February 17, 2010
10:00 a.m.
Evalynne’s House

I awoke with a yawn, and trudged downstairs to have some breakfast. When I got into the living room and was about to turn into the kitchen, I stopped dead in my tracks. Outside of Ash’s old house was now a large U-Haul truck, with men unloading things out of the back of it. Someone was moving in.
Taking a deep breath, I walked over to the window and peeked out from behind the curtains. There was a woman and a man standing by the truck. The man’s arm was wrapped around the woman’s waste and the woman was leaning up to plant a delicate kiss on the man’s cheek.
Both of them looked like they were in they’re mid-forties. The man was wearing light khaki pants with a white button-down shirt and black blazer, and the woman wore white capri-pants with an expensive-looking black blouse. The man’s hair was such a dark brown that it was almost black and was neatly combed, and the woman’s was a lighter brown that reached her shoulders and was perfectly stick-straight.
They looked like something out of a Banana Republic ad. The man must have seen me, because his face lit up with a smile and he waved for me to come outside. I held up a finger, signaling for him to wait a minute. He nodded, his smile unwavering.
I grinned back, and then quickly sprinted up to my room. I changed into skinny-jeans and one of my nicer shirts: a deep blue spaghetti strap tank that was tighter at the top and then got blousy at the bottom. The new neighbors both looked so preppy and well kept. I didn’t want to walk out there to meet them looking all fringy.
Quickly, I brushed through my tangled hair. Unfortunately, my blonde mane of hair wasn’t willing to cooperate with me today. So I ended up having to put it up in a low ponytail, rather than trying to work with it any longer.
Lastly, I applied some mascara and lip-gloss and then headed downstairs. I slipped on my black flip-flops and walked outside to go meet my new neighbors.
When they saw me approaching them, their eyes lit up and even wider grins spread across their faces. Wow, they were happy people. “Hi there, neighbor!” the man greeted me, holding out his hand for me to shake. I shook his hand and then the woman held out her own hand. I shook hers too. “I’m Kevin McKnight, and this is my wife, Trish.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Trish said to me with a glossy smile.
“It’s nice to meet you both too.” I replied. “My name’s Evalynne Mongolia.”
“Well, I’m glad we got to meet you, Evalynne. We actually have a son, who seems to be around your age. How old are you exactly?” Kevin asked.
“Eighteen,”
“So is our son,” he informed me. “He’s sitting in the car listening to his iPod, but I’ll go get him so he can meet you.”
“Oh, um, ok.” I said. He turned and walked off, leaving me standing there with Trish.
“So, Evalynne, you seem like a nice girl.” she said to me. “Are you attending college?”
“No, I was going to, but I decided to put it off for a year.” I told her.
She looked disappointed when she heard this. “Why would you want to do that?”
“It’s a long story.” I said, rather than taking the time to explain the whole story to her. It was much too long and much too complicated. Besides, I was way past that now.
“Oh,” she remarked, her voice a little bitter. An awkward silence fell between us.
Luckily, Kevin and his son walked up to us at that moment. The second I saw their son I felt my heart flutter.
“Evalynne, this is our son, William.” Kevin introduced him.
“Will,” their son corrected him. “I go by Will.”
Will’s hair was the first thing that caught my attention. It was the color of his dad’s hair: brown that was so dark it almost looked black. And it was spiky, with a big, chunky streak of blonde up the middle of it.
It seemed a little odd and a little punk rocker, which wasn’t usually my style. But there was just something about Will that was able to pull it off. Also, he had the deepest, darkest eyes I’d ever seen. They were entrancing and a bit eerie, but gorgeous at the same time.
And unlike his parents, his clothes were dark and just as punk-rocker-looking as his hair. He was wearing dark wash skinny jeans, black beat up converse, an old vintage-looking Metallica t-shirt, and a black leather bomber jacket. Plus, he had a piercing in both of his ears. But instead of normal earrings, he wore two black gauges.
Throughout my entire life, I’d never before seen anyone who looked like Will. He was one-of-a-kind and I liked it. I was still hurt from the whole situation with Cole, but the best way to get over someone was to move on.
“It’s nice to meet you, Will. I’m Evalynne Carter.” I held out my hand for him to shake, trying to be polite. He glanced at it, and then looked up at me, meeting my eyes for about half of a second, then looking away.
Feeling awkward and embarrassed, I let my hand fall down to my side.
“William, don’t be rude.” Trish scolded him.
“Yeah, Evalynne is trying to be polite and introduce herself, and you need to show her some courtesy. I’m fed up with your rebellious teenager act. You’re eighteen years old, William. Start acting like it.” Kevin added, his voice raising.
I could tell this was about to turn into a full out argument between the three of them, and I really didn’t want to stick around and feel awkward yet again. But before I got the chance to say anything, Will began to shout in rage.
“Well I’m sorry that I didn’t turn out perfect like you and Mom! I know you wish I was smart and in college and dressed all preppy like you two. But guess what? I’m not. So you can either accept me for who I am, or shut up and deal with it.”
My eyes widened, taken aback by Will’s sudden outburst. I would’ve never even considered speaking to my parents the way he did. It was pretty ridiculous. And I could tell right away that he was a “bad boy”. Usually, I categorized these types of people as lame wanna-be posers. But something about Will was different than your typical bad-boy-wanna-be. Something about the way he acted felt real, authentic almost.
Another thing I realized when he opened his mouth was that he also had his tongue pierced. It was just a small round, silver stud, but it still looked painful.
“You do not talk to us that way! We are your parents, and you will respect us and our rules!” Trish shot back at him.
“Like Dad said: I’m eighteen. I don’t have to listen to you anymore.” Will remarked coldly.
“When you live under our roof, you follow our rules. When you finally decide to take control of your life and go to college so that you can start a career, and then earn enough money to move out, then you don’t have to listen to us anymore. But as long as you’re living in our house, you have to abide to our rules.” Trish snapped.
“Yeah, you’re just lucky we didn’t chop your hair off when you went behind our backs to dye it like that. It looks absolutely ridiculous!” Kevin exploded, referring to the big blonde streak in Will’s hair. “And all those piercings…” he trailed off, his face red with rage.
“It’s my body. I can do whatever I want to it.” Will retorted evenly.
Kevin shook his head, turning away from Will. His eyes landed on me, and they widened immediately as if he just remembered that I was still standing there. “Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry about all of this, Evalynne. Will’s just a little…different. And his mother and I aren’t very pleased with the decisions he makes.”
When his father called him “different”, Will’s eyes filled with fury. I could tell he hated how his dad talked about him when he was standing right there. I had to admit that it was pretty rude. I wouldn’t like it either.
“That’s ok. Everyone yells. It’s no big deal.” I assured him, smiling weakly.
He grinned back, clearly glad for my understanding. “Thanks.” He sighed lightly, “Well we’d better let you get going. We need to start unpacking things in our new house. It was nice meeting you though.”
“It was nice meeting you too.” I replied.
He grinned one last time and then turned on his heel and walked off. His wife followed closely behind him, but Will didn’t.
“Hey, sorry for acting like that. You actually seem pretty cool. I’m just really p***ed at my parents. They’re always yelling at me to be more like my brother. I hate it so much.” Will said to me.
“You have a brother?” I asked him, thrilled that he was talking to me.
“He’s actually my twin, but he’s in college right now. His name’s Michael. He’s like my dad’s little min-me. I know he’s my parents’ favorite. He’s everything they want me to be. He’s smart, he’s a prep, he’s going to become a doctor, he’s got a girlfriend that they both love.”
“Wow…that sucks.” I said lamely. As soon as I said it, I regretted it. I sounded so stupid. Why was I always so awkward?
Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, it definitely does.” he replied. “Well, now you know more about me. How about you? You in college?”
“No, I’m waiting until next year.” I told him.
He nodded, “Cool. I don’t plan on going to college. Ever.”
“Well what do you plan on doing then?” I inquired, hoping that I wasn’t getting too personal or anything.
“I’m a musician.” He informed me. “I play guitar, I sing, I write songs. Music’s my whole life. It’s the one thing I’m passionate about.”
I nodded. “That sounds cool. Are you in a band or something?”
“Well, I was. But I had to drop out since we moved. The rest of my band members live in Pennsylvania. That’s where I’m from.”
“Well that’s not too far away. At least you can still hang out with them every once in a while, right?”
“No, actually, I can’t.” he replied. “My parents banned me from ever speaking to them again.”
When he said this, I immediately thought of Lori, and how she was so against Ash and I hanging out with eachother. “Why would they do that?” I asked.
“They don’t like the people in my band. Especially our drummer, Lacey.”
“Why not?” I inquired.
“Well, I dated her for a while. In fact, I guess we’re still a couple. I know my parents told me not to ever come in contact with her again, but that’s not going to stop me.” he declared defiantly.
Immediately, my heart sank. I should’ve known he had a girlfriend. I was stupid to not think he had a girlfriend. Of course he had a girlfriend! A guy like Will was bound to have a girlfriend! But I didn’t let any of these emotions rise to my surface. I hid them, something I was now an expert at.
“I still don’t get why they don’t like her. What did she do?” I asked, trying to sound unfazed by what he’d just told me.
“She didn’t do anything. They just think that she’s a trashy punk rocker with absolutely no future ahead of her. Those were actually their exact words. And they don’t like my other two band members, John and Vince for pretty much the same reason. But I have to admit, I can see why they don’t like John and Vince.”
“Why’s that?” I queried.
“Well,” he began, “us three kind of got into some trouble last year. We were at this old, vacant factory building that we hung out at a lot, and we were setting off fireworks. The building accidentally caught on fire, but instead of calling the cops, we just ran away. But some lady driving by saw us and reported us to the police. We denied it though, and since the cops never got a confession from any of us they had to let us go because they had no proof. My parents knew we did it though. The whole town knew we did it. They weren’t even surprised to find out that the lady had supposedly witnessed us running away from the burning building.”
He stared off, spacing out a bit. It seemed as if he were reminiscing on the day of the fire. “So that’s why they don’t like the people in your band?” I asked.
“Well John and Vince drink a lot too. Plus they smoke. Lacey drinks some, but not like John and Vince do. Our group was just kind of known as the troublemakers in town. That’s how everyone saw us at least. And I guess we kind of were.”
“But you said the fire was accidental right?” I pointed out. He nodded. “Well that’s not so bad then. It’s not like you guys were trying to burn it down. That doesn’t count as arson, does it?”
He shrugged, “Well the police didn’t seem to care whether or not it was intentional. They were just waiting for one of us to cave in and confess. I could tell they were pretty ticked off that we kept denying it. They knew we did it. But they couldn’t just arrest us without any proof.”
“The same kind of thing happened to me actually…” I admitted, remembering the time Kristy, Cole, and I broke into Ash’s house. “Me and two of my friends vandalized somebody’s house. In fact, it was the person who used to live in the house that you’re moving in to.”

“Wow, I’m surprised. You seem like more of the good girl type.” he replied with a smirk that just looked so cute on him.
“Well I guess you can’t judge a book by it’s cover then, can you?” I remarked, a hint of a smile crossing my face.
He grinned back, “I guess not.” For a moment, both of us didn’t say anything. We just kind of stare at each other. But then we both heard the sound of his dad calling him over. “That’s my cue.” he said. “See you later, neighbor.” Then he turned and walked off towards his parents.
And as I watched him walk away I decided that I would under no circumstances like him as more than a friend. Thinking he was cute was ok. Having a tiny crush on him was ok. But he had a girlfriend. So if I let myself develop feelings for him, it would turn into a huge mess. And I most definitely didn’t want any drama.
I’d had enough of that with Ash and Cole. And to have someone who I could just be friends with sounded really good. So I was determined to keep it that way.

Author's Note: What do you think of Will so far? Do you think he's gonna be a good character or a bad character? Just wondering... :)