Chapter Text
Getting a job was first on Eve’s list of priorities; she’d saved money for the move, enough that she wouldn’t be struggling JUST yet, but just three nights in, it was already too much to stay in the house day-in and day-out. There were no memories for her to look back on that didn’t hurt- the pictures of her and Amata’s matching halloween costumes when they were 8, and then again when they were 12 were hung on the fridge; the dress that old lady Palmer had made Eve for her 15th birthday was still tucked away safely in her dad’s closet; her class photos from middle school stacked in one of the kitchen drawers- and with no current plans to make new ones, the next best thing was to throw herself into work.
The downfall of moving to a tiny town when you have a niche degree is that there’s absolutely no openings for a job in said niche field. Eve just HAD to be interested in neuroscience and psychology- she couldn’t have picked something more useful? She should’ve become a pediatrician instead.
Maybe Jonas needed someone to organize files, or… psychoanalyze children for him?- she should check there, for sure.
Eve sat, making a list of places to look for jobs, at the tiny, round table that had served as the dining table for most of her childhood- chipped green paint flaked off in certain spots, and she could still make out where 8 year-old Eve had gotten paint and marker all over the legs, despite her father’s attempts to clean it off. The furniture in the house had all largely seen better days, but it didn’t seem important to replace; maybe it was sentimental, maybe it was logical.
Jonas’s clinic, Porter’s, and the grocer’s were Eve’s grand total of places to apply, but since she was walking around, she figured there’d be other opportunities; there had to be a motel or something, maybe she could apply at one if worse came to worse. It certainly wouldn’t pay much, but… Well, she’d struggled before, and sometimes she’d struggle again. It would all be okay.
Everything was not all okay.
Her walk to Porter’s Cafe- Diner- whatever it was now had taken her past several places she ended up applying at, including what was surely the one bar the town had in its entirety, and a cute little coffee shop-slash-cafe that seemed like a pleasant enough place to be or work until Eve bumped into some of her childhood classmates.
Susie Mack and Christine Kendall had been attached at the hip when Eve knew them, cousins by blood but acted like sister by choice, albeit a pair of really mean sisters- when Eve accidentally knocked into Christine’s shoulder, easy to do when you were tall and in a hurry, she turned just briefly to apologize before trying to move past them and leave.
“Hargrave.” Susie sneered, somehow immediately recognizing her and causing Eve’s shoulders to tense up slightly as she slowly turned to face the pair, stopped in her tracks by the direct address. “I hadn’t heard YOU were back in town- what, not even college could find a place for a freak like you?”
She was blonde still- light, almost platinum blonde, the kind of blonde Eve had once envied as a kid, her own hair was closer to caramel or honey than true blonde, -and wavy, just barely reaching her shoulders. Eve wondered for a moment if that was still her true hair color, or if she bleached it now to achieve that almost-white.
“Geez, you were always tall, but what’d you do, grow like, a foot and a half in the last decade?” Christine chimed in, her words surprisingly having little malice hidden in them, from what Eve could tell- she looked up at Eve with something almost like interest, instead of annoyance.
“We can’t all stay 5’3 forever,” Eve smiled slightly, awkwardly, glancing at Susie.
Eve had always been content with her build- she’d been tall and lean as a kid, and now she was tall and muscular; but as a teen, she was always secretly a little envious of girls like Susie. They were what every girl wanted to look like at one point or another, right? Short, small, built like a gymnast?
“Um, you two look… Well.”
“You look like you haven’t slept since you were 18.”
To be fair, Eve had never gotten good sleep, and had always looked like that, but she supposed there had to be SOMETHING for Susie to pick on after so long.
“Yup. Well, this has been great, but I really have to get going, so-“
“What, got a hot date?” Susie snickered.
“Just kidding, we both know that answer. I don’t know why Butch was ever interested in you- you’re such a freak. Just ‘yup’ when I insult you? I thought you were supposed to be smart or something. You’re always in a rush, too, just like your freaky dad was- although, it sounds like he was in a rush to leave you, so I guess I can’t blame him.”
“Susie!” Christine gasped in horror, before withering under the glare that the blonde gave her, taking a step back from the group as Susie returned her attention to Eve.
Susie mentioning Eve’s dad was more or less the last confirmation she needed that this conversation wasn’t going to be productive in any way.
“It’s kinda weird that you’re just… randomly hostile to me despite us both being adults and strangers now, so I’m just gonna…” Eve motioned to the door behind her, giving an awkward, tight-lipped smile as she shuffled towards it.
“go, now, if that’s cool. Uh, let me know if you ever want a good therapist’s number, I guess?”
She didn’t pay attention to Susie or Christine’s response, just registering it as unintelligible, angry noise, and then squabbling between the two as the door slowly closed behind Eve and she started power walking away- she wasn’t sure where she was going, now; she’d applied where she could, though she’d yet to talk to Jonas. Maybe she’d just call him, if his number was still the same.
“Hargrave!” Someone called, fast footsteps coming up behind her- it sounded like heels, almost pleasant to listen to when they clicked.
“Eve!”
Eve slowed, letting Christine catch up to her and then take a moment to regain her breath, panting so heavily that Eve almost felt bad for how fast she was walking.
“I wanted-“ Christine gasped. “To apologize- for Susie!”
Eve blinked, brows furrowing in confusion as she watched Christine, bent over, holding onto Eve’s arm for stability.
“I thought you didn’t like me, either.”
Christine straightened up slowly, still not full recovered, and gave Eve a weak smile.
“I was a bitch in school, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about how I treated people since my…” Her face fell for a moment, and she trailed off, clearly somewhere else for a moment.
“Um, well, I just learned life is short, and you really didn’t do anything to be treated like that. I don’t want to keep making enemies.”
First Butch Deloria, now Christine Kendall- it was starting to feel like the world’s weirdest version of Freaky Friday was happening to Eve, only she’d swapped bodies with a doppelgänger of herself in an alternative universe, where her childhood bullies just decided to be decent people one day.
“I don’t expect us to like, be best friends just because I said that or anything!” Christine rushed to assure when Eve didn’t say anything, dropping her hold on Eve’s arm when she realized she was still holding onto her.
“I just, y’know, wanted you to know. So, uh, yeah. I’ll see you around, right? Maybe we can get lunch or something!”
Eve nodded dumbly, still trying to figure out what the actual hell was going on, giving Christine a tiny wave in return when she turned and headed back to the cafe.
She stood for a moment, simply breathing in and out-
Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad; Susie still hated her, but it seemed like everyone else had grown up. She always had Jonas, if worse came to worse and this all turned out to be one very elaborate trick; it wouldn’t be the first time he was her best friend, though it had been maybe 20 years.
Moving her legs, one in front of the other, Eve meandered her way down the sidewalk; she didn’t have a direction, her mind full of too many things to fully focus on her destination, opting, instead, to simply wander the town she hadn’t seen in years, looking at things with a slightly new perspective.