When you shook my hand though, you almost had me." I was smirking at him now, letting him know that I was the type of girl who would beat him at his own game. He rolled his eyes playfully at me before turning around and heading back over to the other side of the street. I shrugged and turned around and had just begun walking over to Evan's door when he shouted from behind me. "It was nice meeting you, Brooke." I turned only my head over in his direction just in time to catch a glimpse of him winking at me. At least that's what it looked like from so far away.

I smiled and knocked on Evan's door, completely ready to face whatever was to come next. No one answered though and so I knocked again. So either Evan is telling his mom not to answer the door and is refusing to answer it himself, or he was lying when he told me earlier on before my interview that he had to stay home tonight and help his mom with dinner. I was offended either way because if he had been lying to me it would have been before the fight, meaning that he was already coming up with an excuse not to see me. And if that were the case, then why would he be mad at me now for something that had to do with not seeing him?

I decided to sit down on his front steps and wait for him to answer the door. I knew my mom would be home soon and wonder what I was doing but I didn't care about how strange I looked sitting on my neighbour’s steps eagerly waiting for someone to answer the door. I dropped my head in my hands and did what I always did when I was arguing with someone. I thought and thought until it felt like my head was going to explode. I told myself to stop overthinking things so much, but I couldn't help it. Overthinking will be the death of me, I tell you.

"Brooke?" That's all he had to say for me to know that it was him. I knew the roughness of his voice so well and the chords that it possessed that he didn't even have to confirm that it was him. I did that for myself when I looked up at him and looked straight into his ocean blue eyes before jumping up and hugging him. He seemed hesitant about the gesture at first but then slowly wrapped his arms around me as well.

"I didn't mean it that way. I could never mean something like that." I said holding him tighter against my body. I had all of these things that I wanted to say to him but for some reason I couldn't find the words to express them anymore. My mind had turned to muck and all I could muster was, "I didn't mean it," over and over again. I pulled away from him feeling like it was all too soon and looked up into his eyes trying to read his expression. He ran a hand through his dirty blonde hair and looked at me with an intensity that was hard to describe.

"I can't lose you again," He said and then he was pulling me back into a hug and I was feeling like we were in the middle of some cheesy romance movie filled with lots of cheesy romantic gestures. Except for the fact that we were in no way romantic about each other and even though it seemed cheesy, I really didn't mind it at all.

"I'm really sorry, Evan. I shouldn't have shut you out. I was just... I just.... ugh, now that you're in front of me I can't think of what I was going to say." I said frustrated with myself. I had probably been sitting on his front steps for about ten minutes just thinking about what to say before he actually appeared right in front of me. Well that was a good ten minutes gone to waste.

"I know," he said pushing a strand of my hair behind my ear. It was simple gesture, but something about the movement had my stomach doing flip flops. I pushed the feeling aside and allowed a big sweep of relief wash over my body and I felt a lot more relaxed. I sat back down on the steps and waited for Evan to follow my lead. He did this very uneasily which made me curious as to why but I was smart enough not to ask.

"I thought you were helping with dinner tonight?" I asked when my brain had finally checked back into my skull and I remembered some of what I was thinking about before. He shrugged and that was all that he needed to do for me to know that it was because he was blowing off steam. It may not have been all because of what happened between the two of us, but he had definitely been angry about something that he really didn't want to be angry about. "I got the job." I said switching the subject to something with less of a personal response to it.

"I knew you would," He said looking over at me and smiling. "Were you going to go see Hansel?" I looked at him shocked, wondering how on earth he knew that. I guess he could have been walking down the street and seen me packing the vehicle from afar, but I had looked up and down the street before to make sure that he wasn't wondering around aimlessly looking for a garbage can to kick down.

"How did you-"

"You're wearing your lucky bracelet," He said simply. I let him take my hand in his and watched as he traced an outline around the bracelet I was wearing. He looked up at me and gave me a half-smile before taking one of the charms between his fingers. "I gave you this one on your sixth birthday, remember?" I nodded my head thinking back to that day when we were sitting in the tree house and he handed me a little box. We had left my house after eating cake and opening the rest of my presents and told our parents that we were just going to the park in the complete opposite direction of what we actually considered "the park." His charm was a little golden horse shoe with the tiniest engraving on the back of it. It was my aunt's, he had said, she gave it to me before she died. The engraving read my love and was a gift to Evan from his Aunt while she was in the hospital earlier on that year. I remember feeling like the luckiest girl in the world that day and every time something good happened to me in P.E.I, I would look down at the bracelet and it would be like Evan was there with me; even though we hadn't spoken. I attached it to my lucky bracelet so that I wouldn't lose it.

"I remember," I whispered, smiling. "How could I ever forget something that important?" He wrapped his arm around me and we both sat there in silence. The kind of silence that you could sit through without feeling uncomfortable. I knew that I should probably leave for the stable now, but I wanted to stay here for just a couple more minutes and enjoy this moment with Evan as best as I could. How could I have ever stopped talking to him?