Chapter 7 Evie
EVIE
“Genevieve Dawson,” Mr. McNeil calls out. I shudder internally.
I raise my hand.
“Here,” I mutter quietly. He marks me as present and keeps moving with the rest of the attendance.
It’s my first day of high school, and I thought I felt out of place in middle school.
But getting an academic scholarship to the ultra-expensive prep school where all of Manhattan’s richest kids go?
That takes the cake. I saved up all my wages from working at the frozen yogurt place all summer so I could buy a few t-shirts and a single pair of jeans from Hollister, just in case I make some friends who want to hang out outside of school.
I’m thankful we all have to wear these stupid uniforms so that at least my non-designer clothes don’t give me away as a fraud.
I’m ahead of my grade level in just about every subject, and my advisor suggested I take a few classes over the summer so I could be even more ahead. I’m in advanced world history right now, and there is only one other freshman in this class.
And he happens to not only be the richest kid in Manhattan, but an Everett.
Which makes him a member of one of the wealthiest families on the entire planet.
A lot of the kids in class seem highly interested in that.
They surround his desk, talking to him about his family, their compound, his dad.
But I just sit at my desk. Money doesn’t impress me, because most of the people I know who have it don’t tend to share.
They don’t use it for the good of those around them. So it doesn’t really change much.
There are a lot of famously rich kids at this school—sons and daughters of celebrities and politicians. It’s like nepotism runs through the dang water fountains.
But going here gives me a much better shot at getting an academic scholarship for college. And if I don’t get that, I don’t go.
So I’ll suck it up for the next four years.
I’ll try and stay as invisible as I can.
Being alone isn’t scary to me. I’m alone a lot. Even at home. Even when the house is full, I’m still on my own a lot. My parents divorced when I was young, and I don’t see my dad a lot. My older brother moved up to Boston before I was even in middle school, and my mom works a lot.
The only person who genuinely enjoys my company is my Nanny. Her apartment is about three blocks from ours, and I probably spend more time there than I do at ours.
When she’s not home, I spend most of my time by myself. I read a lot. I walk around the city. I go to museums.
I learned at a young age that it was better to spend time by myself than be around the people who made me wish I was.
Like my mom.
My mom didn’t ask for the life she has.
My dad had a good job. His family had money.
She thought she would always have that. But when they divorced, she had to go back to work.
And when ends weren’t meeting, she had to take a part-time job too.
It’s not hard to see that she resents me.
She criticizes my hobbies and interests and is constantly pushing me to look into “more lucrative” career plans.
Like I knew what “lucrative” meant in eighth grade.
While my friends were dreaming of being fashion designers or professional athletes, she was pushing me to look into sales or engineering.
And when I told her I didn’t want to, she rolled her eyes.
Starting at the end of sophomore year, I get to pick a career track and choose my elective classes based off of that. I haven’t told her yet, but I am really interested in sociology or psychology.
People interest me.
She just doesn’t realize that, because I don’t interest her.
My next few classes whizz by, and my planner is already jam-packed with deadlines and due dates. I pull my school map out of my notebook as discreetly as possible to remind myself how to get to the cafeteria. This school is a damn maze.
“B Lunch?” a voice asks from behind me, making me jump.
I turn around to see him staring back at me. The Everett kid. I swallow and look around. He’s got to be talking to someone else. He raises an eyebrow. “Genevieve, right?” I bite my lip.
Guess not.
I nod slowly.
“Y-yeah,” I stammer. “And you are…” Sweet Lord. I don’t know his first name. I know his dad is Cato Everett. I know his older brother is Julian.
But I can’t remember his fucking name, and he knows mine.
How ironic.
I feel heat flush my cheeks, and he smiles.
“Keaton,” he says, sticking a hand out to shake mine. I move my books over to my other arm and take his. I smile shyly.
“It’s nice to meet you—officially,” I say with a curt nod. “And yes, B Lunch. I just have no idea how to get to the damn cafeteria. This building is stupid big.”
He laughs.
“It is,” he says. “I am going to go out for lunch. Do you want to tag along?” he asks, nodding toward a tall man standing by the side door of the building, dressed in a black polo and slacks. And as I look at him, I realize it’s his security.
I think about it for a second.
Probably not smart to get in cars with strangers, but I imagine my mom would be happier about me getting into a car driven by an adult security guard than another teenager.
And getting out of this stuffy building for a little bit sounds a lot better than cramming into a busy cafeteria with hundreds of people who either don’t notice me or pretend they don’t.
“Sure,” I say with a shrug. He slings his bag over his shoulder, and we walk toward the doors. The man gets the door for us and leads us to the side of the building where a black SUV is parked next to the sidewalk.
As we walk through the courtyard toward it, I freeze when I see a large metal plaque that hangs over the garden.
“‘Everett Garden,’” I read, making the connection. Our eyes lock, and he rolls his lips together. He runs a hand down the back of his perfectly tousled sandy locks.
“Uh, yeah,” he says. “My great-grandfather sort of built the school.”
My eyes widen.
“Sort of?” I ask as the man in the suit opens the car door for us.
He smiles and shrugs, waiting for me to slide in.
We drive a little ways off campus, and I meticulously check my watch.
I have class in exactly fifty-three minutes, and if I’m not ten minutes early, I will feel like I’m late.
I don’t want to come off as stuffy or stuck-up, but I don’t imagine that the kid whose name is on the damn school has to adhere to the same rules as the rest of us—particularly those of us whose parents don’t make hefty donations each year.
“We will be back before sixth period,” he says, and I look up at him. He isn’t saying it in a mocking way. He’s smiling, but he’s not laughing at me. I think he can just tell that I’m anxious about it. “Promise,” he adds with a wink, and I feel my stomach flip.
A few minutes later, we park, and he slides out, holding the door open for me to get out. I follow behind him and realize he’s headed for a taco truck. I smile. Wouldn’t have pegged him for a food truck guy.
As we approach, he says good afternoon to the owner and then places his order. He turns to me.
“Know what you want?” he says. I step forward. Everything looks delicious.
“I’ll just do two chicken tacos, please,” I say, but then I become conscious of the fact that he’s reaching for his wallet.
I reach into my bag and yank mine out, pulling a wad of cash out and slapping it on the counter.
The man looks at both of us with a peculiar look, but before Keaton can protest, the man slides the cash away.
“Why did you do that?” he asks me, his tone soft and curious.
I shrug.
“I don’t need you to pay for me,” I say.
He just stares back at me for a second, eyes wide. Then he narrows them on me, nodding slowly. A few minutes later, we’re sitting on a park bench, eating the tacos that I just bought for us.
“Did you grow up around here, Genevieve?” he asks. I nod slowly as I finish my bite, wiping my face with a napkin. “What was that?” he asks.
I look at him.
“What was what?”
“That face you just made,” he says. “Did I strike a nerve?”
I cringe. Sometimes my face is louder than I intend on it being.
“Oh, sorry, nothing,” I say. He turns his whole body to me.
“No, no,” he says with a boyish smile. “What was that? Something I said?”
I smile and sigh.
“Yeah, actually,” I say. “My name.”
“Your…your name?” he asks, one eyebrow raised.
I nod.
“I sort of…hate it.”
He chuckles.
“You hate your name?” he asks. But when he sees that my expression hasn’t changed, he grows a little more serious.
“I, uh…I don’t know. I guess it just carries some not-so-fun baggage with it. It just…it never felt like it fit me.”
I wait for him to ask me more questions. But instead, he just looks at me. His eyes look over my face so much that I start to feel a little self-conscious—as if sitting with a billionaire fifteen-year-old boy doesn’t do that enough already.
“Okay,” he says, leaning back and putting his arm on the back of the bench. “What can I call you, then?”
I look at him. That’s it? No interrogation? No nothing?
I swallow.
“Umm…Evie,” I say, tucking a piece of hair behind my hair.
“It’s what my Nan calls me. She’s the only one who does.
My mom says it’s childish. She says Genevieve carries a little more, I don’t know…
seriousness…to it. But I don’t much care.
Evie is really the only name that ever made me feel like me.
But my mom refuses to call me anything but Genevieve. ”
He thinks for a minute, his lips moving from side to side. Then, he sticks out his hand to me.
“It’s nice to meet you, Evie,” he says with a smile. I can’t help but smile back as I take it. “Now, let’s get you back for sixth period.”