the secret » david dobrik au

O N E

"Evangeline! Your last bag, please!" Aunt Lydia called from the bottom of the stairs. "Your roommates are going to fucking hate you if you aren't punctual!"

"Very inspiring, Lyd. Just what I needed to hear," I rolled my eyes as I made my way down the steps, holding the black middle school cheerleading duffle bag tightly in my grip. It was hot outside, August sun beating down on the concrete, and all I wanted to do was move and be done with it.

Today was the day I finally moved in to an apartment near the college I would be attending. I was every emotion in one, and Lydia was not helping.

She was way too young to be doing this with me. She was an accident child, eleven years younger than my mom and only six years years older than me. She had just barely graduated college when I was sent to live with her, and I didn't think she'd be helpful for anything other than cracking jokes, but I needed her.

"Do you want to say goodbye to Earl?"

"Earl has a brain the size of a pea. I don't think he knows who I am."

Earl was her fish, her prized possession, her baby. I think the stress of us, me and my little brother Simon, was just too much for her to ever consider actually wanting a child, so she took on something much easier.

"Well, I sure hope he didn't hear you insulting him," she narrowed her eyes in disgust at me.

"Don't worry," I stuffed my last bag into the small space left in the trunk. "I'm sure the water distorts the sound waves."

"Simon?"

"I said my goodbyes last night, so he wouldn't have to wake up early," I explained. Simon had it worse than me. He at least deserved to sleep past seven in the morning in his last few days of summer. "Let's just go."

"You're sure you have everything?" she confirmed, and I nodded. "Okay, then. Off we go. To college!"

That was where she wanted me to repeat to college! after her in her happy-go-lucky tone, but I stayed silent, strapping myself into the passenger seat and letting her drive us away.

I was nervous for many reasons. The first was that I didn't have a car. I couldn't afford one living with my mom, and I sure as hell couldn't afford one with my twenty four year old aunt's marketing job. One of the reasons I picked the apartment complex that I did was because it was cheaper than the dorms and only a five minute walk to campus. It wasn't so much that that I was worried about, more the idea that I would be stuck an hour away from home until someone, that someone being Lydia, could come pick me up. I didn't like that... being stuck.

I was also nervous to meet my roommates. Since I had moved schools when I moved in with Lydia, I didn't really make any friends at my new one. I was fine being a lone wolf, but when it came time to pick roommates for college, I was screwed. I ended up finding an eBay ad to take up someone else's lease, and after a quick Instagram search to check out the girls that I would be living with, I decided it would be fine. We had yet to meet in person, but had group facetimed once or twice. It felt weird because they knew each other, but they seemed nice enough. That's why I picked them.

Most of all, I was nervous about starting college. High school teachers, especially the particularly evil ones, love drilling into your head that college will be the hardest thing you will ever have to endure, and if you aren't well prepared, you won't succeed in either college or life. I didn't feel that well prepared, and I had absolutely no clue what I was in for.

Lydia chatted with me along the way about how much she was gonna miss my help, and how she hoped Simon was secretly a Matilda who could do everything for himself. I reassured her that Simon may be only eleven, but he's the smartest kid I had ever met. I was taking care of myself by that age, so he shouldn't have a problem. It seemed to ease her mind, at least temporarily, so I let her have it. We rode the rest of the way in silence, minus the hum of the car radio playing a classic rock station, Lyd's favorite.

"This is the complex, right?" she asked as she pulled into a parking lot. I glanced down at the GPS on my phone, then back up at the brick building, and shrugged.

The place didn't look the nicest in the world, but I wasn't expecting a five star hotel when the rent was just five hundred per person per month. Compared to the dorm buildings and other apartment buildings in the area, this place was a steal. As long as I didn't wake up to a big roach crawling across my forehead, I could make do with the space.

Lydia pulled her Jeep Cherokee into a random parking spot, and there we sat, staring at the front of the building in complete and utter silence.

"Are you excited, Evan?" she asked. I took a second to look at her, really look at her, since this was going to be the last time I saw her in person for a while.

She was pretty, stupid pretty. She was popular in high school and college, and she looked like it. Her brown hair was dyed a natural shade of blonde that complimented her green eyes, and her skin was tan thanks to our afternoons of laying out in the backyard together. She had one of those noses that a reality star would pay twenty thousand dollars for, and a smile so white and bright she could model for Listerine. It was unfair.

"Maddie would be so proud of you, you know," she squeezed my hand gently. "Going to college and all. You're an inspiration to everyone, Ev. We're all so proud of you."

"All," I laughed. "Yeah, good to know that you and Simon are proud of me."

"Simon and I are not the only people who care about you," she frowned in concern. "You need to realize that. So many people want to love and support you."

"So many people want to pity me so they can feel better about themselves when they fall asleep at night," I scoffed, pushing the door open. She was not going to make me cry minutes before I had to meet the people I'd be living with for the next year. They probably already thought I was weird enough being a random girl in their apartment. "Let's just go. It's time."

CEO of writing books that i will probably never finish because ideas come to me at random times and i get writers block on my other books

Lemme know whatcha think

Xoxoxo abby

Ps did u notice they are college kids now? Moving up in the world