Chapter Text
Evan would have said his parents were out to ruin his life, if he thought at all they’d care enough to want to. It stings worse that apathy has brought a moving truck to Evan’s front door two months before the end of his sophomore year.
The telecom company his dad worked for in Pennsylvania wanted to expand their reach in the south and was transferring staff to a newly established office in El Paso. What Evan wanted was to take his finals, find increasingly fast things to ride off of increasingly tall places for two months, and then secure a spot on the starting lineup of his high school’s varsity football team come fall. Historically speaking, Phillip and Margaret Buckley didn’t particularly care what Evan wanted (as evidenced by the U-Haul). Never let it be said they weren’t consistent.
Evan didn’t love Hershey, didn’t think it felt like home, but he’d still begged for weeks to stay. He quickly realized he would be better off arguing with a wall than his parents and turned his attention to pleading with his sister to take him in in Boston. Anything to avoid moving from one stagnant town to another that’s just as boring but twice as hot. But, in the two years since following her boyfriend to med school, Maddie had transformed from the only constant thing in Evan’s life to a near stranger. The last couple of months talking to her on the phone had felt like talking to someone placing an order at the drive thru: pleasant, cheerful, but scripted. Forced.
Over the course of several nearly identical phone calls, she told him in a sympathetic voice that she and Doug’s place was too small and he couldn’t afford any distractions from the dizzying amount of concentration med school required. Evan thought that sounded like bullshit, almost called her on it, almost begged her not to make him do this on his own. But in the end, he held his tongue, because it hadn’t worked the first hundred times and, contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t actively trying to ruin the one relationship he had. Given his track record, he figured he was plenty talented at ruining them passively; why speed up the process?
So Maddie was in Boston and Evan was watching a small army of men in matching gray jumpsuits load all but three suitcases worth of the Buckley Family’s earthly possessions into the truck at nine a.m. on a crisp, sunny Tuesday. His parents either didn’t think or didn’t bother to ease the transition to El Paso; this time the day prior he had been staring at the back of Sarah H.’s head in English, hypnotized by her twirling and un-twirling a strand of hair around her finger as she stumbled through reading out loud from Romeo and Juliet. Today, he had until the bell would be ringing for second period before he was forced into a taxi to the airport.
—
The flight went as well as a 2,000 mile journey in the middle seat with a three hour layover in Atlanta could (which is, to say, pretty fucking miserably). When they landed, Evan loitered a few yards back while Phillip picked up the keys to their rental car and, as soon as he was buckled into the backseat, started listening to music on his iPod loud enough to irritate Margaret with the tinny vocals bleeding out of his headphones. Phillip parked the car in front of an unlit house, the only illumination of the front path coming from the waning moon and the unfamiliar array of stars Evan had never really gotten the chance to see before. Hopping out of the car, he tripped over the uneven concrete of their new driveway, scuffing the toe of his tennis shoe.
“It is disrespectful to the neighbors to slam the door, Evan,” Margaret chastised, standing behind her husband with two hands gripping her purse as she waited for him to open the lockbox with their keys the realtor had left earlier that day.
Evan rolled his eyes. He was pretty sure that the houses 500 feet away on either side of them wouldn’t be too offended, but he didn’t bother to respond. Evan dropped his bag for a moment, pushing the sleeves of his sweatshirt up as far as they would go. Despite it being nearly ten, it was still sweltering out, the heat settling like a blanket over his skin with no breeze to alleviate its weight. Movement caught his eye as he bent to retrieve his duffle; Evan tracked the intermittent light of a firefly as it moved aimlessly a few yards away. Watching offered some distraction from the beads of sweat sliding down the backs of his knees and a complete unawareness of the sound of keys in unpracticed hands jangling in the lock and the front door swinging open with a light creak.
“Evan,” Phillip said brusquely with a jerk of his head before turning on his heel and crossing the threshold. Prompted, Evan shifted his bag from sweaty palm to slightly less sweaty palm as he wondered idly what it might feel like to hear his parents say his name with affection instead of as a curse.
The last to walk in, he shut the door behind him. Phillip and Margaret had reviewed the handful of property listings Phillip’s work had offered, but this would be the first time Evan saw the place. Even at first glance, the space felt foreign compared to the house he’d walked out of that morning. Their footsteps echoed in the empty living room on tile, not red oak flooring. The walls were a textured beige with bright white trim, compared to the crisp white walls and elegant wood accents of their previous sitting room. Evan indulged in a moment of vindictive pleasure; he knew his mother would be as dissatisfied with the casual, rustic design of the house as he was with the whole move. The movers would be there by the following day, Thursday at the latest, to fill the space. In the meantime, Margaret had arranged with the realtor for two new beds and mattresses to be delivered and assembled.
Phillip had already made his way down the hall with his and Margaret’s bags, presumably into the primary bedroom. Margaret paused before following, telling him “You should get to bed. We’ll need to go to the school early tomorrow to finalize your registration. Dress appropriately.” With that, she turned on the low heel she’d elected to wear on the plane and joined her husband behind the closed bedroom door.
Evan poked his head down the opposite hallway, noting the wide kitchen that opened into a dining area. Another door further down likely led to the laundry room. Not much to see. With a sigh, he hiked his bag over his shoulder and shuffled—something he delighted in doing, hearing his mother’s whiny voice say “Pick up your feet, Evan” in his head every time he did—the opposite direction.
The hallway was dimly lit by a failing flush-mount fixture that cast a low glow over the closed doors of four bedrooms and a bath. The furthest room on the exterior side was his parents’, and he knew without opening the neighboring door it would be empty. Proximity was not something Phillip and Margaret craved; that room would become either Phillip’s office or Margaret’s reading room (as though she did much beyond pursuing the Nordstrom’s catalog).
Evan pushed open the door closest to him, exposing a large, empty, space. Pulling the door shut again he moved on to what he now knew would be his room. Sure enough, a plain full bed was flush against the far wall. Sighing again, Evan noted that his room was smaller than at least the one he’d just seen. Sometimes it was hard to tell with his parents what was a pointed gesture and what was plain indifference.
He couldn’t mind too much, he thought, dumping his bag and toeing off his tennis shoes; this room was narrower but longer, and the more distance he had from Phillip and Margaret, the better. His skin felt itchy, sometimes, with a desire to be near to them, but he’d found in practice that wanting distance was easier than asking for closeness. He always felt crazy for trying; he never got it. Not bothering to get undressed, Evan crawled under the navy blue duvet and fell asleep almost immediately
If it were a normal night, and Evan’s night owl tendencies had him awake and restless well past midnight, he might have seen a light flick on at their nearest neighbor’s house a few minutes later.
A boy about Evan’s age stepped out onto the patio, leaning on the rail with a slump to his shoulders. Running a hand through a mop of dark brown hair and over his face, the boy pushed off of the rail and walked down the few steps that took him into his yard. Craning his neck, he looked up to take in an unobstructed view of the sky.
He had no way of knowing it but, later, Evan would regret not staying awake that night; he’d regret every opportunity he missed to look at the stars by his side.