Work Text:
SATURDAY
The mornings when Eva woke to rustling beside her, she fought the urge to bite the pillow, seeing usually finely brushed, bleached hair become tousled and undone in the night. It was a sort of aftermath she observed, one comprised of events which never happened. Of course they did, in dream, in nightmare, but reality was much too friendly for that kind of friction.
“You’re up early,” Nora stated simply from behind nude, unpainted lips. Eva’s eyes had never before managed to flutter closed to pretend she was asleep in time to avoid Nora’s mild gaze settling on her open eyes with an unnerving calmness.
Eva mumbled something indistinguishable even to herself, futile apart from its served purpose of being a buffer between her rawest morning thoughts and those which were deemed appropriate to express.
Nora hummed something in return, tensing her shoulders to her neck in a mock stretch before getting up. She pulled the hem of her wine-red camisole down over the generous hill of her hip. Nora seemed pre-occupied with her phone, having halted her usual routine of taking a swig from the glass of water on her bedside table from the previous day before pacing around the room with her hands flexed strangely on her waist in contemplation. Instead of the sound of padded footsteps on the rug, Eva heard only the tapping of nails against a screen.
“Who’s in your DMs this early?” Eva chuckled at the concentrated expression on Nora’s face.
“It’s never early on a weekend if you’re awake. I’m surprised you didn’t sleep an extra two hours, honestly.” Then she hesitated. It should’ve been telltale. She never hesitated over anything, not to Eva. She couldn’t help but tell her everything. “It’s just Vito. Says he’s going out tonight.”
“Didn’t he swear off it?”
Nora still hadn’t looked up from her phone, only fiddled mindlessly with the corner of her phone case. “You know how he is,” she replied absently.
Eva had flipped onto her stomach now, parallel with the headboard, staring at Nora’s sleek arm pressed up against her torso with the way she held her phone with such tension. Eva put her head in her hands and her legs in the air behind her, never once taking her eyes off Nora. Sometimes if she stared long enough, she’d snap out of it and realise who that pair of watchful eyes belonged to in a split second, allowing a smile to spread itself warm across her face. “What do you wanna do today?”
Nora bit the overhang of her nail without response and passed her phone to her other hand. Eva, scooting onto the edge of the bed, gently removed the hand from her mouth with guiding fingertips, taking Nora’s middle finger and running her thumb over the nail. She did this mostly on trams and trains, ways home when one was drunker than the other, usually Eva. It was soothing. It worked especially well when she had a new set of acrylics on, a fresh shape on a familiar base. Nora murmured a faint question, enough to signal to Eva to repeat herself. When she did, Nora answered simply, “I could do with a coffee.”
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“Why do we never hang out at yours?” Nora asked out of the quiet, chin resting on a loose fist, lips pursed.
The coffee shop was half full of people, all dressed in work attire, equipped with laptops and ties and serious expressions. What they were doing so businessman-like on a Saturday, the Holy day for those still trapped in the education system, was beyond Eva, but their existence within coffeeshops seemed persistent and inevitable. No matter the day or time, there’d be some adult in a suit ready to break the illusion of infinite freedom on weekends.
“We do,” Eva answered, “I host parties all the time.”
“No, I mean just us. Your house is huge and your mum’s never home.”
“Exactly. There’s nothing to do, it’s so empty it feels eerie.” Eva swilled the contents of a plastic cup around, letting her hearing focus on the people passing by on the street behind her on the other side of the glass. Nora’s gaze, though facing the window, was fixed on Eva. “Besides, I like bothering your roommates.”
“Mh. Sometimes I feel like you only come over for them.”
Oh, if only she knew the half of it. Eva chuckled. “Sometimes I do.”
She raised an eyebrow spiritedly. “Only sometimes? What about the other times?”
“Well, I don’t have to explain myself for that, now, do I?” Eva couldn’t stop the smile that always broke out on her face in the middle of a mock disagreement. It ruined the jokes more often than not, but she didn’t care, she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to for the sake of a bit. Nora would play along, keeping her cool until Eva glanced away bashfully, sensing the break was coming, and her soft smile would release Eva’s laugh.
The way her head tipped and rolled like her neck was a suggestion, her skull just a ball on a tipping point, amused Nora greatly. She moved like a ragdoll hugged too tightly around some points, with threads come loose here and velcro strips peeling off there. Nora’s line of sight fell with Eva’s head to her drink, bright green and nearly full. “You don’t like it?” She prompted politely, and to Eva’s confusion, clarified, “The matcha.”
Eva recoiled a little in her own skin, giving a slight grin as if she was proud of having misbehaved. She pushed the drink away with an extended index finger, quiet and her retaliation, and slowly, through a laugh that was climbing up her throat steadily, said, “Tastes like grass…” Then, switching to that easy, accented English, “Performative core.”
She was right, that was exactly how it tasted. Nora stood up with a grimace having taken a sip, smacking her tongue on the roof of her mouth in an attempt to rid herself of the taste, and threw her own empty coffee cup in the bin. She took Eva’s with her into the bathroom. With Eva now in hot pursuit, as she always was in public spaces with Nora, she walked into a vacant stall, ignoring the buzzing device in her pocket, and dumped the green contents down the toilet. Giving the flourish of a bow as Eva whooped, she lead them back to the bin, then out of the coffee shop and onto an idle street. “A fitting end,” She stated simply, “I would’ve tried the storm drain but I read this article –”
Eva grabbed her wrist. “Come on, tell me about this article while we calmly walk away so they don’t ban us for disrespect. Did you even flush?”
“Nope.” “Wow, they’re gonna think they gave a customer radioactive bowels.”
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WEDNESDAY
Nora had been online. Not replying, but online. All week, all night. And Eva had been in bed with a towel wrapped around her head. She had left her homework at Nora’s, halfway on purpose, and so all that was left to do was watch Youtube in the biggest tee she could locate (Jakov’s, though she had only kept it for aesthetic reasons and had washed it three times after they broke up before wearing it again) and no pants, fresh out of the shower, smelling like a damn cherub.
Actually, it seemed that no one was online. Nix was likely at other Nix’s house playing some unspecified videogame, as she was quite often nowadays, Vanessa and Tina by this point in the evening equally logged off of the social sides of social media, and who knew what Lovro was doing at any given moment. Here she was again, in her mother’s house, her house, alone, with only a ceramic bowl and refill box of oatmeal to keep her company. She’d have raided her mother’s stowed away drinks again if she hadn’t already cleared it out the previous week. First, she’d need to get at least the surface-level stock back before her mother had a bad enough day at work to finally turn to the untouched liquor cabinet and realise every bottle was empty.
She drank out of boredom, really, more than a wish for escape. She knew of people who did the latter and died doing it. That wasn’t her. The only thing she ever attempted to leave behind was mundanity, never reality. Or, on rare occasions when her mind had gotten a little ahead of itself around Nora, fantasy.
She shot Nora another text.
Eva: heyyy left the hw at urs :( can i come pick it up!
No luck.
Eva: i see ur onlineee
Eva: pls girl im so bored ill leave immediately i swear
Finally, a notification. Three extra messages, that was always the sweet spot.
Nora: Ahh noo! I’m out right now but Maša’s home she’ll let you in
Eva: i dont get to see u??
Nora: Afraid not haha miss you tho!
Nora: Even though I just saw you this morning :p
Eva: booo booooo tomato tomatoo
Eva: okok thx anyways ill just go bother maša instead
Nora: I’m sure she’ll be thrilled about it!
Eva: dont tell her, im trying to be stealthy!!
Eva scratched at a bug bite on her leg. Summer was practically here, the mosquitoes were legitimately here, and Nora still wore an overcoat every day. Her dedication to fashion never failed to amaze Eva. Though, she supposed, long sleeves and layers were effective protective measures against bugs. Still. She couldn’t help but entertain the thought that Nora looked better in the summer. Of course, she had never spent a summer with Nora. Maybe the mere concept of summer had tainted her perception of it, and the added bliss of no school had made her romanticise the sights of old Instagram posts as she had romanticised the emotions of her own friendless, boyfriend-filled holiday. Looking back on it now, however, on those pictures of Nora at the beach, she knew she was right. Summer suited her.
Perhaps it was the way the gold of her hair complemented that of the sunset, or the way her lips were red and stark against the deep blue backdrop of sea, or the way her collarbones dipped and dodged the straps of her bathing suit –
So, Maša. Maša had been, admittedly, a tough nut to crack. Tougher even than Lovro all those years ago, quiet until you got a skateboard in front of him or made any reference to Japan. But Eva was good at these things, very good, and had Maša telling her all sorts of household secrets in no time. She had a way with people, especially recently. After Nora. Things just came easier with a foundation to fall back onto, and that was what she was, a protective net made of the world’s finest silk.
With a soft momentum, she jumped up and out of bed to face herself in the mirror. Her towel fell from her head and draped lazily around her shoulders, stained in spots from remaining hair dye. The pink tint of her hair resembled mildly the raw inner edge of a chapped lip, two or three days into healing, scarred over and building. She glanced down at her clothes, creased and days old, smelling slightly of Nora’s room, all cherries and vanillas.
Satisfied with a change of clothing, she pulled a loose wrapper off her heel as she walked down the stairs and slipped on a pair of sneakers, shoving her phone and headphones into her pockets for the journey. And the housekeys, she’d almost forgotten. Though spending yet another night at Nora’s didn’t seem so bad.
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Nora’s pendant necklace hung over the edge of the dresser, holding on only by the heel of a pink boot. Eva had bought it for her on a trip out of the city with her mother over winter break, justifying it as a souvenir gift for her best friend. What she really needed was a signifier of Nora’s impending presence. The trip had only been a few days, but Eva had gotten antsy without her, and the situation hadn’t been helped by the absence of everyone else around her as well. All she wanted was something to smooth her thumb over to remind her it’d only be a few more days until she felt Nora’s nails under her fingertips again, even if the locket had never once been in her physical possession.
It was ugly, and not in a campy way. The thought behind it was more about shape, but once she had committed, she could no longer retract it or replace it. If it never came to be Nora’s, what was the point? She would have been carrying around a stranger’s necklace all that time, or worse, her own.
Eva had never trusted her taste in things. Men, particularly, but jewellery, clothes, food, music, makeup, were all items on a long list of things she did not know a thing about. Until, of course, Nora taught her how to like and how to love. Suddenly, brick walls were opportunities, backdrops for photos. The ocean wasn’t simply a body of water, but inspiration for a lip colour or bracelet. She had been turned into a walking museum of observations. Even now, in just sweats and Jakov’s old T-shirt, she was an exhibit of past events. The stain on her leg from where Vanessa had dropped a foundation applicator in their getting-ready rush before a party, the undone end of a lace on her right shoe from endless tying and re-tying one drunken night when nothing on her right side had felt right.
All of that was a testament to Nora’s room. The stack of books Eva would attempt to count in the night (she had never been successful, always miscounted on account of her lacklustre eyesight or fell asleep before getting to the top of the stack) loomed high and mighty in the corner of the room beside plants billowing from the air the drafty window let in. Her homework, she knew, must’ve been beneath some loose clothing or a stack of plates – a makeshift placemat. School was the last thing she ever thought about when with Nora, but quite often, she’d come from school straight here, and would use a sheet of maths equations to distract her from distracting Nora from actually doing her own work. It was a fun little game to play with herself.
There stood a mirror framed with red clip-on lights against the wall opposite the bed. Eva had watched Nora get ready here dozens of times, putting on and taking off layers, manipulating makeup on her face in ways she thought would make her prettier, though Eva knew she was kidding herself. She looked equally beautiful no matter what she wore or how she painted herself. Still, she imagined the act of it now, Nora leaning in with a lipstick matching the shade of the mirror’s lights, trying not to stumble over some unspecified mess on the floor.
It was a ritual in a way. Not the doing, but the watching.
Eva spotted familiar handwriting beneath a pair of jeans on the floor, as expected. Moving them to retrieve the paper revealed a pair of black underwear, complete with the same standard bow Eva’s had as well. She looked around at the floor, dirty clothes strewn everywhere, some of them no doubt hers, and played dress up with Nora in her mind.
She was already here, she figured she might as well complete her homework while she had the potential of seeing Nora as a reward. She sat down at the kitchen table, pushing aside a few plates and an inexplicable amount of mail, and got to work. Not far into the assignment, Masa came into the kitchen to make coffee and hang around a little. She was like a cat in that way, always lounging, lurking.
Had Eva had any idea what she was doing and been actually focused on the words she was writing, she likely wouldn’t have heard the car pull up outside of the apartment. Had Vito not been at work, or had Maša not been Maša, she could have remained blissfully unaware of what she was about to witness. But in the same way that Maša’s silence was a part of her, her version of ambience being the mindless flick and shuffle of a deck of tarot cards in her hand, Eva’s curiosity was equally a part of herself. She sat on the kitchen counter, kneeling to get a better few of the street from the window covered sparsely by flimsy metal bars outside.
Roko Marić kissing Nora at the front door to the apartment complex was not something Eva was expecting to see at any point in her life. Perhaps more expected was the sight of Nora wiping her lips on the back of her hand once Roko had turned and left, but the private nature of the action only made it that much more bewildering. Nora was never one to hide her true thoughts, especially not in the face of Roko. The fact that she had let him in the first place…
“What is it?” Maša asked without looking up.
It took Eva a telling moment to recollect herself before she answered, “Nothing, Nora’s home.”
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THURSDAY
If Eva had calculated correctly, she had about two and a half hours remaining to clean her mess and sober up before her mother got home, with a grace period of a few extra hours if she managed to stay silent long enough to guilt her with the accusation of forgetting her own daughter was home. The mess itself wasn’t terrible, just bottles, takeout containers, and dirty clothes in places they really shouldn’t have been, but she was terribly drunk.
What else was she to do in reaction to what she had seen? The nausea – no doubt aided by her intoxication – came not from the sight itself but from the secret-keeping. What she really couldn’t bring herself to understand was why Nora kept it from her. From Tina, sure, but Eva? She wouldn’t have told a soul. Now the only issue was deciphering whether she had lost trust in Eva, or worse, sensed a shift in her behaviour.
It wasn’t Eva’s fault she had an overactive imagination. She saw how it ended with Jakov, that delusion of a relationship working out. Obsession. And her lesbian phase a few years prior, now that was a good story to tell. She was just quick to fixate. All she had to do was let this one pass too, and then everyone could get back to acting exactly how they did before she decided she was in love with Nora and they’d be all the better for it. It was proving more difficult to prove it was a phase, though. Quite simply, she opted to distract herself from the thought in other ways.
Keys rattled in a lock down the hall. That wasn’t right, though, she still had –
The clock read 5pm, not 12:25. Well, shit.
“Eva?” Her mum’s voice called down the hall. Pretending to be ill now would just make the situation worse. “Eva! What the hell is this?”
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To say the conversation the night before went smoothly would be a bold-faced lie, but hanging around Nora recently had consistently been just that, so it wasn’t like she wasn’t used to it.
Of course, again, when Eva arrived at Nora’s, Nora was nowhere to be found. She would’ve gone straight after the argument, but her mum had grounded her like she would a child, so now instead of an energetic buzz, all she had was a dull headache. Then her mum was off to work once more, and any boundaries put in place as punishment vanished instantly. Loose threats were made, but Eva knew as long as she left her phone at home to fool her mum with the tracker, she could do whatever she wanted.
“Nora’s not home?” Eva tried Vito when he let her in, ducking under his arm to scan the apartment. She knew the answer the moment she saw the empty space on the coat rack.
“Nope,” Vito answered a little shakily, taking in her dishevelled appearance, “What happened to you?”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s with Roko, right?”
This surprised him further. “She finally told you?”
“No, I saw them making out earlier this week.” Her choice of words was perhaps overly crude, but the ache in her skull made it impossible not to dramatise her retelling of the story. To Vito’s concerned expression, she clarified, “I’m happy for her, obviously. Just wonder why she didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell me.”
Vito took a seat, pouting a little. “Maybe they’re just taking it slow. I mean, she’s barely told me anything, it’s just a little hard to miss when you live together. I honestly think she only told me to avoid having me walking in on them.”
God, that mental image. Were they really moving so fast? Eva couldn’t help but let the grimace in her mind show through on her face as she sat at the table with Vito.
“You don’t look so pleased to be hearing this,” He raised a brow, studying her face. He had a way of knowing these things, he had told her once, who felt which way about what.
“I’m not. Is that so bad?” She sighed, putting her hands over her cheeks. “Obviously I am glad she’s happy, I’m just worried. She usually tells me everything, but since meeting him she’s become a bit of a shut-in. I don’t think I’ve done anything to warrant that, so the only other thing I could think of is him.”
“Well, it’s normal for friends to keep things from each other. I doubt she’s doing it to spite you. And you know Nora, if something’s wrong, she’s not shy to say so.”
“She’s just off. I’m just worried, that’s all.” Eva attempted to recollect herself. “If she’s pursuing him, I trust him, you know? I just don’t get why she can’t trust me.”
“Eva,” Vito gave a pitiful smile and took her hands in his across the table, letting his cup of coffee sit on the table without a coaster. She could almost hear Nora berating him through her absence. “Friends keep secrets. That’s okay. It’s not like you’re married, she isn’t having an affair, she just needs a minute to figure it out for herself. You should trust her with that. She would’ve told you anyway.”
He was right, she supposed. It wasn’t an affair. No agreement was being broken. It wasn’t against any rules to date. Still, it felt like some sort of betrayal. It should have felt that way least of all to her. She was hooking up with Roko’s best friend, this should’ve brought the two of them closer. In theory. In practicality, she wanted suddenly to sever all ties as Sara had done with her the previous year. Now that was justified. This was… jealousy. Over who?
How were you meant to tell love from admiration? Since Jakov, Eva had been mulling over this question nearly nightly. She had been trying to find herself and in turn had only found short bursts of enjoyment with Nix and iced coffees with Nora. The two shouldn’t have been lumped in the same category, she knew that, morally, but she couldn’t help it.
She got from Nix what she didn’t dare to ask from Nora.
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Warm, heavy drops of rain pelted Eva’s face. Summer showers had arrived a little early, and so had she.
She didn’t think she meant to leave the apartment at exactly the same time as Nora got back, but as she meekly waved goodbye to Roko in his obnoxiously expensive glossy car, she wasn’t so sure of herself. Maybe it was the sound of the revving engine down the street that clued her in and drew her to her exit, but either way she was here now and facing it.
She couldn’t let Nora get even a word in before she forced a smile and said, “Don’t look at me like that, I’ve known since Wednesday.”
Nora blinked in response. Her expression was entirely blank, if a little apprehensive. “You knew?”
“I’m your best friend, of course I knew. Can’t get anything past me.” Eva observed how the rain made Nora’s mascara run, though her lipstick was waterproof and stayed in place as strong and persistent as a ship’s mast. Eva used to think she carried her entire soul in those lips. “Now. Tell me everything.”
It was difficult to decipher the roots of the energy moving between them through the rain, off-puttingly lukewarm and increasingly torrid in speed and fervour. It blurred the lines of the other in each girl’s line of sight, Eva becoming a diagonal mess of pink and unwashed grey. Still, Nora’s red and platinum blonde stood out against anything else.
“I don’t like Roko.” That was the first thing she said, and while her hands twitched in a way that indicated she was intending to bolt for the door, she made no effort to move. The need for escape was entirely subconscious. “He was just giving me a ride home because of the rain.”
“Why not? I mean – I know why not, but he seems to be great with you. What’s not to like? You can let your moral compass go a little bit sometimes, you know that, right?”
Nora gave another sigh, exasperated and exhausted. Whether by Roko or Eva, that was unclear. “No, I’m doing it so he’ll leave Tina alone. Okay, yeah, he’s pushy, and his track record is terrible, but I’m also just not into him.”
She bit back an urge. If the rain wouldn’t man up and smudge her lipstick soon, she’d have to hold incredible levels of restraint to not do it herself. She gave her most practiced best friend spiel she’d been rehearsing in her mind when the ceiling began to close in on her at night. “You know you can tell me anything. I won’t tell Tina if that’s what you’re worried about, or anyone, I just want to know the truth. It’d be great to see you happy with a guy.”
“Jesus, Eva, I’m not in love with Roko!”
A blink. A tear, or a raindrop, Eva wasn’t sure. The level of heat in each would have been equal. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know what it was at first. And I guess I’m telling you now because… God, I don’t know, because I need to? Because I tell you everything, and I want you to know, and it’s been killing me for weeks, all the sneaking around, yes, because of Tina, but also because of you! And I’m – I’ve been tearing myself apart over it because I couldn’t make my mind up, but here, having talked to you, I have. I don’t want him, not like that.”
“What have I done to make you change your mind?”
Then came the sweetness in her voice, familiar and new simultaneously. “Fuck, Eva. Can’t you see?”
And it was there and it wasn’t there all at once. You know, with Jakov, it was so obvious. His eyes flicked to her lips three times before he leaned in, and even then, he did the leaning, and before that, there had been touches, all sorts of suggestive ones, and glances, and… here? What was there here? A tired comfort? Just over half a year of shared laughter and shared clothes?
Nora sighed. Eva’s time to decide was up, and she had not yet made a decision. Nora hooked a wet strand of hair behind her ear, defeated, nostrils flaring in miniscule arrangements every few moments, corners of her mouth rounding into a subtle frown. And then the tears, and the turning. Eva couldn’t think of what to do but grab Nora’s wrist, making her face her. She tilted her head into the sentence. “Please. Help me understand.”
Nora fought back further tears, but Eva’s hand on her face released them. “I can’t say it, you know I can’t. I don’t want to fuck us up.”
“Nothing you could tell me could fuck us up. You know how many times I’ve broken into your house to stop you from studying just to annoy you with rants about boys or old friends or TV shows for the whole night? How many hours have you put up with me? I’ve known you less than a year and I owe you a lifetime of apologies. Fuck it, I’d support you if you told me you needed my help hiding Roko’s body.” The last part was added as an afterthought, apprehensively, but in confidence.
There was no need to check for people passing by on the street. The rain had corralled everyone back into their homes. It was just them and the rays of sun splitting between masses of cloud matter. “Okay. I think… I think I like you. I don’t know what that means for us, or for me, but that’s what has happened. I can’t help it.”
“Oh, Nora.” Cathartic release was perhaps the best way to describe it. It was too overwhelming to feel like a release, but there was something revolutionary within the moment that made the individual pellets of rain feel more like sheets of water smoothing over their features. “Guess what?”
Nora laughed more out of desperation than anything. “No fucking way.”
“God, we’re stupid, aren’t we?”
The kiss came like a harbinger of summer. Wet and crude and gentle all in one, fighting to be seen, natural. Innate, like a purpose. Eva had kissed Nora drunk before, but she had never given herself to anyone like this. She felt along Nora’s cupid’s bow with her tongue, her bottom lip tasting almost of chalk as the layer of makeup that separated them rubbed away and into their skin. Above all, it was comfortable.
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It became quickly apparent to the two, lounging in Nora’s bed as they always did, that it was difficult to navigate the change from friendship to romance. Even if in practicality nothing had changed, and even if their friendship had been previously based in change, there was still an underlying nervousness.
Eva should’ve known Nora would be the one to burst their bubble of silence. “Are you ashamed?” She asked, quiet and cautious.
Eva pursed her lips, rolled over a little. She felt as if the bed was about to swallow her whole. She had come to terms with liking girls once before. It was just the people around her who made her forget herself. “Maybe not ‘ashamed’. How could I be with you? Maybe it’s fear of what people will think, but still, I don’t care about that. It doesn’t change how I feel. What about you?”
Nora huffed in the way she did when she was about to drop some wisdom one of the girls would be thankful for in a few weeks. “I don’t know, I guess I am ashamed. Maybe more so than I am scared. Not of you or of myself, just… of us.”
“You’ve never been ashamed of anything before. Nora, you’re the most confident girl I know.”
A laugh escaped her. “Bold claims there.”
“I’m known for such things.” She ran a hand through Nora’s hair, feeling the grooves of the roots against her smooth scalp. Freshly washed, she noted. This too, a ritual completed thousands of times over before the simple alteration of a kiss, took on a new meaning. “It shouldn’t change anything if you still see me the same way.”
She shook her head, letting her face dig into the abrasive towel beneath her head which had soaked up most of the rainwater. She needed to wash her sheets this week anyway. “I don’t think there was ever a time I didn’t look at you this way. I think this is the way you’re meant to be looked at.”
“Nora Klarić Selem, you are a poet. Are you going to write a song about me now? Need some inspiration? Here, look all you like.” Eva laughed, rearranging herself into a pose best described by Rose in Titanic, a movie they had both cried at one late night over Eva’s laptop. “Paint me like one of your French girls,” Eva laughed in reference. Only she’d be painted in word and notation.
The silence of the apartment shrouded them in a familiarised comfort. There were people in this house giving them space, and they were taking it up without apology. Wasn’t that what this had always been about? Allowing themselves to exist?
Eva smiled at nothing, Nora smiled back, they joined in their song of laughter. So this was how it was meant to feel.