Goodbye, Evan

15

"I've been suspended."

"Oh."

Theo pulls his coat tighter around his body and takes another step through the sod. I look up to the sky, heart heavy, and the rain catches my semi-translucent skin and runs down to my neck. Shaking my head, I step after Theo.

We're walking through one of the fields that back Theo's house. I suggested the little trip when we got back to his house and he told me he couldn't stand Georgia's disappointed glare anymore. It's a break from the indoors and the landscape is certainly beautiful, but it's currently raining in a way that only England can. My converse is soaked through with mud and I wish I'd thought to nick a pair of Theo's spare designer boots.

"Three days, plus today, out of school," Theo continues, pushing through the muddy field without looking at me. "Georgia's going to pick some work up for me on Monday. Jack got the same."

"Oh," I say again, not know what else there is to say. "I'm sorry." Well, there's that.

"For what?" Theo demands, stopping and turning back to look at me. His eyes are like fire, but it's listless and dim.

"For defending me? Yeah, you're such an asshole."

I bristle at his sarcasm. "Well, I did ditch you, didn't I? I left you alone in the office. There's that to be sorry for."

"Don't think I didn't notice you freaking out of your mind. It was my fault you were there in the first fucking place!" Tho kicks at the mud and some of it splatter on me. I assume it's an accident. "And it's not like you left me alone in the fight, is it? So, yeah, don't apologize just because I'm a little kid who can't keep his temper in check after his deadbeat daddy can't make time for him."

"Let's talk about it," I say. Then, possibly succumbing to a fit of madness, I sit right down in the wet, muddy field and pat the dirt in front of me like I'm inviting a patient to sit down for their therapy session.

Theo, unsurprisingly, looks at me like I'm mental.

"The fuck? I'll catch pneumonia!"

"Then let's get it over with because I'm not moving Besides, you're wearing, like, five coats."

"You're fucking nuts," Theo sneers. Then he plants his ass in the mud.

I didn't think he'd actually do it. Wow.

"Uh huh," I say, crossing my legs. "Now. Let's talk about it. Free therapist ghost, remember?"

A smile flits across Theo 's face before it's quickly lost in the rain and a frown.

"What you did..." My sigh is lost to the downpour. "I would do the same. I would do worse, probably." Definitely. "So why do you keep beating yourself up over it?"

"Because... because I overreacted!" Theo explodes, his voice echoing over the teeming rain. I can tell, by his torn expression and the way his hands pick up and tear forgotten stands of wheat, that this has been building up for a while. "I'm just another kid whose dad doesn't care about him and whose mother is dead. Boo fucking hoo."

He breathes in raggedly. "I was being stupid, letting Jack get to me and lashing out. I act like the world revolves around me, but there's a kid who gets r*ped by their dad, a kid who goes to bed hungry, a kid who doesn't have a ghost as their only friend or a maid who doubles as their sister or a massive house or an easy future already mapped out for them, but here I am complaining about my lot when all I do is get it easy!" He takes a deep breath and I can tell that he's berating himself for getting overworked. "There are always worse problems - yet, as I am sure you have noticed, I always insist on throwing my own fucking pity party!"