I wanted to post this last night but the wifi at my house kind of peaced out for a while sorry!!

• • •

I hold my breath as my math teacher walks between the rows of desks, handing out tests with red marks all over them. His hair is greying, almost turning white, and he has dark eyes that lost their life after years of dealing with high school students. He's too old to still be working here and his hands tremble like old people's hands do. Like when they pour water into a glass, or hand you a test and you close your eyes because you're terrified of the grade you might get and the reaction your legal guardian might have when she sees it.

It's just me and this goddamn test I have hidden under my folded arms and the blackness behind my eyelids and the chattering of students I'm trying to block out before I flip my desk because everything is too much, my anxiety is to much, what if I failed, what if Laura—

"Hey, Way? What'd you get?" Ryder asks, spinning in his chair and tapping me on the shoulder.

I say through gritted teeth, my eyes still squeezed shut, "I don't know. If I just don't look at it, it doesn't exist and I can't have failed."

He snorts. "There's no way you did worse than me." I hear him wave his paper inches from my face, feel the coolness of it fanning my skin. "I got a 52."

"Well at least you didn't fail," I say bitterly. "At least you don't live with Laura Barry and have to go home to her creepy smile when she pretends she's not mad at you, but you know she really is mad at you, and— hey!" I feel my test slide out from under my arms. My eyes pop open, I make a grab for the paper, but my hand hangs in the air when I see the smirk on Ryder's face and the way he's eyeing the number at the top.

He shakes his head, his blue eyes flicking from the paper, up to me, and back down again. "Way, Way, Way."

"Don't do this to me, Ryde." I cover my face in my hands, say through the cracks in my fingers, "Just tell me what I got."

"I don't know if you should even go home today."

My blood runs cold. "No, no, no, I feel like I'm gonna throw up."

"I'm kidding!" Ryder says quickly, he holds up my test and points at my grade frantically. "Look, you're fine, you got a 75!"

"I got a what now?"

"You got a 75! Now, please, don't throw up."

I take my test from him and flip through the pages, seeing a lot of red, but more checkmarks than exes. "This is... this is honestly better than I could've hoped for. I guess that whole studying thing really isn't useless." I lie my head on my desk, exhausted with the remnants of what very nearly turned into a panic attack. "Now we just hope that it's good enough for Laura."

"It's gotta be," Ryder says confidently. He reasons, "'Cause you were, like, failing math before, right? And 75 is nowhere near a fail, right? So, yeah, it's gotta be good enough for her."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I say, even though it didn't actually make me feel very much better about the situation. "Either way, I know Emerald is gonna be proud of me. And Gerard is gonna be more proud of me than what it's worth."

"Yeah, but you won't even be able to tell them if Laura takes your phone away."

My head snaps up off my desk and I eye Ryder with what I hope is a death-stare. "In what world did you think saying that would help the situation?"

He looks down. "Sorry."

I roll my eyes just as the bell rings. A new wave of nerves washes over me because it means I get to join the stampede of kids out in the hall (Ryder had the right idea when he dashed out of the classroom ahead of everyone else), shove my way through the exit, and— the best part— get in Laura's car and go to therapy. If the sarcasm wasn't evident, the whole getting in Laura's car and going to therapy is actually the worse part. I don't want a new therapist, first of all. I only want Sam. Even though, granted, I did lie to her an ungodly amount of times.

I stand on my tip-toes to see through the crowd of kids outside until I spot Laura's shiny silver car, the freshly polished exterior glinting in the sunlight. She's wearing sunglasses and tapping the steering wheel along to whatever song is playing on the radio. She smiles when she sees me coming, turns the volume of the music down, and when I get in the passenger seat, says, "How was your day, Evelyn?"

"Good," I say, throwing my backpack into the backseat.

"Good," she says, nodding. She taps on the steering wheel again, this time with her long fingernails. I already know what she's going to say, so I stare at her until she does. "Did you get the result of your math test?" she asks finally.

"Yeah, I did."

She takes her sunglasses off and looks at me expectantly. I say nothing. I like playing with her like this. Eventually, she presses, "And..?"

"I got a 75 percent." I bite my lip, expecting her to tell me I'm not good enough, that I should've tried harder, and to hand over my phone. "It was a really hard test," I say in my defence.

She does the last thing I was expecting her to do and smiles. "You did great, Evelyn." She starts the car while I let out a breath and wonder why my hands are still shaking. Then, she adds as an afterthought, "I'm proud of you."

I then do the last thing I was expecting myself to do and smile. "Thanks."

• • •

My legs are crossed, I can't stop wiping sweat off my hands onto the lap of my blue jeans, this chair is uncomfortable, and the way the woman in front of me is eyeing me at an angle that would suggest she's looking over the rim of her glasses even though she's not wearing glasses is weird. I'm trying to listen to the words leaving her mouth, but the sun streaming in through the window behind me directly onto the back of my neck is making it difficult for me to focus on anything but the image of my own burning skin.

"So, today I just wanted to be able to get to know you a little bit—"

"Wait—" I stand up and turn around, pull the plastic blinds over the window, and sit back down. "I gotta be honest, Bonnie, the sun was super distracting and I didn't really hear a word you were saying."

Dr. Bonnie Brown clasps her hands together patiently. "Don't worry about it, Evelyn. Don't be afraid to shut the blinds earlier if it happens again."

"Noted," I say.

"So, we don't have much time left for today's session. I know, I've been talking your ear off, but I'd like to hear from you now."

"What do you want to know?" I ask.

"Anything. All I know is what I saw written in your file sent to me by your former therapist. Dr. James, was it?"

"Yeah. Sam."

As soon as I walked in today I spotted the differences between Sam and Bonnie. For starters, Bonnie is older than Sam, I can tell by the wrinkles around her eyes and on her forehead, and the way her hair is beginning to turn grey, and I doubt she'd talk about Star Wars or Harry Potter with me. Still, the way she welcomed me to her office warmly reminded me of Emerald's mom, and I feel like I can trust her.

"How do you like school? What are your favourite classes?" she prompts, crossing one leg over the other. I notice a clipboard, a blue pen resting on top of it, on the desk next to her and I wonder if she'll grab it and start taking notes like Sam always did.

"Um, well, I've always liked English class. I like writing." I feel awkward talking about myself and my eyes dart around the room.

Bonnie doesn't acknowledge my awkwardness, probably used to it after working with so many people, and tries to make me feel more comfortable by acting interested. "Oh, yeah? What do you like to write?"

"Poetry. But I don't really show it to anyone."

She nods understandingly, getting the hint that I'm not about to show her any of my poems, and moves on. "What classes do you dislike?"

"Math," I say immediately. "I suck at it and it's boring."

She laughs lightly, "You're definitely not the only one who thinks so."

"My girlfriend actually kind of likes it, believe it or not. And she's, like, really good at it. And pretty much everything else 'cause she's basically a genius."

Bonnie beams and that's when I realize I've opened up to her more in less than an hour than I have to Laura in all my life. Then, she reaches across her desk and turns a picture frame to face me. It's her and another woman. They look at each other with love in their eyes, have their arms around each other like they're the only two people in the world. "I've been with her for about twenty years."

"I—" I cant suppress the huge smile from spreading across my face, and if we hadn't just met, I probably wouldn't fight tears from welling in my eyes. "I'm so happy for you."

Bonnie smiles and replaces the picture frame, then looks at me thoughtfully. "You really miss her, don't you?"

I purse my lips and nod. "She's the only friend I ever had for a long time."

"Does your mother know about her?"

Shaking my head, I tell her firmly, "No, and I don't plan on telling her. I want to keep my life back home in Jersey and my life here with Laura separate."

Now Bonnie grabs her clipboard and pen, slowly, as though I wouldn't notice. "Do you sometimes feel like you're living a double life?"

I nod. "I feel like it's a triple life sometimes." At Bonnie's subtle, confused expression, I explain, "Like, there's me and my life in Jersey and I feel like that one's kind of just paused for now, like when I eventually get back there I'll be able to pick up where I left off. And then there's the little bit of my life that's in the public eye 'cause, like, the people who are fans of my dad know about me, but they don't know me. I'm sure there's been articles about me moving away, but I haven't checked them out and I don't really want to. Those two are Evelyn Way. And now there's this weird new version of me here in Rhode Island: Evelyn Barry. I act different, I dress in different clothes and my makeup is different. It's weird. The only time I feel normal is when I'm talking to my family or my girlfriend, or when I'm with my friends, Ryder and Raven."

Bonnie nods as I speak, all the while flicking her eyes up and down between me and the clipboard while she scribbles her notes.

"I know that you'd rather still be in New Jersey right now living as 'Evelyn Way' rather than 'Evelyn Barry', so aside from that, how do you like this 'new version' of yourself, as you put it? Do you miss your old self, or are you comfortable living a different life for now?"

I need time to think about that one, and she gives it to me. I mull over her questions in my head, never having considered those things before, just feeling like it was necessary for me to change without ever really looking back. At the time, it was an easy decision: Laura doesn't get to know the real me since she didn't want to know the real me ever before.

"I- I don't like this," I decide finally. "I don't really like these clothes," I say, pulling at my plain purple zip-up hoodie and blue jeans. "This isn't me. I just want my band T-shirts and chokers and eyeliner back, honestly. But I feel like that stuff is reserved for my life back in Jersey. Almost like I'd be betraying everyone at home if I started living my normal life here without them."

Bonnie leans back in her chair, thinking. "Well," she says slowly, "I don't think they'd feel betrayed, Evelyn. I think they want you to be happy and keep living your life as comfortably as possible. And I don't think they'd want you to change for anyone or anything."

That's when I remember what Frank told me just before I left: Don't change who you are for anyone, alright?