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A seemingly shadowed hill lay before me, beyond a what should have been green meadow. Although spring had arrived and showed itself for the first time, the trees were leafless and gray; the deathless trees of winter freckled the hillside amongst them. I felt as though I were a visitor in my own land, nature being unfamiliar after too many years of living in a forest of buildings, where the only animals are the cars that roar by. On that tiny hilltop, those buildings sat behind me, but my vision was scarred by the asphalt road we sat next to. It was an unfortunate reminder of the times we live in, where no place is sacred to the convenience of man and their dire need to get to where they’re going before they leave. I imagine when spring came in fully, the leaves and grass were green and birds colored the sky. But that road was a constant reminder of how nature is only second to us and our busy lives as we take advantage of the earth that has mothered us since the dawn of time.
A dozen or so chocolate chip cookies warned in a plastic bag on the blue and white checkered blanket. Crumbs littered the fabric as the cookies were periodically taken. Conner sat with his legs hooked in the white fence I leaned against, absentmindedly petting the singular cow that lived in the bright red barn we sat by. It mooed soft and low in appreciation, and its call brought me back to the days of my childhood. When neither my mother nor my father was able to babysit my sisters and I, we would be driven to my aunt’s house; an old, light blue building on a farm. More than a handful of children were always there; running and screaming across the horse field, wadding in search for tadpoles and frogs in the small man-made pond, staring wide-eyed at the purple dinosaur or big yellow bird that flickered across the television screen.
I was jerked out of my reminiscence as Conner’s elbow jammed into my eye socket. Through tears and blurred vision, I saw him hanging by the fence with one hand, upside down, his other hand holding cookies, smiling apologetically. “Sorry, Evelyn.” His hair quavered lightly in the breeze, and he winked at me before pulling himself back up. He shoveled one cookie into his mouth, crumbled the other in his hands and held it out for the lone cow, which licked the morsels greedily from his cupped hands.
“Is that really the best thing for her?” I asked as my eyelid twitched in response to the tears leaking from my eyes.
“Well, she seems to be enjoying it,” he responded, spraying cookie bits into the air in front of him.
I sighed and tried to redirect my attention to my new found respect for nature, but I had lost my concentration. I stared down at my blank notebook and that at my watch. “It’s getting kind of late. We should probably head back soon.”
“No one will care if we’re a few minutes late; let’s stay here a while longer. It’s so nice and quiet, and look, the cow likes me.”
I stood up and shook out the blanket. “You didn’t think of anything to write about, did you?”
“I’ll probably write about cows or something. I’m not worried about it.” He scratched the cow behind her ears.
I shook my head and started to fold the blanket. I wished I had Conner’s carefree do-
whatever-whenever attitude. I was always worrying about assignments, or deadlines, or natural/man-
made disasters destroying the earth. I was so paranoid and uptight. He could not have had a single word written down, and he would just sit during the five minuets before notebooks were collected, quickly jotting down something, and then toss it to the teacher. It was only the second week, and he was already comfortable enough with the program to do things like that. I was already thinking I needed my parents to send me some sort of anti-anxiety medication.
As I sealed the cookie bag, I gazed at him sitting on the fence, eyes half closed, wind combing his hair, looking out at the scenery, and I was so envious. Right then it was there I decided to try my best in being what he was: comfortable.
Conner was the kid that was joking with the teachers the second and third days of school; the kid everyone liked and would talk to, no matter what click they were in. He played guitar and piano, and had a gorgeous voice. He dressed in clothes from Salvation Army; the good ones you never manage to find when you’re there. He read for the sheer pleasure of it and no one thought it was stupid. He wrote amazing stories and poems in minuets flat, and was funny without being mean. He was everything I wished I was, minus the genitalia.
In my English class, I sat in the back corner and Conner sat next to me. The desk in front of me was empty, so he was my only neighbor. While everyone took notes on books and grammar, I wrote little things in my notebook, cartoons and little exerts from stories and poems I would write later.
The teacher, Mr. Kuckert, was blathering on about some book I had finished reading the second day we got it, so I tuned in and out. In the margin of my notebook I darkened the outline of stick figure cheerleader, who was tumbling through the air after falling off the top of her pyramid, and planning an escape route if a crazed gunman was loose in the school.
Mr. Kuckert was deep into the subject of symbolism in our great American novel. One of the girls who wouldn’t be able to figure out how to fasten a velcro shoe was trying to get on his good side by analyzing the color of the house and then comparing it to our angst ridden generation, or something like that. All I can really remember is that she would up her voice an octave when she talked in class so it sliced through my head, and that she wasn’t making an iota of sense.
“Do you know what we need?” she chirped.
“The last ten minuets of our lives back?” I mumbled, coloring in the cheerleader’s skirt as she lay on the floor in the second panel of my comic, and thinking of ways to construct a ladder out of clothing if I had to climb out the second floor window.
I heard a loud snort from the desk beside me. I looked over and Conner was smiling at me, his green eyes shining through his shaggy brown bangs as he held in his laughter. I grinned sheepishly back at him.
“Is everything alright, Conner?” Mr. Kuckert asked.
“Oh yeah. It’s just all this dust is aggravating my sinuses.” He coughed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“There are tissues on the desk here. Now, if everyone could get there journals out, I’d like you to write a response...”
“I can always hear you mumbling under your breath, but I can never make out what you’re saying.” His voice was low and soft, and his smile was still on his lips. He reached under his desk and pulled out his journal. “You need to say things louder; the monotony needs to be broken every once in a while.”
“I don’t want to be mean,” I whispered. I left my journal untouched and continued to work on my comic.
“I don’t care, and I’m the only one who can hear you. You’re Evelyn, right?”
“Most people call me Evie.”
“Evelyn it is, then.” He left his journal unopened and started coloring in the cover with his markers.
After that - I don’t know how or why - we became really close friends. We’d write stupid little notes to each other, and sit in the corner of the cafeteria to eat instead of at a table. Through Conner I was able to actually talk to people, and made a few other acquaintances, but none were as close as he was. He was always at my house, plucking at his guitar or sitting at my mom’s piano, working on a new song and eating our food. My mother never minded he was a guy; I think she was just happy I had a friend.
Toward the end of our sophomore year, I finally convinced my mother to let him stay over, him on the futon and me on the pullout couch. We ended up staying up till five watching movies and crashing together on the pullout. My mom has a picture of us passed out: my mouth is wide open and Conner’s curled in a ball with his head on my stomach. My mother didn’t freak out, so Conner pretty much lived at my house on weekends from then on.
Now, it was the summer before our senior year. After being in honor’s English for two years, the school helped pay for the two of us to go to a summer writing workshop at the local college. As usual, Conner was everyone’s friend, and I would wait until people were done fawning over him to hangout. I’ve never been jealous of him, nor will I ever, but I did get lonely. I just can’t seem to make friends. Luckily, I had him.
“You just ate, like, a dozen cookies.” I stuffed the baggie, blanket and notebook into my side bag. “How can you be hungry?”
“I’m a growing young lad; I eat a lot, Evelyn.”
I cringed. I hate my name. Evelyn. It sounds like an old lady’s name. Like I should be playing bingo with Edna and Blanch. Everyone calls me Evie. Everyone, except Conner. He says that Evelyn sounds more elegant and is more fitting than Evie. I say he’s out of his darling little mind.
He put his own notebook in his messenger bag. “Well, let us linger not,” he said smiling at me.
I pulled my bag over my shoulder. “The let’s away,” I replied, returning the smile and hooking my arm in his. Arm in arm, we made our way down the hill to the campus.
We’d only gotten about ten yards when I stopped. “Wait. I have an idea.” I took off my bag and thrust it into Conner’s arms. I lied down, covered my face with my hands, and rolled down the hill.
The grass tickled my arms and legs, and I giggled to myself as I picked up a little speed. As the ground leveled out, I felt myself slowing down. When I stopped, I stood up, but ground slipped up from beneath me feet and fell down again, laughing. I ran my hand through my hair; it was knotted and full of dirt and grass. But who cared?
A few yards from where I stopped were our bags. Conner was rolling down the hill himself and I could hear him laughing; loud and unabashedly
I didn’t realize how fast he was going, and before I could get out of the way he barreled into me.
“Ow!” I was laughing so hard my sides hurt and my eyes were watering. Conner had landed on top of me and I could feel his laughter tremble through his chest.
“You are such a weird girl.” He rolled over and propped his head on his hand, his elbow on my chest. He smiled and shook his head.
“What?” I laughed. “You’re a seventeen-year-old boy who feeds cookies to cows. I’m a seventeen-year-old girl that rolls down hills. You can’t call me weird.” I crossed my arms on the ground above my head. “I think we’re both perfectly normal.”
Conner looked at me, a sort of confused look in his eyes, and an odd kind of smile touching his lips.
“What? Do I have chocolate on my mouth?” I ran my tongue over my lips. “Did I get it?”
He leaned down and kissed me, and my head burst into random thoughts all at once.
What Why is Conner kissing me He does have soft lips, though Conner’s my best friend, I don’t like him like that Do I This isn’t that bad, actually Don’t I He’s perfect in every way.
This was the boy who came over and watched movies with me. Who helped my with my writing and let me hear the songs he wrote. Who listened to me complain about school and how girls were stupid and boys were stupider. Who let me cry on his shoulder when I lost my father in ninth grade.
My stomach quivered, not unpleasantly, and I decided to stop thinking. I wrapped my arms around his neck and returned the kiss. There I was, getting my (I hate to admit it , but) first kiss, and it was perfect.
“What was that for?” I asked when we broke apart.
“I never realized how perfect you are before.” He chewed his lower lip; something he did when he was embarrassed. His hands were on either side of head, and he looked down into my face.
“Yeah,” I scoffed, “that’s me.”
“You are a paragon.”
“I’m chubby, I have a gap between my front teeth, and I’m damaged goods. I don’t know what you’re talking about .”
“You’re beautiful, Evelyn. You’ll see it; I’ll show you.”
For the first time, I loved the sound of my name.
