Young Writers Society

Evaline paused for far too long, staring at the fire. It was an easy question. It shouldn't have been hard. It wasn't like he would know this person. They were literally worlds apart.

"I'm not sure I feel comfortable sharing that," she finally said with a blank face, not bothering to soften the words. "Especially since you haven't told me about anyone in your life."

Well, she did know one name.

But she wasn't going to mention it first.

"I haven't?" James asked, not sure what Evaline quantified as 'sharing about people from his life.'

Hadn't he talked about his family? Weren't they people?

He sighed, looking up at her.

"Is that what this has to be for you to share anything? I always have to share first?"

Evaline flicked her eyes up at him. She couldn't repress the start of a glare staring back at him.

"No," she said, trying to sound monotone so that this wouldn't escalate. But it didn't stop her next words from coming out.

"But some things are none of your business."

James watched her. He caught her glare, but he kept his tone calm.

"You don't think I feel the same way? Eve, you will always be entitled to your privacy. I'm never going to force something out of you if you don't want to share. But I'm trying. I don't know, to help move things along. I don't want to go back to the truth or dare game because I think the dares were hindering us. Not just you, but me too, okay? I know you pay attention to things. You probably noticed that if ever I have the option to avoid something, there's little I won't do to do so. But --"

He took in a breath.

"I'm realizing that me doing that is childish. And don't get me wrong -- Evaline, there's a million things I don't want to talk about to anyone ever. Most of it I don't even want to think about. But I said it from the start and I still mean it. I'm willing to try, and I'm more willing now than I was from the start."

He paused, just for a second, pressing his lips together as he took in another deep breath.

He hoped that a little bit of vulnerability would go a long way.

"When I think about talking about my past... I'm terrified. But I want to... to trust you. I want to try."

Evaline quietly listened, watching James as he continued throughout his spiel. She should have probably felt angry, or frustrated, or annoyed. But she wasn't.

She just felt numb.

His words started to blend together, not fully registering to her, not appearing to impact her, either. She just watched him talk, trying to also figure him out. He said he wanted to trust her, but he didn't even really know her. Who was to say that he wouldn't trust her anymore the more he knew?

Evaline may have pushed him away some more if they had this conversation weeks ago. Maybe even days ago. But it wasn't worth the effort anymore. It felt like she was too late to return back to that stage.

She finally broke eye contact, staring back at the fire, expression unreadable, and pausing for far too long, letting the tension sit in the air like a suffocating blanket.

"His name was Alan," she finally said blankly. "He's dead now."

James wasn't sure this felt like a victory. Sure, she answered the question, but he didn't know if she wanted to. He didn't know how to remedy this. Normally, he would change the subject altogether, but he wasn't sure if he should. He wished Evaline would say something. Say how she felt. What was going through her head?

"I'm sorry," James said, as gently as possible. "How old was he?"

Being a blank canvas made these questions easier to answer. Evaline wasn't necessarily feeling detached; she just felt hollow. It was actually a refreshing feeling sometimes. The perpetual anxiety always messed with her thoughts and actions.

How old was Alan when he died?

Easy question, but she had to think back. When was his birthday when that happened? Before or after? She couldn't recall. She wasn't sure she ever really could.

"Eighteen. Maybe seventeen," she answered.

James nodded slowly.

"How many years were you two friends?" he asked softly.

"I don't know," she said quietly, staring at the fire with deep focus like it held all the answers. "A long time, I think."

James hummed, letting a small bout of silence pass.

He would understood if she would've had to pause a moment to look back and guess. She'd estimated Alan's age, which made sense. But she had been pretty sharp with math and numbers. She'd figured out Nye's calendar pretty fast for herself. He knew it wasn't for lack of intelligence or capability.

Either she wasn't trying, or she really didn't know.

If he thought about it... there were a lot of things that she didn't seem sure about.

"If you had to guess," he offered. "An estimation?"

Evaline furrowed her brows, trying to think through her earliest hazy memories with Alan. James seemed adamant on knowing how long she had known him, but she didn't stop to care why. Now she was curious too. How long had she known him?

She knew she met him and his brother when the classroom grouping system increased from two people per group, to four or five. And it was that way until they graduated. The four—and later, five—of them were close friends because of this. But they didn't all meet at the same time.

"Maybe ten years," she finally said. "As an estimation."

It was a half-truth. They weren't exactly good friends the entire time they knew each other in those ten years, but they might as well have been to her.

Maybe ten years. James kept note of the maybe.

There was nothing that told him for sure - and if was far from something he'd ask about at the moment - but he wondered how much Evaline's powers affected her perception of time. He felt like he'd heard her express to the other mages offhandedly that despite having "time magic," time was sometimes hard to keep track of. While he could empathize and understand having difficulties keeping track of time, Evaline didn't strike him as someone who wouldn't care to remember those things.

If he understood anything about her, it seemed like she wanted to remember. From her own mouth, she said past experiences shaped who you were, and that she'd rather remember and be her true self.

He wondered if that was something she'd lived up to or if it was something she wished she'd lived up to.

"What was he like?" he asked. "His personality?"

Alan's personality. That was a good question.

Evaline tried to think back on their past experiences, but she kept drawing blanks. How was she supposed to answer this question? She couldn't say she didn't know how to explain it. That was too obvious. Too truthful.

Luckily, she had other people to fill in the blanks for her. She lived through their experiences. She knew plenty through their eyes.

"He was kind," she said. "Smart. Gentle. But naive. Too trusting of others, I guess. But it was easy to trust him back."

She briefly looked up at James, softening her face for just a second as the next words only ran through her mind once.

He was also a hopeless romantic like you. He was good with words and it was easy to fall for them. It's my fault, and it's his fault.

"He sounds like a good friend," James said softly.

"How did you get to know him?"

Evaline nodded, feeling some of the tension leave her body. James was just genuinely trying to understand someone in her life. He wasn't trying to analyze her or figure out her weaknesses. He was just trying to understand. That was all.

"Classmates," she answered. "We were classmates. The school wasn't particularly big, so I grew up with the people in my class. He was in the same group as me."