Another month passed by in the lonesome life of Evelyn Kazinski, the damp gloominess of November giving way to the biting cold of December. Snow fell in droves from an omnipresent wall of endless gray clouds dominating the Shermer skyline, transforming the town below into a living Norman Rockwell painting, a winter wonderland which the kids loved and the adults lamented.
Before Eve knew it, the ten day Christmas break had finally arrived, marking the end of 2018. Despite everything, being turned into a teenage girl and gaining this entirely new, unwanted life, the weirdest thing to the transformed ex-janitor had always been the inexplicable six month jump in time. What was that all about?
But she had no time to ponder the mysteries of the gemstone that had brought her here. Right now, she had more matters to pay attention to. Like her grades.
Eve had once been a straight A student with a sterling GPA. She had aced all of the honors classes Shermer High had, and until recently, had been on the road to attending her pick of whatever Ivy League school she wanted.
Now, thanks to Eugene, all of that had been unceremoniously taken away from her. After it was made clear during a particularly embarrassing Biology lab that she no longer understood the material, the former top student had been bumped back to taking remedial classes earlier in the morning. At home, Eve had even heard her new parents whispering to one another about her seeing a private tutor.
Karen and Howard Kazinski didn't know what to make of their daughter's changes in well... everything. Prior to that one night last October, which Karen refused to even acknowledge, Eve had been their perfect little angel. Now she was starting fights, she perpetually looked like a mess, and she had become a social pariah, consistently coming home straight after school and locking herself in her bedroom. It was like she had become a different person!
Instead of Eve's usually chipper, bubbly personality, she was now consistently sullen and depressed.
Instead of her witty banter and garrulous way of speaking, she now only gave monotone one or two word responses, saying only as much as she needed to before abruptly ending the conversation.
Instead of the warm, caring extrovert that Eve was known for being, she now turned inward, seemingly wanting to be closed off from the world.
She had even put on a couple of pounds, although this only had a negligible effect on Eve's fitness, merely taking her from being "absolutely perfect" to "perfectly healthy for a girl her age".
The married couple of twenty years asked themselves in hushed, guilty tones if they had ever truly known their daughter at all. It's not like they had seen Eve very often in the last few years between all of her extracurriculars and her vibrant social life. Karen and Howard were both busy professionals themselves, and the only times the three of them were ever together as a family anymore was at best...maybe having dinner together three times a week? The odd weekend where Howard wasn't out golfing or Karen wasn't busy with her work friends? As they gazed around their immaculate household, both adults realized to their sadness how un-lived in it looked.
Their fears gave way to a paranoid brainstorming session. Was Eve doing drugs? Had she fallen in with a bad crowd? Did she join a cult? Did her boyfriend dump her? Did she even have a boyfriend? Was she eating Tide Pods? Had...had Eve been sexually assaulted or even raped?
Whatever it was that was bothering her, Eve refused to tell them, even after a particularly unnerving integration from her father. She had also declined Karen's persistent pleas for her to see a therapist.
The red haired girl, whose knotty unkempt mane was increasingly being referred to as a rat's nest behind her back, had made it clear that whatever was causing her changes, it was something that she didn't want to talk about. Reluctantly, Karen and Howard had decided to let their worries go. For now.
**
By contrast, Willow Strasserman and Paige Walters had increasingly inserted themselves into Eve's life, becoming the adoring groupies and unwanted companions of their new hero.
While their initial luncheon with Eve had gone poorly, as Eve was rather dismissive and distant towards the two teenage best friends, Willow and Paige didn't seem to take the hint, as they sat with her in the back of the lunch hall the following day. And the day after that. And the day after that. And the day after that.
"I made you this friendship bracelet!" beamed Willow one day, tying a multicolored band of woven thread across Eve's wrist.
"Gee... thanks" said Eve unenthusiastically, not wanting to hurt Willow's feelings by rejecting her gift, but not really desiring her attention either. She had started to tolerate how they followed her around like lost puppies during school hours, but that didn't mean that she would start having pow wows with them either.
"You're welcome!" answered Willow, grinning through a row of braced teeth, holding up her own wrist to show that she had made herself the same bracelet. "Sorry, I know it's kind of corny and all, but I just wanted to make you something. I'm just really glad how you stuck up for me when nobody else would."
"Don't mention it" said Eve as she struggling to finish her homework.
"What's your favorite Grass Starter, Eve?" asked Paige innocently, somehow expecting the former most popular girl in school to know what that was.
"My favorite what now?"
Paige was interrupted from going on a Pokemon related geek out when a fourth person joined the table.
"Oh, hey Matt" said Willow quietly, her body language noticeably tensing up around the greasy haired boy. He sat between her and Eve, dropping his lunch tray right next to Eve's textbook.
"So what are my three girlfriends up to today? Something obscene, I hope!"
"Gross, Matt" moaned Paige.
"Hey, did any of you hear how Gloria Vanapoulous and Tom Ackerton broke up again?"
"Matt!" yelled Willow, pointing towards Eve.
"What?"
"We don't mention Gloria's name around Eve. It upsets her."
"Really?" asked Matt. He turned towards Eve, who had been ignoring the conversation.
"Eve, does it bother you if I bring up Gloria Vanapoulous?"
"Not really" she answered blankly.
"See!" exclaimed Matt. Willow's face became flushed.
"I was just being considerate is all" answered the tall, dorky art lover defensively. "After all the abuse that...that..." Willow stuttered for a moment as her face took on a slight red tinge as anger welled up inside of her. She was silent for a moment as her eyes darted back and forth and her mouth seemed to fuse itself shut for a moment before she inhaled sharply. "That bitch! After what she put Eve through, I just assumed Eve would be upset, alright? I know that I would be."
Matt and Paige shared a look of surprise while Eve continued to just stare blankly at the trio that had attached themselves to her, watching Willow's face turn red with embarassment from her outburst of uncharacteristic profanity and stared down at the assorted Pokemon cards and her half-eaten sandwich.
It was Paige who broke the moment of awkward silence with a forced giggle, "Oh please! We all know that this is really about Tom. You've had a crush on him since Freshman year."
Next to Eve, Matt's gangly body tensed and his face scrunched up in disapproval as he opened his mouth to say something that he probably shouldn't, only to be cut off by Willow perking back up.
"I can't help it Paige! He's so dreamy. I can't stand the way that he puts up with Gloria. I'd be so much better for him!".
"Ugh" moaned Eve as she buried herself in her work.
**
The day before Christmas break, Secret Santa gifts were exchanged among the student populace. In the original Eve's life, she had requested for her gift to be a donation to the local food bank or to a charity designed for Syrian refugees, which meant that the former Eugene was the only student at Shermer High to go home empty handed. He didn't really mind this, however, as he had never had very much to begin with, and had grown past the desire to acquire more and more stuff.
However, he was still someone's Secret Santa, and he felt an obligation to have a present ready for his charge. Just his luck, it ended up being Willow Strasserman.
Since Eugene had never had anyone in his life to buy presents for, he was crap at it.
"What do I get for a lonely, nerdy sixteen year old girl?" he asked himself the Sunday before vacation started as he wandered throughout the local mall. He wondered if Willow would enjoy receiving a new book, or maybe some clothes, or one of those Funko Pop things, or possibly even a new sled?
As Eve pondered what to do, she inadvertently found her answer.
She walked inside the local Game Stop, and tapped on his shoulder.
Tom Ackerton turned around from the shelf of games he was browsing through and saw Evelyn Kazinski wrapped up in her signature ruffled winter coat and pink hat. He had been one of the few popular kids at Shermer High to not shin her, knowing intimately well how humiliating it was to be shunned and suspecting that there was more to the story than Gloria or Joanna Ingerman had let on.
"Oh, hey Eve. How are you?"
"I'm fine, thanks for asking. Listen, um...I know this is going to sound really weird, but I'm Willow Strasserman's Secret Santa, and I have a BIG favor to ask you."
Tom's baby blue eyes widened, slightly surprised.
"I'm listening."
**
During lunchtime, Eve and the three biggest losers of the school once again spent the hour together in the back of the cafeteria, Paige and Willow playing Magic: The Gathering together while gossiping about the latest season of Daredevil, which Willow had just gotten done catching up with. Matt sat on the opposite side of Eve, doing little more than staring at the noticable lumps that pushed up through her sweater, periodically shifting his creepy gaze towards Willow in between bites of his lunch.
As Willow and Paige chatted amongst themselves, someone entered from the rarely used double doors near the back of the cafeteria and began to approach their table. A shadow loomed over the quartet of losers, whose heads snapped towards the source of the occlusion.
"It's Willow, isn't it?" asked the shadow in a cheerful voice.
The stick thin, curly haired geek girl's face lit up as she saw her crush Tom staring down at her, her heart beginning to pound in excitement. She let loose a quiet squeak of surprise and felt her face start to turn red as she tried her best not to have a total high speed come apart in front of the high school sports star.
"Is this seat taken?".asked the golden haired athlete with a boyish grin on his face as he sat down next to her.
"Um...sure" Willow stuttered as her eyes bored into the hunky teenager, not knowing what to say. On the other side of the table, Matt's look of surprise turned into a angry glare as Tom pulled a empty chair from a nearby empty table and plopped it in the space between Willow and Paige, taking care not to disrupt the small mess of Magic cards splayed out between them.
"Eve here tells me that you wanted to get to know me a little bit better, so here I am! She was your Secret Santa, and I'm your present. I'm going to spend the whole day hanging out with you, doing whatever it is you want to do! That is, if you're comfortable with this." Tom said, giving Willow a huge grin of perfect white teeth that backed up eyes that looked convincingly sincere.
Willow stared slackjawed at Tom, then at Paige, whose face was scrunched in confused surprise, then at Matt who was glaring daggers at Tom, and then at Eve, who was smiling for the first time in months.