Chapter 18: Dodging Discovery

  For the next few weeks, Eve continued this routine. Sneaking out at night to challenge the mysterious truck to their game of high stakes cat and mouse. Meanwhile, Lily remained blissfully unaware of Eve’s secret midnight truck based training.

  In fact from Lily’s perspective, the note seemed to have surprisingly served it’s purpose. She assumed the threat about contacting the police must have scared off whoever had been behind the truck attacks.

  As the weeks rolled on the strange incidents with the truck became mere memories to Eve’s friend. For her, life had very much returned to its comfortably familiar routine.

  So here Lily was once more, picking Eve up from the gym hall around nine as usual. She saw Eve give a wide yawn as she emerged from the doors, stretching her arms.

  Lily noticed that Eve’s hair was a mess, almost as if she’d just rolled out of bed. “Good training session today?” Lily asked her friend.

  “Training...?” Eve trailed somewhat in a daze before shaking herself back to reality. After letting loose another yawn, the dodging enthusiast responded. “Oh yes, the training! The new dodgeball season is coming, so I’ve had to step things up a gear.”

  “Just be careful, I know you have a tendency to overexert. Like, are you getting enough sleep? You seem kinda spacey at the moment.” Lily reached forward, brushing some of Eve’s hair out of the girl’s face.

  Lily’s hand lingered a little too long before she caught herself and withdrew, her cheeks turning a deep crimson.

  “It’s fine, it’s just my new training regime is like... super intense.” Eve grinned to herself, not noticing Lily’s awkwardness.

  “Is that so...” Lily paused for a moment before attempting to head into the gym.

  Eve sprang into action, using her foot to jam the door shut, preventing Lily from entering. “Woah, where you going?”

  “To check out the dodgeball throwing machine I built you.” Lily explained. “If your training is as intense as it sounds, I want to make sure it can take the strain.”

  Eve kept the door to the gym firmly pinned in place with her foot. “No need for that, it’s working fine, perfectly in fact.” Eve was sweating bullets. If Lily saw inside the gym, she’d see Eve’s sleeping bag.

  Worse, Lily would notice the fine layer of dust gathering on the machine she’d built for Eve. It had been sat unused since Eve’s new truck based training regime had begun.

  Eve wasn’t actually training inside the gym any more at all. Instead her time in the gym was now being used to catch up on her sleep.

  “I better check on it anyway, just in case.” Lily insisted, trying to push past Eve.

  “No, you really don’t need to do... HEY look over there!” Eve yelled pointing behind Lily.

  As soon as Lily turned to look at where Eve had been pointing, she heard the gym door slam, followed by the click of a lock. She turned to see Eve had locked herself in the gym, with Lily now stuck outside.

  Lily hammered on the door, “HEY! EVE WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT?” she demanded, yelling and hammering on the door. “LET ME IN!”

  A few minutes later, the lock clicked back open and Eve held the door open for her friend and gestured invitingly. “You can come in now.” She then started whistling inconspicuously.

  “Ok, what are you hiding?” Lily questioned, with eyebrows raised in suspicion.

  Eve evaded Lily’s gaze, as her friend watched the guilty look playing across her face. “I don’t know what you mean, I’m not hiding anything.” Eve bluffed.

  “I know you well enough to know when you’re not being honest with me.” Lily insisted “Let me guess, You broke the dodgeball machine didn’t you?”

  “Of course I didn’t!” Eve gasped. “In fact, I just got the dodgeball machine back out so you can give it a proper look over.” She brought Lily over to the machine.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Lily took her tools out of her backpack and began to give the dodgeball machine a meticulous inspection. After checking everything was in order, she breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s not broken, in fact it's pristine.”

  Lily smelt a strong aroma emanating from the machine. “Do I smell... polish?”

  “Yep” Eve brushed the back of her head nervously. “I’ve been cleaning it after every use.” Eve lied. She’d only just given the contraption an emergency clean so Lily wouldn’t see the layers of dust that had built up from the weeks it had spent sitting unused.

  “I have to admit I was worried you’d done something crazy and broken it.” Lily gave a small laugh. “Like loading it with bowling balls or something.”

  Eve crossed her arms “I wouldn’t do a thing like that... without asking.” After a few seconds pause, Eve then began to make that exact request. “You don’t suppose you could make it fire...”

  “NO!” Lily immediately cut her off. “No I will not make it fire bowling balls. That would be far too dangerous.”

  Eve stuck her tongue out at Lily “Boo! Spoilsport!”

  “While I’m here I can at least make some other adjustments, make it fire quicker and in more varied patterns.” Lily grinned, before setting to work.

  As Eve watched Lily make her adjustments, a jolt of guilt shot through her soul. She’d forgotten how much work her friend had put into making that contraption for her.

  She recalled her most recent birthday, when Lily had got up early to accompany Eve to the college gym hall.

  As Eve had entered, A large sheet, hiding something secret underneath had been waiting for her. Eve remembered how unusually peppy Lily had been that day. She’d spent so many weeks preparing this surprise gift for Eve. She pulled back the cover to reveal the custom designed dodgeball training machine.

  Lily had built specially for Eve. It had been exactly what Eve had needed to take her training to the next level. It fired at speeds way beyond what any human could do, with an array of pre-set patterns. At the time, it presented the ultimate test of Eve’s evasive skills.

  Yet now, Eve had just left her bestie’s thoughtful gift to gather dust. Why? Because a bigger, more thrilling challenge came along in the form of that truck. That had become the new benchmark, the thing that forced Eve to elevate her skills further beyond.

  But was that thrill worth Eve potentially jeopardizing her relationship with her closest friend?

  “Ok, that ought to do it!”

  Before Eve could dwell any further on that question, Lily’s words pulled her away from her current train of thought.

  Lily brushed off her hands before loading a dodgeball into the basket. The pair watched as the dodgeball was flung at an impressive speed across the gym. While it was pretty quick, Eve could tell it wasn’t as fast, or as thrilling as speeding truck was.

  “Are you sure you won’t make it fire bowling balls?” Eve pushed.

  Lily let out a giggle, shaking her head. “You’re unbelievable.” She chuckled.

  Eve gave Lily a encouraging elbow to the ribs “Go on, take a risk and live a little.” She encouraged.

  “Take a risk huh?” Lily stroked her chin in contemplation before reaffirming, “Sorry, I’m not risking your life, if something went wrong, I’d never forgive myself.”

  “We only live once” Eve argued.

  “Which is exactly why you should treasure the life you have and not takes stupid risks.” Lily retorted, raising her voice as her frustration with her friend built. “I told you no, so please, don’t ask again.”

  “Fine” Eve grumbled, before checking her watch. “Shoot is that the time? We better get moving, I don’t want to be late for...”

  “Late for what?” Lily asked curiously, tilting her head.

  “Late for...” Eve hastily searched for a way to cover her verbal slip up before finally deciding on, “Be late for bed of course. Gotta get my eight hours.”

  With that the two young woman packed away the dodgeball machine. Eve breathed a sigh of relief. Lily hadn’t noticed that the machine hadn’t been used recently. The sleeping bag Eve had wedged under the gym mats also went equally unnoticed. For tonight at least it seemed Eve was in the clear.

  From there, they both headed for home, enjoying the cool night air. As they walked however, Lily couldn’t help but hear Eve’s words echoing in her head.

  “Go on take a risk and live a little... we only live once...”

  Lily sighed to herself, her breath evaporating into the wind. She’d done a lot of thinking lately, about Eve, about her own hidden feelings. Maybe she should...

  “Penny for your thoughts bestie?” Eve was now the one to snap Lily out of her thoughts and back to reality.

  “It’s nothing...” Lily muttered, as she took Eve’s hand gave a small smile.

  The rest of their journey home was relatively uneventful. No trucks, just two close friends, walking home together, enjoying each other’s company. The crater outside their shared dorm, now surrounded by road work barriers, being the only reminder of chaotic days that now appeared to have passed them.

  After dinner, the two both gave their mutual good nights and headed to bed. Lily however, found herself unable to sleep as Eve’s words continued to swirl in her head.

  “Go on take a risk and live a little... we only live once... Go on take a risk and live a little... we only live once... Go on take a risk and live a little... we only live once...”

  The words were like a siren song, trying to coax Lily into action. As she lay in her bed, wide awake, the love struck girl carefully weighed her options.

  She knew Eve wasn’t like her, the rare times Eve had shown any indication of attraction, brief as they were, it had always been for guys. Not that Eve had ever pursued a relationship. Eve’s one true love had always been, and always would be dodging.

  Even when Lily’s own feelings had leaked out, Eve had been oblivious, evading even the most obvious of hints.

  Tonight though, Lily would not allow Eve to avoid her feelings any longer. While she was certain the odds while Eve and her would never be in a romantic relationship, at least she’d no longer have these secret desires burning a hole through her chest.

  The decision made, Lily got up out of bed, then made her way to Eve’s bedroom.