Goodbye, Evan

13

Kyle (boy with the lip piercing ) is staring at Theo again as we head back into the building for the fifth period. He's resting against one of the walls with a handful of friends when we climb the steps, ignoring them and watching Theo while twisting the ring on his middle finger absently.

My head is still buzzing with Theo's compliment.

So I don't tell him.

"Do you want to go up onto the roof?"

"You can..? Never mind, of course, you can. Sure."

Theo smirks and we head into his kitchen, back at his house after a day at school and a bus ride. Georgia is cleaning out the oven so doesn't look up as Theo yanks the fridge open.

"Do we have any more caviar?" he calls, his face lost in the middle shelf. He pulls it out and smirks when he sees my raised eyebrows. "Kidding. Do you like dragonfruit?"

"Do I like what?"

I can see him roll his eyes from inside the fridge. He grabs a weird spiky fruit thing, some chocolate, (plain and white) (I'm guessing the dark's for me. I told him randomly yesterday that it was my favourite) and a bottle of cider, glancing at Georgia as he does.

Because, yeah, we're gonna get pissed on cider. Note the sarcasm.

"Don't fall!" Georgia yells, more than halfway inside their massive oven. "Don't switch on the gas."

"Piss off."

"Piss off yourself."

Shaking my head, I take the cider from Theo and cradle it to my chest as we exit the kitchen and make our way up the stairs. He's already ripped into the white chocolate and sucks on a piece as we congregate on the landing. He tosses the other opened bar over his shoulder and I catch it deftly, biting right into it and humming as the flavor explodes over my tongue.

"Don't you break it off first?"

I try to say "What?" but it comes out more like "Horf?" with my mouth full. Theo takes my chocolate, disregarding the slobber, and breaks off a piece, sucking on it. When he smiles (widely, deliberately, so I get a faceful of it) his teeth are the same shade as his skin. I nearly choke on my chocolate. (From laughter. Yeah.)

"You literally bite into your chocolate," he says after swallowing.

I nod.

"You're awful."

Nod. I'm rewarded with a smile and a glance at his eyes as he brushes his hair to the right side of his forehead.

"C'mon, then. We can get there from my room."

I swallow the chocolate and follow him into his bedroom, which is in a state of disarray with clothes all over the floor and the bed unmade. He heads into his walk-in wardrobe and reaches up to grab a string hanging from a trapdoor nearly hidden by his painted ceiling. As he stretches, a strip of golden skin appears between his t-shirt and the waistband of his jeans.

The ladder. A ladder flips out from the trapdoor and lands in the center of the floor. Theo stops and grabs something that's square and covered in fabric and a fabric case from a corner then heads up. I stare pointedly at the bottom of the ladder.

When Theo's at the top, I follow. We emerge on the roof and the wind immediately bites at me, making me shudder despite my new leather jacket. Theo, as he did two days prior, steps right towards the edge of the roof but sits down this time, his legs dangling over the edge. I keep my distance.

The view's even more beautiful than the one in town. It's of fields: fields that stretch out to the horizon in shades of green, brown and yellow, decorated by hedges and the occasional tree. There's a farm on the hilltop but other than that we're alone for miles. The house doesn't have a garden - it just opens up to the world.