Eve Week #1
Eve had had to fight for her job as a mechanic. Despite her broad and muscular shoulders, she doesn’t look like much. She’s on the short side and she’s pretty, which means most people don’t expect her to be competent or strong or in any way above average. But she’d come back three days in a row asking the man who ran the garage for a chance to show him what she could do, and eventually, through sheer persistence, she’d gotten the job. She’s good at it, and it’s neither as exhausting as her factory job nor as soul-crushing as her retail job, so it’s her favorite by default, even if it keeps her back in a continual state of pain. For her, working on cars has always been a meditative process. Her knowledge is sufficiently broad and deeply ingrained that she can let her mind wander as she goes about fixing the car in front of her. These days, more often than not, she’s thinking of Blue.
Eve Parrish, as a rule, doesn’t have crushes. They’re distracting and dangerous and she doesn’t have emotional room for them. But most of all, she doesn’t have the time. She doesn’t have the time to think about boys or to go on dates with them or even to find them, given that most of her social activity is linked to school, and there are no boys at Aglionby. Maybe that’s why Gansey had volunteered to talk to the waiter at Nino’s for her, why she’d gone up to him even after Eve told her it wasn’t worth the trouble. Even though Gansey had made a fool of herself that night, Eve is glad she’d talked to him, because if she hadn’t, there’s a chance they wouldn’t have spoken again after the reading, and the idea of not having Blue in her life is too painful to think about. She gets through her days by thinking about the fact that she’ll see him at Monmouth. When her father hits her and she leaves her own body, her mind settles on the feeling of his hand in hers, the beating of his pulse against her skin. Eve is accustomed at this point in her life to wanting things she knows she’ll never have, but she doesn’t think she’s ever wanted anything before the way she wants to kiss Blue. It’s a want that’s as unremitting as her desire for sleep but somehow it seems even more necessary for existence.
Some part of her is aware that she’s being obvious, giving herself away every time she’s near him, but she can’t quite bring herself to care. Even when it’s obvious that Ronan is jealous, even when she’s beginning to wonder if Gansey is jealous, too. She cares about them, of course, but it’s not the same as how she feels about Blue. The way she cares about Blue is all-consuming, obsessive, almost painful. Sometimes she thinks that it’s the way Ronan cares about Gansey, but she tries not to dwell on that too long. She tries not to dwell on Ronan too long in general. Ronan is a dangerous topic, even for private contemplation.
But Blue is, in a strange way, safe. Eve has never thought of anything that elevates her heart rate as “safe” before, but part of what draws her to Blue is the security of him. His low voice. His unexpectedly soft hands. The smell of flowers about him. She can’t imagine feeling threatened by him, and she can’t imagine the sort of strain that sometimes develops between herself and Ronan or Gansey between the two of them. There’s no need to pretend or to try to impress with Blue, because they’re too much of the same world. And so this is how she’s begun to think of him. He is safe. He is easy and he is safe, and Eve has never had that before.
Part of her thinks it’s probably unwise to get her hopes up too high. After all, they aren’t actually officially dating. They haven’t had a talk. But by nature and circumstance, Eve has always lived on dreams, so she can’t help but imagine an All-American happy ending for them. Blue taking her to prom, the two of the making out under the fireworks on the fourth of July, driving together into the mountains in a car. Her car. The one she’ll somehow buy by the end of high school. It’s a future she can imagine to take her mind off the exhaustion of her body, and whether or not it’s plausible isn’t really relevant. She wishes she didn’t always have to work so hard to distract herself from one thing or another: pain or stress or tiredness. Her latest fight with Gansey, the purple on her jaw that concealer won’t quite cover. One day, she promises herself, her life won’t be something she just wants to escape. One day, the moment will actually be something she wants to live in. One day, Blue will kiss her, and the entire world will go still. The harsh static of her mind replaced with quiet, every inch of her skin softened. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t really going to be that simple because she can pretend that it will be. She can pretend whatever she wants about the things she’s waiting for. After all, she is a creature made for patience.
When her shift ends, Eve goes out to her bike and begins to pedal home. It’s easy enough to shake off her daydreams, easy enough to forget everything she’d imagined so that the next time she needs a fantasy, the same ones over again will do perfectly well. She wonders if her father will be awake when she gets home. She wonders if he’s been drinking today. As she gets closer and closer to the trailer park, she tries to quiet the heavy beating of her heart. It’ll be okay, she thinks. If he hits her, she’ll see stars in her eyes and think: fireworks on the fourth of July. There’s always a refuge inside of her head.