Re: The Story Begins Here: NYU School Campus

[Tiger-Lily]

Evelyn caught her breath after the walking while she waited for the call to go through.

She could hear the tone and then an answering machine voice picked up.

"Hey, this is Luke Farrell. I'm sorry Im unavailable but I'll get back to you ASAP if you bother to leave a message with your name and phone number. BEEEEEEP"

"I have his landline. Maybe he's like, in another room. Should I try that?" Evelyn offered.

[AaezRaza]

"Yeah, we can try that," Tiffany responded, "I don't understand why we need to anyway. What's the point of his cellphone anyway? I mean, it should be sticking to him like an appendix. Anyway, try the landline."

[Tiger-Lily]

Evelyn nodded, flipping through her contacts quickly. Her head began to ache looking at the tiny screen. She found Luke's landline and dialed, putting the phone to her ear.

She glanced over to check on Nova - "Hey! Nova, venir!"

The puppy was pulling some girl's shoelaces apart while she looked the other way. He looked up, yipped sadly and trotted over.

The call went through this time. "Sentarse," Evelyn told him, and he sat down on his rump at Tiffany's feet, looking pitifully up at her with wide brown eyes.

Someone picked up on the other end.

[Tiger-Lily]

Evelyn froze, eyes meeting Tiffany's in plain horror. Of course. Of course. Luke was probably asleep. he hadn't answered his cell but he had to answer the house phone.

Evelyn swallowed painfully and held the phone away from her ear, covering it with her other hand. "It's Ja-James," she muttered to Tiffany. "I don't really want to talk to him. Can you?"

[AaezRaza]

"Oooohh," Tiffany took the phone from Evelyn, "Sure, lovely."

Tiffany took a deep breath and put the phone to her ear.

"Hi, James?" Tiffany spoke, "It's me, Tiffany...remember?"

[Guest]

[[ James from his apartment but I'm posting here to avoid more confusion]]

James heard Tiffany's soft voice over the phone, and he almost forgot what she sounded like it had been a year or so since he had last talked to her.

He was actually relieved to hear her, he didn't really have anything against her, he smiled, "Hey of course I remember you, you're hard to forget Tiff, how are you?"

[AaezRaza]

Tiffany had expected him to be extremely cold to him, for some odd reason.

"Umm..." She began, "I'm alright. How are you? I don't know if you've heard, I'm NYU for a week."

[Guest]

"I'm doing okay." He lied, although since he knew that Tiffany was with Evelyn he was probably sure that she had filled in Tiffany about what was going on.

He shook his head and decided to talk before she thought that he hung up on her, "Yeah I heard Luke had told me, that's cool, but I'm guessing you called to talk to him?"

[AaezRaza]

"Oh yeah well," Tiffany swallowed, "Me and...I was actually thinking of hanging out with him. But if he's like asleep or something, I can always meet up with him later."

[Guest]

James raised an eyebrow, she sounded a bit uncomfortable but he had to admit it had been awhile since they had last spoken, "Um okay that's fine I can tell him you called then."

[AaezRaza]

Tiffany swallowed. She couldn't just leave James hanging.

"James?" She asked, "Do YOU want to meet up?"

[Tiger-Lily]

Evelyn had ignored this conversation so far, kneeling to ruffle Nova's head and rub his tummy when he rolled over happily.

That is, until Tiffany said that. Evelyn felt her jaw drop and she looked up at the tall girl, green eyes widening. Tiffany might be trying to be nice but...

Evelyn looked around for a trash can, suddenly feeling nauseous. "What are you doing?" she muttered, straightening. Tiffany hadn't told James she was with Evelyn.

[Guest]

Fuck...

James had really wished he hadn't answered the phone right now, and he really wished that Luke had been awake to take this call instead of him! Next time he was sleeping in late, that is if he could.

Not that he had anything against Tiffany, she was a cool gal. Its just what the hell would they talk about? Her and Evelyn were friends and he felt like all he would do is sit there and rant about her.

So he decided to steer the conversation back to her and Luke, "Um do you mean like, me, you and Luke meet up or...." His voice trailed off.

Why was he suddenly so bad at this? Usually he was better at steering awkward conversations like this, for now, he decided he'd shut up.

[AaezRaza]

"Yeah we could do that ...Or...umm...I don't know. You could just come over. I'm on my way to like some random cafe, but we could meet up somewhere else," she spoke, slightly enjoying the situation, "Unless, you don't want to come..."

[Tiger-Lily]

Evelyn felt dizzy - the blood rushed from her face and she felt her jaw drop. What the hell was Tiffany doing? James along on his own? With no Luke to mediate?

Evelyn leaned back against the bench, gnawing her lip. "What are you doing??" she mouthed to Tiffany, not bothering to hide her horrified expression.

[Guest]

Fuck , fuck, fuck fuck! !@$##@%#$^%$

How she managed to turn this around on him?! Its not that he didn't want to hang out with her, but holy crap. Okay he needed to calm down first of all, why the hell was he riling himself up so much? It was just Tiffany, he had no bad blood with her, she was just a friend.

James covered the mouth piece so she wouldn't hear him taking a deep breath like an overly panicked teenage nerd, who forgot his inhaler, he brought the phone back up to him and answered smoothly, "No of course I want to hang out with you, I'll come meet you and we can hang out."

[AaezRaza]

Tiffany shrugged to Evelyn. She'd offered him out of courtesy, and he'd be nice enough to actually pull through with it.

Oh shit, he's actually coming.

"Okay, ummm..." She tried to think fast, "Why don't I meet you at the dorms in an hour? Okay, bye!"

She hung up.

"Okay, so he's actually coming." She spoke in hurry, "Now it's upto you. We can either go back and drop you off, and you can rest and all, while I hang out with James for like some time. Or you could be mature about this, and just...stay with me. What do you say?"

[Tiger-Lily]

Evelyn, admitting she was a coward when it came to James, instantly said, "I'll, um, you know, you probably have a lot of catching up to do. Tell him about Caleb and all. You can hang out in my dorm room. I'll uh..." She paused and her face reddened. "I'll go hang with Seth or something."

She couldn't believe she'd actually said that. But if it meant getting away from James, she'd do it.

[AaezRaza]

"What?!" Tiffany yelled, "You're actually leaving? That's no fair."

She gave a small pout but she understood perfectly.

"Fine, you can go to stupid Seth, " she said, "Just dont make another sex tape or something. Lets go back to dorms now."

[Tiger-Lily]

Evelyn threw her a grateful smile and as they walked back, a thought occurred to her.

What if James said something to Tiffany about her? What if he...James was so convincing when he wanted to be.

Evelyn felt sick all over again. She fought down the bile in her stomach, pausing as they entered the lobby and leaning against the wall to regain her breath as Tiffany hit the button. "Tiff? Don't believe anything he says, please?"

[[Tiff and Evelyn to Dorms]]

[Tiger-Lily]

[[Evelyn and James from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]]]

Evelyn crossed her legs and rested her bag on her lap before turning to look at James when he sat down. She shifted away just a bit, putting her bag between them. She fought down her sudden annoyance, remembering she had to be civil if she wanted him to be.

It was harder than she'd thought. Evelyn bit her bottom lip so hard, it began to bleed like some sort of magic lipstick. "So what do you want to know?" she asked stiffly.

[Guest]

James contemplated that he didn't really know what he wanted to find out first. It was a bit hard to believe still that so much had happened to them just within two weeks of being in the city.

Not really ever good at deciding things James just went with, "Tell me just everything, I don't know like why you've been so different since we've come here. Why you dressed like you did at the party? Whatever, all of it I want to know."

[Tiger-Lily]

Evelyn bit her lip, debating just how much she wanted to tell him. When she'd said she wanted to clear things, it didn't mean she was going to tell him everything.

"At that party...I didn't think any of you would be there. Not even Jake," she began. "Alexis was upset over that whole Luke thing. I guess I was mad at you. I don't know. We just didn't want to be us for a night. That's all it was." She swallowed and began digging in her purse for a hair clip.

"I just....that's irrelevant to you and me, James. Thing is, I've never....I've never really felt like I could ever, you know, be with you and be comfortable with it," she said honestly, finally finding the clip and closing her bag again. "I was never really myself aorund you, even at Ash Creek. I mean, I always had a role, if you will. I was always somehow pushed into playing that. And everyone sort of assumed that...that we'd end up together."

[Guest]

James listened to that and he never really did believe that there wasn't a time when neither of them could be together. He always thought at some point they would end up together but like Luke had said to him and was pretty dead on about this, that they both knew so many things to say to really just tear each other down.

"So what was this role that you think you had to play? My girlfriend? Listen I thought we had like I don't know chemistry. Like you would challenge me, and the fact that you didn't throw yourself at me like all the other girls was just so refreshing. It was just... I don't know I know we probably couldn't have worked out... but." Jame sighed, why were his words so flustered? It was because with other girls he could be a smooth talker but he knew around Evelyn.

That was nearly impossible.

[Tiger-Lily]

Evelyn struggled to find a way to say this without offending and/or pissing him off. She reached up and clipped up her hair into a knot at the back of her head to stall.

"You don't...." She paused. This had never really occurred to her until she realized how Jake treated her. It was different from the way James had.

And that was why she'd hated it when Jake had called her beautiful.

"You don't seem to...you don't see me as a normal person," she said quietly. "You always kept me up on a pedestal. Always treated me like I was...like I was some thing that provided a challenge for you. Sam did it too, so it wasn't just you. I was always that pretty thing everyone wanted for different reasons. Sam wanted me for my looks. I know he did. regardless of what he said."

Evelyn's voice turned bitter and she kept her gaze on the distant Freshmen building. "You, James, you made me assume the role of, I don't know what to call it, but after some time, I was always being pushed into that role around you. That temptress if you will. And sometimes, even I want to be acknowledged for who I am, as opposed to who I seem to be. It gets suffocating always playing a siren." She fell silent, unsure of what to say next.

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