Welcome to Gaia! ::

It truly amazes me how even after a year of waiting you can so easily get right back on it and make it like it used to be. I am having a hard time remembering where exactly in the timeline I am at atm....but that may be because its 2am and I'm half asleep...If my truck doesn't blow up on me then I should prolly be able to figure where I am tomorrow. As for Evan...I seem to remember the part with him looking in the mirror for some reason...

25

I went back to school on Monday, feeling as well as I ever did; my wounds had not yet healed, but their pain was dull, and I could walk, talk, eat, and look as I normally would. I had missed a week of school, but to my resignation, nothing had changed—nothing except the way I felt about Victoria.

I HATED her. I had never hated anyone but myself, not really, not like this—this was powerful, sporadic but persistent, and so shocking that I struggled with it, unsure if it was real, uncertain of what to do. But it was a slow Monday, and I had time during my classes to think—I ignored Victoria’s worried glances at me, her feeble attempts to pass notes to me (“Where were you?” they said; I read them later. “Where have you been, are you okay?”), and her attempts to corner me after English; however, when she tried to follow me after school, I let her catch up to me halfway down the block—it had been a long, hard day, I was sore, and I wanted to scream at someone.

“Evan!” she said gratefully, catching my arm as she fell into step beside me. “Are you okay?”

I jerked my arm out of her grasp. “Why the ******** would you think I wasn’t?” I snarled at her, not even looking at her, so angry that I didn’t know how long I could keep it under control before I exploded with rage. Because of her, I had spent days locked in a tiny closet; because of her my dad had hit me and shouted at me; and, I told myself, because of her, my dad hated me.

She was silent for a moment, and when she did speak, I could tell that she was hurt. “Where were you all week, Evan? I was so worried….”

I laughed harshly, without humor. “Funny story, actually,” I said sarcastically. “A social worker came to our house on Saturday night, any idea how that happened?”

She sucked in a surprised breath. “N-n-no…” she stammered, but I could tell that she was lying.

“You’re a horrible actress,” I told her scathingly, walking as quickly as I could without hurting my injured side too much; it was throbbing and hurting like hell today, though it had given me little trouble the day before.

“I…I didn’t….” Then she seemed to change her mind and gave up, asking what she really wanted to know. “What happened, Evan? Were you…were you hurt?”

Passive tense, very clever—as if I didn’t know what she thought. “Surprisingly,” I said, the sarcasm intense and obvious in my tone, “no, I wasn’t. In fact,” I added, lying on the spot, “just the opposite—Dad realized how tough I’d been having it lately, and how awful I must be looking and feeling all the time if a social worker—” I couldn’t really help my scathing emphasis on the words—“had to come and check me out. So he took me to see my grandmother all week. Obviously, he wasn’t expecting anyone, say, at school, to jump to the wrong conclusion….”

“I was just worried about you, Evan!” she insisted, sounding as if she were about to cry now. “I was so scared for you, I really thought you were getting hurt, I wanted to help you—”

That did it; I turned and rounded on her, feeling like spitting in her face, slapping her until her ears rang. “They could have taken my dad away from me,” I hissed in her face, getting so close that she actually had to stumble back a step. “They could have thrown him in jail and carted me off to some hellhole of a foster home. Is that what you wanted? Is that what you meant to do, shove me into some place much worse than anything you could dream up? What the ******** were you thinking?”

“You were showing up at school with new bruises and cuts every day, what was I supposed to think?” she shouted back at me, surprising me; I backed away a bit, startled by her ferocity. “They said they’d just do a check, nothing bad would happen, all I wanted to know was if you were going to be okay! You’re being really awful, I was just concerned about you!”

“Then don’t be!” I yelled back, so loudly that it hurt my throat. “Mind your own damn business for once! Don’t you think that’s a little pretentious of you, assuming that you know what’s going on in everyone’s lives, what the ******** would you know? You could have gotten my dad and I into some serious trouble, not to mention you called me a liar and my dad an abusive a*****e—think before you screw around with other people’s lives, will you?! And you had better STAY OUT OF MINE!”

I was nearly screaming now; Victoria really did start to cry, very quietly, but I didn’t care, it only enraged me further.

“Evan,” she said desperately, “I’m sorry, really, you’re right, I didn’t know, but it didn’t hurt anything, you’re still here, I didn’t mess everything up—”

She thought that my dad would just shrug off a visit from the ******** government, from a man telling him that someone had said he beat his child? She thought he would convince the guy in two sentences that he was mistaken, then forget all about it, take me out for ice cream? She had no idea what she had done…and there was no way that I could tell her. But it all boiled and fermented and raged inside of me, I couldn’t assuage it, I couldn’t get it out of me—except in one way, a way that I always, always regretted.

I stepped closer to her and started screaming right in her face, unable to stop the poison spewing from my mouth. “YOU STAY THE ******** AWAY FROM ME!” I roared at her. “DON’T YOU DARE SAY ANOTHER WORD ABOUT ME OR /TO/ ME AGAIN OR I WILL ******** /KILL YOU/, DO YOU HEAR ME? STAY—/AWAY/—FROM ME!”

And then I turned and ran home, not even feeling my aching side or quivering legs, tears stinging my own eyes when I heard Victoria let out a terrified sob behind me—she didn’t follow me, and when I slowed to an unsteady walk four blocks away, I looked around and found myself alone. Two tears spilled over and inched down my cheeks; I let them stay there, not caring anymore, not about anything. I felt horrible—both because I had lost Victoria as my friend, but because I had said such hateful things to her, things that I would never say…but things that my dad would have. The thought sickened me; if I was turning into him, I thought desperately, then I wanted to stick a knife into my heart right then and there, I wanted to down a bottle of bleach, curl up and die….

I wiped my face and practiced my awkward, crooked smile, trying my best to act normal for Kahmè—but the moment I walked into the kitchen, she knew.

“Oh, Evan,” she sighed, quickly wrapping her arms around my waist and hugging me as tightly as she could. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

I shook my head, looking away from her. “I’m fine,” I said, my voice low and slightly choked. “Really.”

“Aww, no you’re not,” she said sympathetically, taking my hand and leading me to the living room. “Come on…you relax for a minute, okay? Your chores can wait for a minute or two, what matters is that you’ve come home and you can feel all comfy and happy and safe, that’s all that’s important….”

Was this MY home she was talking about? My home, where everyone in it suffered from some kind of abuse, where people got hit and kicked and shouted at and locked into closets for no good reason? But then, as she returned carrying mugs of frothy hot chocolate and little sugar cookies with peanut butter cups in the middle, I felt a rush of affection for her, a sudden surge of comfort, and I realized that she meant something completely different—not the house, but the home, the intangible one, the situation in which you felt safe. With her, I realized, I was at home—it didn’t matter if I was in my house or at the park or in the rain. I felt safe with her….

Feeling slightly better, though also slightly worse, I drank my hot chocolate in silence, poking the middle out of the cookies and nibbling at the chocolate. Kahmè scolded me at first, making me eat the rest of the cookie as well, but then she let me go and chose to eat it herself instead of argue. We finished the entire plate, and once she had drained the rest of my hot chocolate the food was completely gone; she elected to take it all to the sink, rinsing the cups out, while I leaned against the side of the couch and fought the guilt.

I had HAD to tell Victoria all of that…hadn’t I? She would have just done it again, and again, and again, until I had been taken away, or Dad had killed me—one or the other. I would have never seen Kahmè again, she would have had nowhere else to go…I couldn’t let her do that. But did I have to threaten to KILL her? Was that necessary?

Was I becoming my father?

I tried to shake the thought away, but tears came to my eyes again, and I couldn’t force myself to cheer up before Kahmè came back; she immediately sat beside me and hugged me again, rubbing my back, murmuring soothingly to me, trying to comfort me from whatever was wrong. When that didn’t seem to be working, she said suddenly, “C’mere, Evan,” and scooted back slightly, pushing me down; I found myself laying on my uninjured side with my head in her lap, then blushed furiously. The hormones started up again, and I had to turn my head away from her; When did Kahmè get breasts? I found myself thinking, though I hated myself for it. Desperately trying to think of something else, all I could come up with was, I hope I’m not the one who’s going to have to buy all the girly stuff. Although, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad…. But it was KAHMÈ! I mentally shook myself, resolving to yell at the stupid parts of my brain later.

Kahmè wouldn’t let me pull guiltily away, and anyway, I didn’t really want to; she started gently to stroke my hair, again and again, like scratching the ears of a sleeping cat, washing away my fevered thoughts and filling me with soothing thoughts of nothing much at all. This, I thought sleepily, was what Zen must be like. Soon it became automatic, and it felt so lovely that I never wanted it to stop. I closed my eyes and, filled as I was with food and sloshy, chocolatey warmth, wanted very much to nap.

“My mom used to do this to me when I had a bad day,” she explained, her voice low and soft and sweet. “And you look like you’ve had a REALLY bad day….”

“Yeah,” I muttered, feeling a little, just a very, very little sorry for myself.

“What happened?” she asked me, concerned in a motherly sort of way—a way in which no one had treated me for years. Suddenly I felt much, much more appreciative of Kahmè; suddenly I also felt heartbreakingly lonely, and I longed very much for my mother.

If she had been alive, would she have let me curl up with my head on her lap, just like this, and listened with loving sympathy as I told her everything, would she have wiped my tears away, consoled me, told me that I had done the right thing? Or would she have been ashamed of me…disgusted by my weakness and my stupidity, just like Dad…?

I felt slightly sick; desperately attempting to distract myself, do something to erase my pain and horrible guilt, I started to tell Kahmè about how awful my day had been, how I’d been aching and sore from third period on, how I’d felt sick, how I’d slept straight through lunch…and then before I could stop myself, I was spilling everything I had, everything in me, telling her all about Victoria and how awful I had been and how I was afraid that I was becoming my dad and how pointless life would be if that were true…. “I’m a horrible person,” I told her, and I couldn’t help beginning to cry again.

But Kahmè, angel that she was, refused to let me believe it. “You’re not,” she told me fiercely. “You’re nothing like him, Evan! You just got angry, you lost your temper, that happens to everyone—and even if you were angry, I know you, Evan, you’d never hurt anyone or say such mean things, you were just ‘specially angry with her because she caused you so much trouble and she wasn’t even sorry about it, and you were right to be,” she swore to me. “You really were, Evan. Maybe…maybe it wasn’t nice to say all those things…but she earned it, Evan, she deserved it, she really did!”

But though I was overwhelmingly grateful to Kahmè for saying these words, I knew instantly that they were not true—Victoria had been trying her hardest to help me, in whatever way she possibly could, and anyway, no one deserved being threatened with death. But my feelings were confused, and I didn’t really know what to think, or DO, for that matter…I pushed it from my mind, choosing instead to relax in the present with Kahmè, warm and comfortable and safe, though I couldn’t completely assuage the guilt.

“You know,” she told me a few minutes later, “Mama always told me not to get into situations like this….”

“No kidding,” I muttered, closing my eyes again.

“Yeah. ‘Don’t put your eggs in one basket,’ she always told me.”

“Huh?” I frowned; what did that have to do with anything?

“You know, ‘cause if you do then when you’re carrying them back to the house they’ll spill and break, but if you have TWO baskets then—”

“Yeah, I know, Kahmè, it’s just…what does that have to do with anything?”

“Oh, well…Victoria was your friend, wasn’t she? And you really trusted her, huh? Well, maybe, I guess, you shouldn’t have so much…’cause then you lost too much, you see?”

“Yeah,” I murmured, and I did—my insides squirmed with guilt again. “I get it…I should have spent more effort in being friends with you, huh? Because you’re my REAL friend…you’d never sell me out…all you’ve ever done is help me, she doesn’t know anything, but you do….” I paused, then, growing nervous when she did not answer, insisted, “Right?”

I glanced up at her; she was staring away from me, looking, if I was not mistaken, faintly embarrassed. “That’s not what I meant, really,” she admitted, smiling a little. “But okay.”

I blushed, turning away as well, though I was still too comfortable to move my head from her lap. It felt safe, and right, to be like this with her….

“Mom said a lot of stuff about eggs,” she said suddenly, to fill the silence. “I don’t think she ever cooked any, though, so it couldn’t be ‘cause she likes ‘em….”

I smiled at this. “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” I quoted.

She laughed. “Yeah,” she giggled. “And never separate ‘em….”

I blinked. “What?”

“Never separate the white eggs from the brown eggs,” she explained, as if it made perfect sense.

“I don’t really get that one…” I told her with half a smile. “What’s the metaphor? You know,” I added in response to her puzzled look. “What’s the point of it, what’s it mean, brown eggs and white eggs?”

“Oh, well,” she began to say, and then paused to consider it more thoroughly. Then she leaned over a little and laid her arm next to mine, showing me how pale my skin was compared to hers. “Like us, I guess. You’re white and I’m brown.” She snickered; she liked poking fun at my white skin, though I knew she didn’t mean it. “Mama says not to separate people like us, just ‘cause we’re different. She didn’t like being on a reservation—she wanted to live with everyone else, however she wanted to, without being thought of as different. She says if you put the brown eggs in one place and the white ones in the other, then you point out how different they are and they’ll never be able to be together right…but if you mix ‘em up, make it all even, then pretty soon they’re just eggs. That’s how she esplained it anyway,” she added, frowning a little as if confused.

But I understood perfectly; it was very clever, too, I had never thought of it that way before. And it didn’t just work with brown or white, it worked just as well with big or little, beautiful or scarred, from this chicken or that chicken. The only thing that really mattered, I mused, was taking away the rotten ones…but what about the broken ones, what happened to them? Were they tossed aside too, into the pile of waste laid out for the hogs, or what…?

I shook myself mentally; I was over-thinking it. Instead of voicing what was on my mind, I said aloud, “Wow, Kahmè, your mom must be really smart.”

“Oh, of course she is,” Kahmè said dismissively, as if that were the end of it. Then she paused, adding more softly, “She said she’s looking for a house here.”

I stiffened, then beamed at her, though I didn’t really know how I felt about this. “Really? That’s great! When did she say she’s coming?”

She shrugged. “Soon.”

I felt somehow relieved at this—who knew how much my already too-complex life would change if Kahmè had a house of her own? Would she still be there every afternoon, would she still come over on the weekends? She certainly would not sleep under my bed anymore…somehow I didn’t know how I felt about that either. There was something comforting about her there—I had fewer nightmares, and they were much less vocal than they were usually (I sometimes talked or even screamed in my sleep). And I no longer feared the dark…I didn’t fear anything at all…. What would it be like with her gone?

Well, the real estate market, according to my dad, was getting worse and worse…it was awful of me, but secretly I hoped that it would delay her mother for a few more weeks or months, though it was too cruel to go as far as for years. Kahmè missed her mother—I wanted them to meet again, because I knew what it was like to need a mother but not have one anymore…but I didn’t want Kahmè taken away from me.

Eventually I got up and started my chores; Kahmè and I went our separate ways soon, and when she was gone I couldn’t help marveling at how she had matured, even more so than I in some ways, and how much she meant to me, how much she had always been there for me when no one else had.

I had, for once, been right—Kahmè was far more valuable than Victoria, and I should concentrate my efforts on her now…and give her everything I had.

So that’s just what I did.


For the rest of that school year, life became much simpler. It wasn’t easier, not with my only friend at school gone, or with finals coming soon, but my schedule and mind were both miraculously clear—we were being given less homework to give us more time to study for the exams, but I had already discovered that I hardly needed to study at all. I found myself with little to do—and with nothing to worry about except the eighth grade trip.

Every May at my junior high, the eighth graders went on an end-of-the-year trip—to an amusement park, to a zoo, to some other place that was voted on months beforehand. This year we were going to Zephyr Cove Park, then crossing the highway and spending the rest of the afternoon on the lake—most people were disappointed, considering it a huge letdown, as the last class had got to go to Gardnerville for the annual festival, and the one before that had been let loose in Carson City’s mall. Apparently, the school was tired of carting us twenty minutes down the road, so they were just going to take us a few miles south, to the lake. I didn’t see the point of it, myself—I could walk there in less time, Zephyr Cove was tiny—and didn’t particularly want to go...why bother? I would still be at school, just somewhere else, but with the same people and the same restrictions.

Truthfully, I had no feelings at all about this trip—except a vague but growing trepidation at the thought of asking for Dad’s permission to go. Whether he checked YES or NO on the permission form, it still had to have his signature—and I couldn’t just forge it or not turn it in at all, he’d find out and be even more furious at me. It wasn’t even about the actual trip, just the money it would cost him (which he had to pay, because it said how much to bring in bold letters on the form, and he couldn’t know that I had money of my own) and the trouble it took him to fill everything out (I didn’t know half of the information). The stupid trip might have been worth a punch or two if I had actually wanted to go, but I didn’t give a damn, and it killed me that I had to get beaten up anyway.

But, pressured by the deadline, and resigned to my fate, I finally had to ask him—and I did, right after dinner one night in the third week of May. The deadline was tomorrow; I knew that I couldn’t cut it much closer. I was determined, and did my best, to make it clear to him that if he said so, I didn’t have to go at all, he didn’t have to do anything but check the box and sign—but there was always the chance that he would blow up out of nowhere, there was no safeguard against his explosive temper.

“I really can just stay home,” I told him, biting my lip. “I don’t have to go.”

But his reaction surprised me.

“Oh, you’re going,” he told me firmly—among other things—and shoved the money and signed form at me before aiming a punch at my cheek. I took the punch but dodged his irritated kick, excusing myself to go clean the dishes. Well, that was easy, I thought to myself, slightly annoyed. Why can’t everything ELSE be that simple? Nice, Dad. Way to keep the melodrama alive. But really, whatever, it didn’t matter—as long as I wasn’t sore tomorrow.

I didn’t escape a couple more punches that evening, but I couldn’t have cared less; I felt like my brain was exhausted, burned out from the eventful school year, and wanted nothing more than for it to all be over. But, true to my promise to be nicer to Kahmè, when she emerged from under the bed to engage in our usual pre-bedtime chat, sitting comfortably on my bed and pointedly saying nothing about the new bruise on my cheek, I didn’t roll over and go to sleep immediately like I wanted to; I took the effort to explain the upcoming trip to her in detail, perhaps an insensitive amount of it.

Predictably, she was more excited about it than I would ever be. “It’ll be so fun, Evan!” she kept trying to convince me; I played along and pretended, not wanting to disappoint her, knowing how jealous she was of me and my public school education. But then she frowned suddenly and told me, rather sadly, “I wish I could go,” and suddenly I didn’t want to keep up the pretense anymore.

“I wish you could, too,” I sighed. “It would actually be fun, then….”

And then, very suddenly, an idea hit me, a stupid, ridiculous, absurd, insane, but absolutely wonderful idea. Kahmè’s recklessness had clearly affected me over the past year; instead of second-guessing myself, playing the safe side, asking myself, Why? at every turn, this time I thought, Why not? and threw caution to the wind.

Why COULDN’T Kahmè come along? She wasn’t registered, so she wouldn’t have to pay. There would be two buses filled to the point of safety risk with rowdy, loud, chaotic thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds—no one would notice one extra, or see through the scam even if they did. It was a park, a public place, where anyone at all could be—and if the school had any sense at all, it would have paid for any admission fees in advance, or altogether. And she would absolutely love it. /Why NOT?/

“Kahmè,” I said slowly, “What if you COULD go?”

She perked up immediately, all ears, like a terrier faced with a dangling treat. “How?” she demanded.

I leaned closer to her and told her the plan.

“It’s simple. Where we’re going, it isn’t far at all—barely two miles from the school. The bus ride will take about five minutes, all we’re doing is crossing the highway—you could sneak onto the bus, it would be easy, and once you’re at the park no one would care if you were with us! We could go off alone,” I added enthusiastically, my usual skittish instinct failing to tell me to slow down, not to get carried away…. “And then find them all later, no one would give a damn as long as we got back on the bus on time! Honestly, these people are retarded, they don’t know a thing—and they’ll feed you and pay for your stuff and everything! What do you say?”

“Can I go?” she begged me, hugging me as tightly as she could. “PLEASE? Right now?”

I laughed—actually laughed. I was so cheered by the thought of Kahmè coming with me that I was nearly delirious. “Sure,” I promised her rashly. “It’ll be great.”



And to my surprise, stupid idea though it was, it worked. Save one (admittedly huge) pratfall, the entire plan worked as smoothly as a new and well-oiled machine.

At nine o’clock in the morning on the last Friday in May, the first of the two school buses pulled out of the parking lot with Kahmè and I inside, seated toward the middle—away from both the teachers and busybodies in the front, and the troublemakers that gravitated naturally toward the back. Kahmè had the window seat, and she was so tiny that her head didn’t even clear the back of the seat in front of us. She was all eyes, looking around in stunned fascination, having never even ridden in a car before, let alone an enormous school bus filled with white and black kids, no one even remotely like her within a hundred miles of the place. I had to remind her constantly to keep her voice down; she kept asking me the most ridiculous questions, like how the bus was moving and why it wasn’t cracking the street because it was so heavy, and her voice grew increasingly louder until I was forced to shush her again.

When she was over the culture shock, she started bouncing around, nearly squealing with excitement when the teachers passed out drinks and packages of cookies. I was hard put to calm her down, especially when the sugar rush kicked in; I had to make her put her hood up and look away when a teacher passed (she was wearing her most normal American clothes today, at my insistence) so they wouldn’t notice that she was an entirely different race from everyone else. It felt like I had to tell her to calm down or shut up every thirty seconds; the five-minute trip seemed to take forever.

But I had to admit, her energy was infectious; I was grinning before long, unable to help myself. I had just finished my finals, pass or fail; today was the last day of school, but now it felt to me like the first day of summer: tests behind, two months of nothing ahead, and Kahmè with me, making every tiny event into a full-scale adventure. She was exhausting—from all of her dramatics, I felt as though I had toiled long and brutally for every snack that was given to me, as though I had been tortured for my bottle of water, as though I were climbing a mountain instead of riding through peaceful woods in a bus. But it thrilled me, in a way—she fascinated me, I loved to listen to her talk, I loved the stories she told and her enthusiasm and the way she thanked me endlessly for giving her my snacks and the way she drank after me like it was nothing, without asking (though it did make me flinch a little, from the germs).

In fact, little by little, I was starting to grow a different awareness of Kahmè entirely—the things that had annoyed me now amused me, her faults were merely eccentricities, every little thing she did was significant somehow, bright and warm and in perfect sync with the world. I’d noticed much more over the past few weeks than her developing curves; she really was pretty, with her big chocolate-colored doe eyes and her long, thick lashes and her hair long and wavy and shiny when it was clean. She was skinny, every bit of her was long and too thin, and I’d seen how her ribs poked out from her sides; but she wasn’t nearly as skinny as she had been when we had met a year ago, when her cheeks had been hollow from hunger and her eyes had been huge and bloodshot with fright and exhaustion. She was filling out, growing, maturing, and, now that I had come to terms with the pervasive reality of hormones, none of these changes escaped my notice—or my approval.

From my Victoria phase, a part of me knew full well that I had a small but ever-growing crush on Kahmè. And in one way, it felt lecherous and wrong, like preying on my little sister—but somehow, it also felt RIGHT, with not an ounce of sin involved, the natural path of things. We were best friends. I was becoming increasingly attracted to her. Maybe it was just temporary, only curiosity, but it was powerful, and I couldn’t ignore it—I didn’t want to ignore it. Kahmè was the only person who had ever made me happy, truly happy…who had always been there for me. I wasn’t backing down; I wanted this, badly.

As for what it would do to my life, for better or worse…who knew? I was so blinded by hope and desire that I didn’t care. If not her, then who? I asked myself. It was stupid to pretend that I was attractive in any way—girls avoided me like the plague, except for the really nice ones, like Victoria had seemed to be—that was, before she solidly proved her bitchiness to me. And of course Kahmè, who was the nicest person I had ever met. All the more reason. And if not now, then when? When else would be this…this perfect? Look how happy she was….

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t think it through. But that was beside the point anyway—if I had this, I thought to myself, if she felt the same way, everything will be perfect. Strange, to promise myself that so rashly, when before this past week I had never thought anything like that before….

Such were my thoughts on the bus ride to the park; honestly, it was probably a good thing that it ended when it did, enabling me to get outside and clear my head of its stupid half-formed thoughts with the cool breeze from the lake.

The Zephyr Cove Park, as everyone knew, is not much more than a bunch of trees. I could tell the minute we separated into “groups”, each sponsored by a teacher and each with about twenty kids in it, and set off, that half of my class were going to sneak off as soon as they could and find benches and tables to sit around and chat, some probably risking forest fires by lighting up under a secluded tree or two. The other half would submit to the mind-numbing boredom of tour guide lectures and hardly know what to do with themselves when they were finally set free, probably gravitating toward the benches, tables, or playground and standing there wishing they were anywhere else. This, I could have told the administration, was the worst place ever for a field trip.

But I didn’t give a damn, I had Kahmè; we snuck off as soon as we could, away from my annoying classmates and teachers, and ran off into the woods, laughing crazily at our stealthy getaway and newfound freedom. Kahmè gushed as loudly as she wanted about school and how strange and strict it all was and how she wasn’t sure if she was better off without it or not, scaring birds and squirrels away with her chattering as it rang through the quiet, peaceful forest. I let her talk as much as she wanted, concentrating on not twisting an ankle or ruining my shoes on the uneven, loamy ground.

Soon she tired of that subject and sank instantly and easily into her element: the natural world. She began to point out types of trees and flowers and bushes and birds, naming them all in two or three different languages, showing me what everything ate or needed to survive or did when no one was looking. I was fascinated; before then I had never known that some flowers close up at night, that every tree had its own unique way of reproducing, that some birds did not eat worms, some even ate small animals like mice and baby foxes (I hadn’t even known that we HAD foxes!). It amazed me, how little I knew about this part of my world, for all I prided myself on academics, history and math. Math had nothing at all to do with this, these plants were pure entropy, pure freedom and chaos—and yet so very peaceful, so calm and steady and strong.

We ran around the forest all morning, talking and laughing about nothing, sharing all we knew about nature, I informing Kahmè of the scientific side of things, the precipitation/condensation/evaporation cycle and the way that metamorphic rocks formed, while she explained to me the ways of trees, the secret lives of mice. She could see things that I didn’t; often she would point and whisper, “Evan, look! LOOK!” but whatever it was—a baby mouse, an enormous beetle, a bright-plumaged bird—would always be gone by the time I whispered, “Where? I don’t see it!”

By lunchtime, I felt dizzy from amazement, which was very rare for me and excitement, which had a bad effect on me; I was flushed and out of breath by the time we found the rest of my class again and took a box stuffed with a lunch and a drink. I drained half a bottle of water in one go, and I still wasn’t completely sated; my heart and lungs were both moving much faster than they usually would, like they did after Dad and I fought. But I didn’t care. I was having a great time, and there was no better companion than Kahmè—I could think of absolutely nothing better to do with my summer afternoon.

After lunch, the general school population migrated to a more garden-y area, planted with flowers and laid with little paths and benches and arbors and things. This time Kahmè and I drifted, she moving silently in her little moccasins as she whispered the names and natures of all the bright flowers and plants, I following her like a shadow, listening with all of my senses on edge. Something about this calm, peaceful, nearly soundless place forced adrenaline through my veins, but of a different kind than the fight-or-flight reflex, one that heightened my senses but didn’t leave me feeling scared and vulnerable. Without a word, without even a thought, I reached for Kahmè’s hand. She slid her fingers through mine, automatically, and I couldn’t help smiling at the sensation.

For maybe an hour we moved through the gardens, hemmed in closely by the tall tree trunks that blocked out almost all sunlight and tinged it fluorescent green. I felt dreamy, unreal; it was like a different world here, somewhere quiet and mysterious, a refuge for a starved and wounded mind. I could relax in here, I could look around and realize that even if Dad were looking for me here, he would never find me. I was secluded, safe, locked in this refuge yet utterly free, never bored or lonely as long as Kahmè stayed with me, murmuring softly the friendly, homey names of loving roses, waiting anemones, innocent freesias.

After that I started to grow tired again, my mind too overwhelmed for my body to handle, and Kahmè and I sat on a bench beneath a wooden arbor overgrown with climbing roses, surrounded by red, yellow, and pure white flowers. A light, sweet scent hung in the air; Kahmè told me that it was the smell of gardenias.

As time passed around us like an early-morning walker, excusing himself as he brushed by, I became more and more deeply aware of how close we were, Kahmè and I—her head, at one point, fell against my shoulder, her huge round eyes closing, her thick, dark lashes brushing her cheeks, and I literally felt my heart skip a beat. A few months earlier I would have wondered what was wrong with me and thought I was going insane, but now I recognized this for what it was: I had fallen for Kahmè, just a little, but enough to snowball into something powerful, something awesome and wholly good. I was at the turning point of it, a point hardly anyone even knew existed—the point where I could turn away, force the feelings back, stay platonic with Kahmè for a very long time…or I could pursue it, allow the seed to take root, let it take us where it would.

You’d think all of my survival instincts would have told me just what to do, which path to take. But for some reason, I ignored them this time…for better or worse, I honestly can’t say.

Awkwardly, clumsily, I put my arm around Kahmè’s shoulder, trying to be gentle with her, remembering what my mom had told me back in kindergarten or so: girls were fragile, they had to be treated with special care. Kahmè liked it; she beamed and closed her eyes, curling up against me, and I couldn’t help thinking, If I died right now, it would be perfectly fine with me. Here in the cool, tranquil forest, shaded from the summer sun, the breeze from the lake brushing over it all like a thin layer of pale watercolors, Kahmè warm and soft and happy at my side….

Now, I bullied myself, would be as good a time as any. GO. Go on. Tell her! But how?

I thought about it for a long time, while we sat in comfortable silence together; then, quietly, as much to make sure that she was awake as to make sure that she was listening, I said, “Kahmè?”

She blinked, then sat up, looking up at me dreamily as she pulled herself out of her daze. “Hmm?” she inquired, her big eyes staring innocently into mine. I swallowed and looked away, down at her hands, one of which was still joined with mine, and carefully took her other one, wondering how on earth I was going to do this. She squeezed my hands encouragingly, almost as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. Sometimes, I really thought she did.

“Listen…” I said hesitantly, my old stammer returning after who knew how many months with a vengeance—just when I needed it least. I swallowed, still staring at our joined hands. “I…I really like you, Kahmè,” I said awkwardly—ineloquent, yes, but I was so nervous that I could think of nothing more powerful to say. “I…” I tried again, lifting my eyes to hers now, remembering years ago, when I had been able to look no one in the face, and remembering how Kahmè had gotten me out of that awful stage of my life. Remembering how she had changed everything—most definitely for the better. “I really….”

But the moment I looked right into her eyes, my mind went blank—I couldn’t tell if I was more or less nervous, I was at a loss for anything to say, I had no idea which way was up and which way was down, even…. No words would come, and I was too dizzy and confused to do anything else but the one thought which was pulsing through my brain, the one thing I could think to do—the right thing, as it happened, or at least for my original purposes.

Without thinking about it, without saying another word, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers.

For that one long moment, both Kahmè and I kept our eyes wide open—she was staring at me, looking scared and confused, and I honestly think I looked just the same, because I know that I certainly felt that way. But after a heartbeat or two, some instinct took over, and even though I had never learned to kiss, even though I had seen none of the right movies, I somehow knew what to do. I opened my lips just a little, my eyes closing as I concentrated, and locked our mouths together, surprised at the taste of her lips—sweeter and softer than I could ever have imagined. I held one of her hands tightly in mine, holding it to my chest, moving the other to the back of her head, clumsily but gently pushing her closer to me, my head tilting just a little to accommodate our joined lips. It was my first kiss, and I was almost certain that it was hers, too—and for a first kiss, I guess it wasn’t bad. What really stunned me was not the kiss itself, but the sweetness of it, how close we were, how light I felt all of a sudden, more happy and carefree than I had never been before.

I tried to make it last, but I was too shy, and I had no idea of what to do, so after maybe a minute I pulled away again and opened my eyes. Kahmè was still staring at me, surprised, but not unpleasantly so; she looked so cute in that instant that I couldn’t help putting my arms around her waist and getting closer to her as I kissed her again, briefly, but softly. This, at least, she understood; she hugged me back, childishly but affectionately, and didn’t let go when I pulled away again. I held her close to me, resting my cheek on the top of her head.

As for how long we stayed like that, just sitting together in each other’s arms, I have no idea—it felt like hours to me, and yet it still wasn’t long enough. I felt so at peace, so content, so unafraid, that I never wanted the moment to end—I wanted to stay right there forever, or at least until I died. And maybe I would have…but all too soon we heard the teacher’s whistle, from somewhere far-off and distant, and I sighed and opened my eyes to the darkening forest, my heart heavy again when I realized that it was time to leave.

heart It was kinda inevitable. I mean how could he NOT want to kiss her, eventually? >< I think it'll work out all right.

Oukow said everything I had in mind, It was amazing.. .I couldnt believe he yelled at victoria but at the same time I understood him. Makes me wonder if at some point he'll ever make up with her and just become friends its obvious she won't talk again about all that after what happened the first time...but as for Kahme and Evan.... I can only say that was a beautiful moment. I don't like saying cheesy stuff like that often but it truly was.