for forever; tree bros

13. "let's just watch the stars."

mood song:
party tattoos - dodie

~~~

evan realised something was different when he drained the last drop of cider out of his can. he blinked a couple times, and it felt... slower. the can was trembling slightly, because of his own shaky hands, which he stared at with furrowed eyebrows. his hands were so weird. they were short and stubby, with fingernails bitten down as far down as they could go, making his fingers look even shorter and chubbier. they were always shaking and twitching, moving all about the place when evan tried to explain himself. he wished he had connor's long, lean hands.

jared must've seen him looking at his hands in confusion, because he nudged evan and exclaimed incredulously, "no way you're drunk already!" he was already finishing his second rum and coke (turns out the other two bottles that connor had brought, that evan hadn't been able to see properly, were rum and red wine) and was spread out over the sofa next to zoe, while alana sat on the arm with her hand on zoe's shoulder. at jared's words, the other three turned to evan and laughed, surprised.

something in evan - probably the drink, maybe the need to get the attention off of him - made him voice a worry that came forward in his mind. "jared, why are you drinking so fast?"

the other three laughed out loud and jared's eyes widened quickly. once he realised people weren't taking evan seriously, he relaxed and sulkily took another sip of his drink and said, "well, i obviously need to catch up with you, you alcoholic."

there was more laughter, and although the worry still nagged at the back of evan's brain, he let himself join in and it soon went away.

connor had poured him a drink, and told him it was vodka and lemonade. evan took a sip, expecting to recoil, but it just tasted like normal lemonade with a tinge of something bitter, and he smiled. he stayed quiet as he sipped his second drink, watching his friends converse.

"i can't believe it's halloween and none of us have dressed up!" alana exclaimed. she was drinking the wine, and every sip was making her grin bigger.

immediately everyone started crying out in agreement, saying how much of a disgrace it was that no one had dressed up. evan glanced at the decorations adorning the living room, slightly sad that no one had commented on them, but instead of pouting, he commented over his glass that he had face paint upstairs. zoe's eyes widened in recognition of the box of paint sat on evan's desk, and ran up the stairs to fetch it.

while she was gone, connor turned to evan. "why do you have face paint?"

the other two turned to hear his answer, and he squirmed and avoided eye contact as he muttered, "i was, uh, faking... being sick. to get out of school."

the laughter was so loud that evan couldn't help join in and giggle at himself. he continued to tell his friends how he'd painted his face white and added dots of red, to make it look like chickenpox, and how heidi, who knew full well that evan had already had chickenpox when he was four, let him take the day off.

by the end of his story, zoe had returned with the face paints in her hand. she laid them out on the table and made eye contact with alana, who excitedly moved closer.

an hour later, alana was a zombie ("you're smart, so you'd always be after people's brains," zoe explained), jared was a tiger ("listen, i never got to do halloween as a kid, i missed out on all the childish face paint shit,"), connor was a vampire (which definitely wasn't super attractive, evan kept telling himself), zoe herself was a ghost ("i don't care if it's only white paint, i'm a fucking ghost,") and evan had "HOT STUFF" written in black capital letters across his forehead and two bright red lipstick marks on both his cheeks, courtesy of the two girls. he wasn't quite sure what his 'costume' was supposed to be, but the rest of the group had reacted as if it was the funniest thing in the world, so he stayed quiet and laughed along.