Evan sped down the concrete streets with his six friends: Jay, Jake, Sunny, Steve, Johnny, and Niki right by his side. Their worn bikes glided across the smooth road. All of them – except for Evan – smiled without any worries. Evan opened his mouth to speak, but closed it, fearing what his friends would say. Soon, they all stopped at their local ice cream shop, San Diego Ice Cream Co. While Sunny ordered mint chocolate chip ice cream, Evan felt his heart pounding against his chest questioning whether Evan should just admit the truth or procrastinate more.
As they were all enjoying their ice cream, Steve announced that he had to leave so he wasn’t late for his ice skating lesson.
“Wait-” Evan blurted out before he could overthink and shut his mouth, “I’m moving.” Thick, fragile silence covered the ice cream shop for several minutes
“When?” Johnny stuttered, looking at Evan with scared eyes.
“Tomorrow,” Evan couldn’t even look at his shocked friends, so he just stared at the pink and white tiles that covered the ground.
Most of his friends were too stunned to speak, and Sunny barely could without stuttering: “Why- why do you have to move?”
“I brought up wanting to go to New York a few months ago, and I didn’t know my parents would actually buy a house there; By the time I found out it was too late,” Evan lied. Recent memories of his father’s loud voice warning him not to tell the truth buzzed through his head, keeping him silent.
All of Evan’s friends stared at the cold floor as he clenched his teeth to try to stop the tears in the corners of his eyes from falling.
“I’ll miss you all,” Evan’s voice was barely a whisper, and he wasn’t sure if his friends even heard him.
Evan walked home, ignoring the drops of rain starting to leak from the sky. As he trudged through the gathering puddles, his phone vibrated with a notification. Hopelessly, he lifted his phone to see a notification from Jay: “Why did you lie?” Evan stopped to relive the moment only several hours earlier:
Evan’s father, dressed in a neat suit, tie, and emotionless face, stepped into Evan’s room as he was doomscolling to try to forget he had to leave California behind. The thought wouldn’t leave his mind no matter how hard he tried to block it out,
“Evan,” he muttered carelessly, “Don’t make me the villain. This job is much better, and I can’t have your friends on my doorstep begging me to reject the job last minute. Tell them you wanted this.”
“You already make a lot of money. Why did you have to accept that job?”
Evan’s dad stood, not answering.
“Dad?” Evan’s face looked up with sadness and the smallest spark of hope that he would stay.
“Don’t make me the villain,” His dad left and closed the door, shattering Evan’s hopes.
As he went back to his phone, he saw a familiar face outside the window.
Evan opened his eyes wide with realization: Jay overheard his dad yelling through the thin walls. Evan stared at his phone before slowly typing two words: “I’m sorry”
He slid his phone back into his pocket and kept dragging his feet across the wet concrete.
The days passed, and Jay, Jake, Sunny, Steve, Johnny, and Niki continued to spend time as six. Jay never told the others that Evan lied. Sometimes they would text or call Evan, but most times he would respond blankly or just not respond at all. The six friends always felt empty, like there was a part of them missing. They all knew Evan needed to come back, but they could tell he most likely wasn’t returning.
However, on a random Tuesday morning, Sunny’s phone buzzed with a text message from Evan: “My parents got divorced, and my mom found a good job in California. I’m going back home with her.” Sunny stared at his cellphone in disbelief.
When he finally snapped back to reality, he texted Evan back, “When,”
“Thursday. Nobody bought our old house.”
A bright smile lit up Sunny’s face as he sent a message to the group chat with the other five, “Evan just told me he’s coming back!” The replies were instant, and filled with excitement. Sunny added Evan to the group chat, and everyone else welcomed him back joyfully.
Thursday came quickly, and as soon as Evan’s plane landed in San Diego, he met up with his friends and biked back to the ice cream store so they could catch up.
