He She It

eighteen: eighty-two year old churchgoers

"Hey, it's Lilly! I'm not here right now, but you can leave a-"

"Shit," Eve said into her phone, just as the beep sounded for her to start her message. She took a deep breath and sniffed into the receiver. "Hi, Lil. It's Eve. I really, really need to speak to you. I - I don't know what to do, Lil. Please call me back."

Out of the five messages she'd left, this was perhaps the most coherent. The first two had just been her swearing into the phone and then sobbing until she was cut off, and the third and fourth hadn't been much better (she'd nearly been hit by a motorbike halfway through leaving the fourth, and so it had ended on a loud 'Jesus fucking Christ, I nearly died,' which she figured was probably not an acceptable note to finish on).

Now, she just needed Lilly to pick up. She really, really needed Lilly to pick up, because she was walking through the part of town where beer cans and graffiti ('James is a fag,' and 'suzi sucKs dick,' among other delights) were part of the decor, and in about half an hour when the sun went down she knew that the people drinking that beer and painting that graffiti would come out, and she doubted they were particularly nice to teenage girls in floods of tears.

Her phone started ringing just as a group of boys walked by, and if she hadn't been so relieved, she might have been a little mad at Grace for changing her ringtone to 'I'm A Barbie Girl.' They'd evidently had just the right amount of cheap beer and weed to find that hilarious, though, and their only response to was to start imitating the singer as they stumbled towards the nearest pub.

Eve fished her phone from her pocket, and her heart sank almost immediately. It was her Dad.

She didn't pick up.

"Nice ringtone, Hiller."

On Eve's list of people she didn't want to meet down an alleyway while she was having an emotional breakdown, Michael Brooks was about number three - right after Mr Hades (who she was even less of a fan of now) and her Aunt Heather, who dealt with people crying in a similar way that Lilly dealt with preteens: by trying to ignore them, and then whacking them with the nearest available object.

The last time Eve had cried in front of her, she'd been hit around the head with a cucumber. That was also, she realised, the last time that her Dad had told her to 'man the hell up,' which was now almost funny in a sadistic sort of way.

And speaking of sadistic, Michael was now hesitantly placing his hand on her shoulder and asking her if she okay in a tone that suggested it was a phrase he'd never said before (at least, not without following it up with: "because you're about to not be, bitch"). She sniffed again, wiped her eyes with the end of her sleeve, and forced a smile.

"I'll be fine," she said, though what she really wanted to say was: 'my parents hate me, and I don't know what to do, and Lilly's not picking up her fucking phone and I'm not entirely sure I actually want to be alive, right now. Also, get your hand off my shoulder, it's freaking me out.' "I just - I need to see Lilly, and she's not answering her phone."

Michael sighed and - thank God - finally took his hand off her shoulder. "Come on, loser," he said, and somehow managed to make it sound strangely endearing. "Follow me."

"Wha - where are we going?"

"I'm walking you to Lilly's house," he said, heading back down the alleyway and gesturing for Eve to follow him. She did, jogging a little to catch up. "I used to take Brianna there. It's about a fifteen minute walk from here."

"You can just point me in the right direction," she said, because their interactions might have progressed from him making a gay joke and then punching her in the mouth, but she still wasn't sure she wanted to go on a walk with him. "Seriously, you don't have to walk there with me."

"No offence, Ad - Eve," he said, wincing a little at his mistake. "But I don't think it's a great idea for you to walking down here alone, especially not crying." As if to emphasise his point, a couple of drunk men came staggering towards them, one of them flicking a penknife up and down in his hands. "See? They'd murder you."

"How do you know I'm not a master of self-defence?"

Michael scanned her up and down and grinned. "Because you're you."

When they reached the end of the alleyway, Eve paused and looked up at him. "I think I can take it from here, thanks," she said, because even she didn't require a guardian to make a trip across a park and Lilly's estate, which was mostly home to pensioners and families that were so typically suburban they could all have come straight out of a children's book (because God forbid a child got the impression that families could be anything other than a Mummy and Daddy that loved each other very, very much). Michael, however, either seemed to think that eighty-two year old churchgoers posed a direct threat to Eve's mortality, or he had nothing better to do on a Tuesday night than walk a girl he'd previously hated across a field. "Michael? You can go, now."

He gave her a tight smile. "You're not the only one that doesn't want to go home tonight, Eve," he said, and then started walking again. Eve figured he probably wasn't the sort of guy that liked to talk his problems out, (in fact, she was living evidence that he preferred to punch them out) and so she didn't ask for details as she followed him across the road. "What's up with you, anyway?"

"Take a wild guess," she mumbled, rolling her eyes. "If you need a hint, it has something to do with me changing my name and wearing skirts."

"Ah," he said, and there was silence for a moment. Eve assumed he wasn't particularly accustomed to comforting transgender girls that had just been screamed at by their parents, and so she shrugged like it hadn't ripped her heart out of her chest and saved both of them the pain of hearing his attempt at trying to comfort her.

"It could be worse," she said - which wasn't exactly a lie, because she was sure it could be, but right now it was hard to imagine anything hurting half as much as the look on her Mum's face when she'd told her she was Eve, thank you very much. "It was just a surprise. They'll probably get used to it."

Michael gave a half-hearted snort. "If I can, anybody can," he said. "I really am sorry about that, by the way. I'm such a dickhead."

"You were a dickhead," Eve corrected. "Now you're almost bearable."

He held his hand over his heart and feigned offence. "You wound me, Eve."

"I wound you?" she said, raising her eyebrows. "Tell that to my split lip, Brooks."

Lilly was just pulling on her coat when they arrived at her front door, and even from outside, Eve could hear her shouts of: "Mum, there's something wrong with Eve, I have to go! Well put my dinner in the oven, then, idiot, this is urgent! Seriously, Mum, I have to - holy shit, is that Michael?"

And even though Eve still felt like she might burst into tears at any given moment, Lilly's face when she opened the door and confirmed that yes, it was Michael, and yes, he had escorted Eve to her house without pushing her into the lake in the park was almost funny enough to make her laugh. Almost.

And then she asked her what was wrong and she collapsed all over again.

"Jesus Christ," Michael said. "Good luck, Lilly."

***

(i just accidentally published this - it was meant to be published about wednesday, but i was copying it into a word document and then i preSSED THE BUTTON AND BEFORE I COULD UNPUBLISH IT SOMEBODY VOTED SO I FELT TOO BAD WHOOPS HO LY SHIT YOU WERE FAST OKAY BYE. but anyway if this has mistakes/ isn't that great it may still need to be edited okay enjoy your early update??)