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You cry, sometimes, when you think Eve isn’t around to see it.
It’s not that you think she won’t do her best to help you feel better. You know that she will. But you also know just how easily Eve cries, and the two of you would just end up being a singular crying mess, and she would feel bad because she was crying when she wants you to be able to have your sob session and she doesn’t want you to feel the need to comfort her and—
It is easier to cry when she isn’t around to see it.
You tell yourself that, but when you sit in bed with your arms wrapped around your pillow, squeezing it tightly against your stomach and hunched over, trying your best to breathe around the ache in the back of your throat while tears stream out of your eyes and only momentarily stain your pillowcase, you think, well, it would be nice if Eve was here. Even if she ended up crying, too.
Because at least you wouldn’t be alone.
The grief comes and it goes.
That’s the worst part of it, really, that you can’t always tell when, exactly, it will hit. You know that there are some things you absolutely cannot think about without crying (Roald Dahl, for instance, because you can still hear it being read aloud, still hear it with all of the different voices, all musical and lilting or harsh and snobbish or half-broken and needling, which is why you absolutely cannot see Matilda right now, no matter how much you love Miss Honey), so you’re good about not contemplating them during times when you know Eve is going to be around, but then she’s cooking chocolate cinnamon cookies, and you smell the cinnamon, and you remember how your mom always loved cinnamon and how at Christmas your house always smelled of it because she would buy all of those cinnamon-scented pinecones and throw them everywhere and buy all of the cinnamon-scented candles and—
You rush to the bedroom as quickly as you can because you don’t want Eve to see, but you hear her say your name as you run and can only hope that the cookies are too close to being done that she can’t leave without them being stuck in the oven and burning.
Of course, that’s too much to hope. Probably they’re already done, probably she was already grabbing them out of the oven when you got back and started racing to your bedroom, because within a few moments, Eve is there with you, tugging forest green oven mitts with stained white flowers off of her hands. You can’t even really make her out with how teary your eyes are, and as soon as you notice her, you bend forward so that your face is tucked against your legs. “I’m fine,” you say with a raspy voice that sounds anything but fine. “You can go back to the cookies.”
“You are not fine.”
You feel the weight of Eve pressing into the mattress before she scootches up next to you, her thigh just against the curve of your ass. Eve runs a hand gentle up and down your back, scratching lightly. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.” You muffle your words against your legs.
Her hand doesn’t still. “Want me to leave you alone?”
You hesitate, and then it comes out as one long whine. “No.” It’s instinctual, the way you move from your lap into hers, the way she cradles you there while she just keeps running one hand up and down your back. You take a deep shuddering breath and almost miss the teardrop that lands between your shoulder blades. Almost. But you don’t miss her sniffling or the way her other hand lifts. “I…I didn’t mean to…to make you—”
“You’re fine.” Eve’s voice doesn’t sound as raw as yours does, but you can hear the tears she’s holding back anyway. She sniffles again. “You just…you keep crying until you don’t want to anymore.”
For a moment, you are tempted to nod against her ankles, but you can’t let yourself do that. You pull yourself back and look up and see her eyes rimmed with red and the tears that are pooling there, that she’s doing her best not to let spill, even though you can see a couple of tear tracks along her cheeks, too. You brush a finger under her eyes, gently wiping her tears away.
“Don’t.” Eve tries to look away, rubs at her eyes with her sleeve. “You’re sad. You get to be sad. You don’t have to…. You don’t have to comfort me.”
But you curl up against her chest easily enough, rest your head in the crook of her neck, and feel yourself shudder with sadness again before you relax against her. “It’s comforting,” you say, finally, voice still rough, “to comfort someone else.” You swallow around the lump in your throat, try not to cry again, but let the tears fall where they may. “It helps.”
Eve brushes a hand through your hair and then kisses your forehead. “Then I’m glad to help.”
Later, chewing on a chocolate cinnamon cookie, you almost choke on your grief again, but this time, you don’t leave. You simply take a deep breath, swallow, and glance up at Eve again. “The cookies are…are good,” you say, offering her a watery smile.
Eve reaches over, gently brushes away the tears threatening to spill over, and offers you a caring smile of her own back. “I’m glad. I made them just for you.”