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Distractions
Back to: Winner Takes All Next: The Family Ailment
Chapter 45: Distractions


Sometimes it was just plain necessary to have a quiet moment, away from all the excitement and drama of social engagements. Evelyn used to thrive off that kind of energy but as she sat on her bed in the Cosgrove Scholarship House, looking over her class materials and notes, she realized that wasn't really what she enjoyed anymore—seeking the attention of many, finding connections she could use to gain influence at a later time, playing the game of intrigue like a carefully calculated game of chess—it was all so exhausting and as she had learned, could come back to bite her in the worst of ways. She should have been focusing on studying since she knew another test was coming up soon in her Anthropology course. However, her thoughts had wandered off into a rare moment of introspection.

The fact was, she was a daughter of a political family in the public eye and her ongoing, involuntary affair with the maestro ensured she would never live a drama-free life.

She let out a deep, despairing, sigh and shuffled through her papers.

The door opened to her room suddenly without so much as one quick knock of warning.

Evelyn jumped, slightly startled, and gritted her teeth at the interruption, "What?"


The blonde that had intruded seemed to shrink back a bit at Evelyn's sharp questioning. It was a simple one-word inquiry but there was a whole slew of contempt and annoyance laced within it. Evelyn's power as the president of her scholarship house wasn't maintained through congeniality, but fear. As of late, she hadn't been as domineering or direct as she was known to be and she'd often been scarce or just plain unavailable to her housemates. They weren't complaining of her absence, but Evelyn could tell that maybe her power was being questioned and felt the tiniest of hints of some sort of subversion in her house the past week. She had chosen to ignore it; she had much bigger problems at the moment.

"Hi Evelyn Jane, sorry I didn't knock," the same housemate said a bit timidly.

"What do you need, Saskia?" Evelyn asked and focused on arranging her papers to order them by date. She always dated her notes so she could study chronologically.

Saskia seemed a bit braver as she stepped further into the room and leaned her back against the door's edge. "You seem a lot busier as of late. You missed the meeting."

Fuck.

No wonder she had been getting dirty looks all week. She had completely forgotten about the weekly house meeting. But it wasn't as if she could have attended, not when she was busy collaborating with Shaun. She never missed a house meeting before, not one.

"Is something the matter? Are you...okay?" Saskia asked to fill the silence at Evelyn's lack of reply.

Evelyn Jane's contempt was evident in her expression but she quickly wiped it away and looked up, projecting a collected, poised face. If Saskia was looking for any kind of weakness, she wasn't going to find it now.

"I'm fine."


Evelyn's lie was said with such conviction, that she almost believed it herself. Saskia gave a hesitant nod and small, cordial smile before leaving. When the door was closed, Evelyn all but crumpled into a ball onto her bed. It was entirely taxing to project this facade that her life was in order when it was spiraling out of her control...but she couldn't ever allow her family or anyone else to find out about her transgressions and the inevitable shit-storm for all of them that would ensue if it became public knowledge. She'd always been good at keeping secrets, lying, and manipulating her way in and out of situations but now all of it had piled up so much it felt like it was crushing her. So much, so that she was too distracted to even study without worrying about it every waking moment.

Her grandmother would have chided her for laying around and moping, she would have said it was 'unbecoming of a young lady.' Evelyn resembled her grandmother closely, at least that is what all of the family said. The woman had passed away several years ago but her etiquette lessons had been drilled into Evelyn from a young age. She let out another forlorn sigh and pulled herself up because as much as she hated the predicament she was in, she knew the truth of how she got there and could only blame herself.


If only she had someone to listen to her troubles. She didn't need them to find a resolution necessarily, it would have just been nice—to have someone to tell them to. That was the complicated part though, because telling anyone was a risk of the truth being found.

She slid off the bed and caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. She approached it and pulled the pins out of her hair, letting the black shroud fall around her face, and then ran her fingers through it, liking the feel of its silky texture. She had grown it out quite a bit since her high school days after keeping it short most of her life. Victoria had told her on several occasions that the longer length made her look softer and her mother proclaimed that it accentuated her natural beauty. Evelyn gave an unladylike snort at the thought; it was kind of a pain to take care of—a lot more brushing, conditioning, and styling than she had been used to as a youth.

Another thing about her reflection that was different was that today she wasn't wearing makeup; which was the norm for her everyday look. Cosmetics were a requirement of going out into public but she had stayed shut-in most of the day and didn't bother applying any, despite it being the last day of fall break. She hadn't even put her contacts in, so was sporting her old pair of glasses. She never wore them outside of her house, not since she first got the pair in middle school and was teased for it. Reputation was everything to Evelyn, it was what she cared most about. That was another lesson from her grandmother that had stuck.


Looking at herself now, she knew that her obsession with it was the reason she didn't keep friends easily. Friends didn't last very long due to something or other about them that threatened her reputation—they had been too poor, too unrefined, or too unintelligent to have the privilege of her company and the chance to reflect on her negatively. It was worse for any romances she bothered to have. Her standards for companionship were impossibly high and extremely shallow. She may have openly scoffed at the concept of 'love' but even she at times felt lonely and had the deepest desire to find something akin to it.

As she thought more about it though, she realized her standards weren't impossible.

Shaun Piper was vile but he technically was all she desired in a partner—rich, driven to succeed, handsome—at least for his age, well-spoken, and viciously intelligent. The fact of that made her stomach churn with uneasiness. He wasn't kind, he wasn't patient, nor was he honest but how could she expect certain attributes in a partner when she herself lacked those very qualities? It was almost as if Shaun and her...were two sides of the same coin and that thought struck a great sense of self-loathing inside of her. She couldn't stand the sight of her reflection anymore and turned her back on it.

She stepped behind her dressing screen and removed her clothing, draping her pants and shirt over it to put away for later, and changed into her pajamas to ready for bed. She had an early day anyway, and she couldn't pull off the concentration to study anymore that night. She removed her glasses and the world became slightly blurry. The Orbinsons may have been blessed with competence and vision in politics but they lacked eyesight. Everyone in her family needed correctional lenses of some sort. Evelyn and her mother were the only ones who constantly hid their handicap from the public. It wasn't like the public would look down on her for something as simple as wearing glasses but even Evelyn hid even the tiniest of her flaws. Anything less than perfect was unacceptable—it was yet another thing that her grandmother taught her that she had adhered to. Suffice it to say, her grandmother had been a heavy influence on the way Evelyn had grown up.

At the thought of nothing less than perfect, the Ambassador's face suddenly graced her mind's eye and a fraction of her distress seemed to ebb. Zan had proven to be of good company—unexpected but appreciated. She was actually looking forward to seeing him again at her father's election party at the end of the week. He had given her his personal number after their tour the other day had concluded before she had left his mansion, and he'd told her that she could call him anytime. After all, they were now friends according to him.

Maybe it was time to put that to the test. She looked at her clock and it was nearly 10:30 p.m.

She had his number programmed into her phone, so picked it up from where it lay on her desk and hit the 'dial' button. She put her cell to her ear and waited while it rang, a sense of anxiousness filling her in the form of a tummy flutter.


"Hello Evelyn," she heard him answer. Again, she felt something different about herself—some sort of shift in her at being addressed by just her first name. She didn't even know what to say, she had nothing of great importance or interest to speak of and felt a little foolish for wasting his time.

"Evelyn?"

"Sorry, I..." she apologized for the initial silence and tried to suppress that wild flutter in her gut at the way he said her name, "I know it's late but I wanted to call you and see how the rest of your weekend went."

He gave a small laugh, "Thanks for your concern, it was just fine. In fact, I went back to the Gardens today and made a new friend."

"Oh?"

"Yes, a musician. He played music for Sebastian and even spoke my language. I'm quite taken with him."

Evelyn paused, wondering if that last part was a translational error. Some words, she knew, could be tricky to understand between languages. She supposed he meant that he found his new friend very interesting.

"How have you been?" he asked in turn.

"I've been trying to study for school but my mind is...distracted," she replied honestly.

"I find the best way to clear one's head of distractions is to discuss them out loud. I usually confide in Sebastian. He doesn't know what I'm saying of course, but it's still nice that he listens," Zan explained which garnered a small, surprising chuckle from Evelyn, which only got louder as she heard the dog make a chuff of acknowledgment on the other end of the line. Zan must have had her on speakerphone.


She thought what he'd said was amusing about talking to Sebastian. He really did love that dog of his, no doubt near his master at that very moment. Her grandmother had a vicious little lapdog named Ginger when she was a girl. It was her first experience with dogs and Ginger had bitten her hand when Evelyn had picked up one of the dog's toys. Ever since then, Evelyn had been somewhat apprehensive of being around them.

She told as much to Zan who tutted in sympathy and told her she should come visit him again to get better acquainted with Sebastian. According to Zan, Sebastian would never bite a soul. Sebastian was the perfect dog—friendly, obedient, playful, and loving. The canine's demeanor sounded nearly as perfect as the Ambassador was shaping up to be.

How did men like him even exist? There had to be a catch—no one was realistically so impeccable, not without a handful of lies and a good PR team to spin them.

"I'm curious to know where you will take me on our next outing," Zan mused.

Evelyn hadn't given it much thought, but a part of her genuinely wanted to please him, to take him somewhere that would make him beam as happily as he did when he had seen the gardens in Memosa Bay. She had an idea.

"You consider yourself an outdoors type of man, yes?"

"Is it that obvious?" he replied in a tone that made her think he was grinning in anticipation that very moment.

There was a place that had recently opened in Isla del Kashmire—a dinner theater. It was outdoors and had a large garden meant for patrons to stroll through and admire. She had heard her mother mention how beautiful it was. It was a perfect spot to take the Ambassador on her next 'tour.'

"Then, I have a place in mind. I don't want to spoil it but I think you would like it very much."

"That's wonderful to hear! I cannot wait to see it."

Zan then went on to talk about Takemizu and asked if she had ever visited his home region. She had not but admitted she wanted to someday, even before meeting him, Takemizu held a sense of mystery to her. She hadn't traveled much outside of Kashmire but only to Twikkii Island for summer vacations since her family owned a beach home there. Zan lamented that he had never been to the tropical getaway, but wouldn't mind going just to see the flowers the region grew.

Of course he would, she thought, suppressing an honest-to-plumbob giggle at his obsession with plants and worked double-hard not to laugh when he asked her about the flowers she had encountered when there.

Before she knew it, she was spending the better part of an hour describing tropical flowers to the Ambassador of Takemizu—the colors, the fragrances, and the petal shapes of what she could remember from the last time she had visited.


"Perhaps next time we go, you should just tag along. There's a guest room on the third floor," Evelyn teased, trying to avoid being convinced to describe a new flower. Her parents had acquired the beach house when she was in third grade. She enjoyed vacations to Twikkii, they had always been so relaxing but they hadn't visited for some time—not when her father was so wrapped up in his campaigns and civic duties.

"I couldn't impose," Zan joked back. They both knew it wasn't a serious offer. How could it be? They had just met each other that week. Also, Evelyn had promised herself not to like him; it seemed as if though Evelyn had broken her promise already the way she enjoyed his laugh and thought maybe she should check out a book about flowers so the next time they saw each other she could impress him with her knowledge about them. The cell phone felt hot on her cheek and she couldn't tell if it was just the battery in her phone from prolonged usage or a succinct blush because she realized that was flirting for the first time in what felt like forever.

A few moments of silence passed.

"Well, I guess I should let you go. It's late after all and—"

"I apologize for speaking at length about native flora, but didn't you have something you wanted to talk about, such as distractions?" he interrupted her attempt to hang up.



Distractions was certainly correct, though now it was of a different caliber; she hadn't thought once about her miserable circumstance when she was talking to Zan. She felt a sting of regret because she did not want to tell her troubles to someone, however, she had just met him and had no idea what he would do or who he would repeat it to if she spoke the truth. As much as she wanted to trust him, she just couldn't. At least not yet.

"No, but thank you for offering to listen."

"Evelyn, I promise you that I will always make time to listen—because you are my friend, and friends listen to each other."

She thanked him and bid him goodnight, feeling more somber than before once the silence settled on her yet again.

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