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When she was 8 or so, Eve studied Karen, almost obsessively. Like a landscape she's trying to catch on paper, or a map she traces her fingers across, over and over again, trying to see her way. A smooth rippling landscape where she might never orient herself, but she has to try.
She used to stare at her mother, picturing what she could be, what she isn’t
Sometimes she resists the urge to try on her mother's bra, not wanting to feel like a total stereotype, not wanting to choke on the emptiness there.
Karen has stretch marks, faded echoes of childbirth etched into her flesh. Eve brushing them softly when she was still an innocent child, now she’s trying to picture what it would feel like to grow something inside her, kicking, writhing, alive. To create a person like a sketch--to give up on them on frustration and throw them away, leave them behind
Eve will never have children; even if she could get a womb, somehow, snatch it off the black market or whatever the fuck, she wouldn't. she rests her head against the wall, starving for a hit of that, desperate for the act of creation.
She's growing out her hair again; she always trys not to flinch away whenever Daniel or Karen tries to brush through it, All she knows is she doesn't want anybody touching her hair after they shaved it, demanding vulnerability for vulnerability. she still remembers how good it felt watching it grow longer back in Humboldt, how awful it had been to find it cut away as neatly as her eye. She never would have let Finn cut it, not in a million years.
But she'd let Cass stroke it, kiss her, call her sweetie and honey and sweetheart. She doesn't have a proper “girls” name yet, she settled for Eve for now, she doesn't know if she ever will, but she has Cassidy’s name, she has Daniel's trust--his eyes aren't blank anymore, Lisbeth's voice isn't crawling up his throat to call her confused. The bitch is dead, and she's glad of it.
She remembers how her dad called her Mi preciosa hija and mijita, so loving, full of warmth. His arms were always open for her and she wishes she could fall in her father’s embrace once again, she tries to imagine what it would be like to have one last hug before all of this shit started
She still bleeds in guilt everytime she remembers the last look Esteban gave her when she refused to hug him in that fateful day in Seattle, everytime she remembers how blood was drawn out from her Father’s chest, how his features gone from soft and loving to empty and cold.
Eve’s thoughts stream back to Karen, she can barely recognise her own mother now. Her mother's skinny; Eve remembers how narrow her mother’s hips were, it wouldn't take much estrogen to turn Eve into her, the same body is chasing her into the mirror. She's the blood seeping out of Karen, now. Karen's face, already so visible under the skin, peering out at her as the features soften. A ghost, a haunting, a never-leaving, the thing she used to wish for. And ghosts are never quiet. Especially the ones that live inside your head. Especially the ones that live under your skin.
But the thing is, Eve knows she can never have this, too many rough hands have destroyed her, too much harshness and cruelty. She'd have to find a way to get rid of it, or pray it'd bleed out of her, red smear like a stained sketch over the forest floor.
She doesn't want Karen's body, not really--too pale, too skinny, too worn and heavy with memories. She doesn't want a different body, she doesn't think this body is wrong, exactly, she just wants to change it a little. She just wants to see a better future, a route the girl in her head and the girl in the mirror
So she clings to caring. Remember how the 8 year old version of her used to pet at her mother's stretch marks, how the 8 year old version of her got dizzy at her mother's dusty sweet scent. After she started sleeping in her mother’s place, she lets Karen stroke her hair like she's woke up from a bad dream, like she's a girl crying for breaking her doll, a girl crying after a date gone bad, a girl, a girl. A loved girl, a wanted girl
Her mother's daughter. And she doesn't truly know whether daughter or mother's is the label she hungers for more, only that she longs for it with an open mouth
Eve remembers when she used to wake up at night, go to her Mother’s room and cry in her arms, she didn’t know why she cried, why she went for her mother instead of her dad who actually gave a shit, but she did anyway
Karen used to hug her tightly, smoothing the loose hair out of Sean's eyes. Her hands were soft and callused, now they’re roughened like Sean's have been, but with fewer scars
She stumbles to her feet, ready to take a shower, it will never wash the stain away, it will never was the shame and guilt away.
She doesn't glance into the mirror while the water runs, only daring to face herself when the glass is clouded with steam. In that haze she could be anyone, or no one and nothing at all.