no one said it would be easy

Chapter 15 - pictures

Casey
„So... when did you two start dating?", Evan asks, gesturing to the second pillow that's placed on my bed, acting like Izzie's still here.

„uh... a couple of days ago", I say, lowering my head. Feelings of guilt cross my mind again and I swear that the angry sheep is giving me death glares. I tilt my head to look at the sheep, but it's just standing there on my shelf....aggressively.

„That's cool", he answers, but I know he doesn't find it that cool. But he is too nice and decent to tell me that. His lips curl into a sad smile and he squints his eyes a bit.

It hurts to see him like this, and the only way I can think of cheering him up is by changing the topic, so I ask: „How about we go downstairs and look what they're doing?"

„Alright", he says, patting his upper thigh, „yeah, I could use something to drink actually. I mean we talked for 30 minutes already."

I widen my eyes in surprise: „Oh my god are you for real?"

„Uh, yeah", he says, a laughter escaping his lips.

„We'd better get something to drink then, we don't want to die of thirst", I crawl out of the blankets and jump out of bed a little bit too excited about getting water or anything liquid.

„Actually, you'd die only in 5 days without water. So we have plenty of time", he says, a somewhat proud and childlike look on his face.

„Little EMT-Nerd", I say, slapping his arm.

~~~

Casey
I walk the stairs down lankily, with the sleeves of my sweater dangling on my sides. Evan is behind me and I can hear his loud stomps on the stairs. That boy could never creep up on somebody.

Surprisingly Evan's stomps are the only thing I hear. I look around, but can't see neither Elsa nor Izzie here.

Apparently Evan notices we're alone too and asks: „Okay, I'm assuming your dad is working. But where are Elsa and Izzie? And where's Sam?"

I look around one last time and notice Elsa and Izzie's shoes are gone.

„Eh, their shoes are not here, they're probably getting some groceries or something like this. Sam is out with Zahid, they're looking for a flat", I say, walking to the kitchen and pouring ourselves some apple juice.

I start smiling a bit, as I remember the time I made Evan eat a cheesestring dipped in apple juice, all just because I was bored.

The memory is so funny, that I'm sure he'll remember it, so I go to the fridge again and there are two cheesestrings left - thank you Elsa.

I throw one at him and he almost doesn't manage to catch it, but he saves himself from a dumb comment from my side.

Evan looks at what I've just thrown at him and laughs.

„I won't do that again", he says, chuckling.

I get on one of the bar stools and pull one leg up, clutching it with my arm.

„I don't know why'd you refuse such a fancy food", I state, mocking some rich girl at Clayton that Evan doesn't know about. I bet Izzie would get the reference.

Evan laughes and opens up the cheesestring, but instead of dipping it into the apple juice he takes a bite of it.

I physically cringe at this sight and Evan furrows his eyebrows, questioning. I say: „You know, taking a full bite off a cheesestring is at least as disgusting as dipping your cheesestring into apple juice before eating it."

He looks at me funny, still chewing on his cheesestring: „You know you made me do both back then?"

„Touché."

Evan looks around, examining our house, that he's seen so often. His view lands on the pictures on our wall.

Elsa has a lot of pictures in our house. She says it brings life and character to it, and that people like to look at them. One time I replaced all of her faces on the pictures with a photo of Bella Thorne. No guest realized it and it took her one week to notice.

I guess after all people don't really look at pictures anymore, at least when they're not digital.

Evan turns his head in my direction again: „You said Sam is out with Zahid?"

I snap out of my thoughts.

„Uh yeah, they want to move together. That's a huge step for our penguin dad", I answer.

„What about Paige? I thought he'd move together with her", he wants to know, but I honestly don't have an answer to that question, so I just shrug.

Maybe it's better he's moving together with Zahid, instead of Paige. A lot less pressure on him.

But I do wonder what Paige thinks about it. I make a note in my head to ask her the next time I see her.

I already know what my house-warming gift will be for him: I'll just take one of those pictures. When and if mom notices it's gone it will already be Sam's property.