Tiny Crown

Chapter 14

The bedroom door was unlocked and ajar when she woke in the morning. She changed into clothes before heading downstairs. Emilia wondered whether she should ask Evan about his school work and bring it up. She had the feeling that bringing up the letter wouldn’t be a good idea but not telling him that she knew about his accident might end up upsetting him.

The back door was open when she walked into the kitchen. Evan walked in and shut the door behind him.
“You’re awake,” he said. “Morning.” Emilia just nodded in response. She looked away from him, at the kitchen. There weren’t any signs that he’d cooked any breakfast, not that she was expecting any with how clean things were in the house.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked as he walked towards her. Did she tell him?
“I couldn’t sleep last night and I found some things in the draws in the room,” she said. Looking at him, she watched him take a deep breath. “They were your things, your school work and some letters.”
“Did you read the letter?” he asked quietly. He didn’t have to ask which one. Emilia nodded. “So you know what they think happened?”
“Yeah, I do.”

Evan bit his lip and walked over to the counter. He glanced down at his arm before looking at her.
“They don’t know what happened,” he said. “No one does. They don’t know if it was the school’s fault, if someone pushed me or anything.”
“It said a girl called Amy helped you,” she said. Evan smiled when she said the girl’s name.
“She’s my friend,” he said. “My only friend but she’s a good friend. She… she helped me. I used to wait outside of her Geography class, she had Geography when I had music with Mr Miranda and he used to let us out early.”

Emilia walked over to the counter and jumped up onto it. Evan smiled at her a little. He didn’t tell her to get off of the counter.
“One day, I wasn’t waiting for her and I always waited for her and she knew I was in so there was no reason for me to not wait for her. She figured that I was still in music but… as she was trying to get to my music class, the corridors were blocked by all of the students,” he carried on explaining. His hand moved to grab his arm, covering where the scar would have been under his sleeve.

“She told me that she had a bad feeling about it all and that while she wanted to believe that I was just stuck in the crowds of high schoolers, she had the feeling I wasn’t,” he carried on speaking. Emilia listened, it was very different hearing him recount his friend’s experience. The letter didn’t mention all of the students in the corridor or what Amy felt about it all. “She got to the stairs and the teachers tried to stop her from going down them but she pushed past them and I was on the stairs. On the bottom flight of stairs.”

“The music classroom is right at the top though,” she said. Her brow creased and she stared at the counter as she thought. Evan nodded. “If you were going to go to her class, how did you end up…” she trailed off as she saw Evan shrug.
“No one knows, there weren’t any cameras in the stairways.” He looked down and closed his eyes for a moment. “I was bleeding out. You always bleed a lot from head injuries. Amy saw it and screamed at them, she kept yelling things at them, called them stupid and incompetent and used a fair few swear words. They always leave out the part where she used her scarf to stop the bleeding.”

Emilia’s jaw fell slack. “Why wasn’t there a first aider?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, she yelled at them to get a first aider, they had called an ambulance though. But… it’s a rural area, it took a while.” Emilia couldn’t believe they couldn’t get a first aid trained teacher to him. There was usually a few first aiders in schools or there was a school nurse or something.

“What happened then?” asked Emilia. There was a twinge of pain in her chest but she was curious and pushed it out of her mind as best as she could.
“It took two weeks for me to wake up properly and have some sort of idea about what was going on. After a few days, they realised I wasn’t remembering things. And they did tests and stuff but… it didn't all come back.”
“How much do you remember?”
“Not much at all, I sort of remember my aunt during those eight years, and a bit of Amy and Nathan and Olivia but… not much else.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She couldn’t think of anything else to say and as weird and as strange as he was, it was a horrible thing to go through. And his friend… she had to deal with it too.
“It’s not your fault,” he said, his voice was barely above a whisper. “I was… I was seventeen, it was a long time ago now. And while it… while I still struggle with it and my nerves are sort of screwed, I don’t have seizures any more and the headaches aren’t so bad.”

Emilia wasn’t sure what to say and she doubted she’d be able to put the mixed feelings she had into words. The accident definitely put things into perspective. He more than likely had impaired judgement too, maybe that was why he didn’t call the police.

Both of them froze as they heard the back door being opened. Emilia stared at the door and watched as a curly haired teen walked in. His curls were darker in colour and not as defined as Evan’s. He talked as he shut the door, clearly he hadn’t noticed her yet. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Evan was looking at her, not the boy who had just walked into his house.

That was Nathan.

“Mom’s sent me round, I can’t believe you didn’t hear me knocking on the front door, it’s good that your back door was…” Nathan trailed off as he looked up from his phone and realised who was sitting in the kitchen. “...open.” Slowly, he walked over to the counter she was sitting on. Evan turned to look at his brother’s shocked expression.

“Emilia?”