Young Writers Society

Jamie awoke sometime before dawn. He stared up at the ceiling and began straining his eyes so they could adjust to the dark. Once Jamie had acquired a tiny bit of night vision, he turned over to see Evan beside him, still fast asleep. The freckled boy slumbered in what seemed like a lovely peace. Jamie felt weird to see Evan with mismatched pajamas and messy hair. In spite of his hyper and excitable nature, Evan McBride never had a hair out of place and cared about his appearance a little too much.

The sun still hadn’t risen, and it looked like Evan wasn’t going to wake up for a while. So Jamie did what he did best: get lost in thought. A warm sensation made its way to his cheeks. Jamie began to think about everything that had happened the day before. The teen supposed that he was lucky to end breaking down in front of Evan’s house.

Jamie felt the bed shake a little. He looked over to see that Evan was tossing and turning. The redhead began to whimper a little in his sleep. It seemed like he was having an awful dream. “Evan,” Jamie said, in a hushed tone. “Wake up, you’re having a bad dream,” Jamie added. The teen sighed. Evan couldn’t hear him through the nightmare he was having. Jamie grabbed Evan’s shoulders and shook him, like in the movies.

The redhead tensed up as he woke up. Evan had been having a bad dream about the germs and illnesses he feared so badly. As he realized who had shaken him awake, he blushed. At that moment, Evan wanted to thank the darkness for keeping his fire engine-colored face a secret from Jamie. “Sorry… bad dream…” Evan mumbled, groggily. He was shaken up from the nightmare, still. Jamie let go, and Evan relaxed a little.

What followed was a long silence. Both boys were tired; it was probably the wee hours of the morning! Not that either of them knew for sure. Evan hadn’t checked his phone and Jamie’s phone was dead as a doornail. Evan turned to the clock that was situated across the room, but he couldn’t make out the glowing numbers without his glasses. The only sounds in the silence were soft breathing, the faint growl of the air conditioner, and the pitter patter of raindrops that still hadn’t stopped falling.

Thanks to the darkness and near-silence, Jamie drifted off again. However, Evan was not so fortunate. Without anyone to talk to, the only thing to do was stare at the ceiling and blush at the random thoughts popping into his head.

The redhead lay motionless, until he ended up falling back asleep as well.

Evan was the first one to open his eyes when morning arrived. To his surprise, there was sunlight coming through the small gaps in the shutters. Evan yawned and sat up. The shifting mattress must have woken Jamie up, as well. “G’morning,” Evan said, groggily. The boy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and yawned rather dramatically.

Jamie popped his neck as he sat up. “What time are we going to the mall or whatever?” he asked.

“At noon!” Evan replied. “Speaking of time, I prolly ought to check my phone…” Evan’s voice trailed off. He got out of the bed and walked over to his dresser. He picked up his phone. “Eight AM exactly,” Evan announced. “We have a while till we gotta leave.”

“And how are we getting there?” Jamie asked. “My car stopped working.”

“Don’t you worry about it!” Evan sounded a bit like a salesperson, which put Jamie off. “My cousin is a mechanic. He’d do it for free!”

Jamie cocked an eyebrow. “For real?”

Evan sighed. “Yep! Too bad he lives all the way in Washington State.”

Jamie was visibly disappointed. “You got my hopes up!”

Evan giggled. “Sorry,” he said.

“Well, is there a mechanic near here?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah, right by the town hall,” Evan replied. “But they’re closed on Sundays.”

“So they aren’t gonna be any help,” Jamie groaned.

“Don’t know what to tell ya,” Evan replied. Evan stretched and inspected his appearance in the camera app of his phone. “God, I look like a fucking mess,” he whined. As he said that, a text notification popped onto his screen. It was from Marie.

‘Y’all need a ride?’ the text read. Evan thought for a second.

“Hey, Evan, you got a phone charger?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah, it’s right by the desk,” Evan responded. Evan got to typing, telling Marie something to the effect of ‘Yes, and I have a surprise for y’all’.

“Thanks,” Jamie said, as he put his phone on the charger.

“Marie is coming in at about 11:15,” Evan said. “Gives us enough time to run you to your house.”

“Aight,” Jamie replied.

“I’m gonna go get changed and dry-shampooed,” Evan announced. He opened his closet up to pick out some clothes. Jamie observed as Evan looked around his closet for an outfit. The brunette had never seen Evan when he was focused. It seemed like clothes turned a switch on in Evan’s brain. After a while, Evan

came out of his near-trance. “I think this would be a great outfit for the mall!” Evan announced. And after grabbing a rag to keep himself from actually touching the doorknob, Evan went to go get changed.

Evan didn’t take his time getting ready like he usually did. Within ten minutes, Evan was looking almost as seamlessly put together as possible.

“All done,” Evan said as he returned to his room. “Let’s go ask my grandma if we can run to your house.”

“I want to check to see if I have meds in my truck first,” Jamie said. “Don’t wanna make her waste gas.”

Evan tilted his head. “Okay then,” the ginger replied.

Jamie got up. “Be right back.” And with that, Jamie disappeared out the door.

As Jamie made it to the bottom step, he saw April sitting on the burgundy couch. Almost as if she was waiting. Jamie tried to ignore her, as he was still mad at her for what she said the night before. April, however, wouldn’t allow Jamie to ignore her.

“I hope Evan didn’t try to creep up on you,” April said. Jamie was stopped dead in his tracks by the remark. He was tempted to blow up at her. However, Jamie just opened the door and walked across the street to his truck. All the groceries seemed to be intact, which was a miracle. The brunette dug around for a while, and then another miracle occurred. He had a bottle of meds in his glove box! The goddesses of luck were surely smiling down upon him.

Evan was playing a game on his phone when Jamie opened the door. “I had some meds in my truck, thank God,” Jamie said.

Evan smiled. “Looks like we have time for breakfast, then! Marie and Htee are going to be here pretty soon. I lied and told them that I might have to run by somewhere. Also, forgot to tell you, but they kind of don’t know that you’ll be coming along.”

“You didn’t tell them?” Jamie asked. “That’ll surely be fun…”

“It’s fine,” Evan replied. “I’m sure they’ll be fine with you tagging along. Htee might interrogate you, though. They’ll be here in around fifteen minutes.”

“If you say so,” Jamie replied, not quite as optimistic.

The next fifteen minutes passed pretty quickly. Neither Jamie nor Evan did much talking. They just played on their phones until Evan heard the horn of a car he knew very well honk.

“That would be them,” Evan said. “Let’s go!”

Jamie gulped. The brunette mentally prepared himself for the worst. What if they didn’t accept him? In the end, however, Jamie decided that it was best to trust Evan. After all, Evan had known these girls for his entire life.

As the duo reached the front door, Jamie decided to let his guard down.