Pride and Promises ✔

Chapter 39

"Evie! Your place is gorgeous! And huge!" Eva exclaimed as soon as she hobbled inside the apartment, while I kept close to her, in case she lost her balance. The doctors had advised her against exerting her legs and told her to use her crutches but the stubborn girl couldn't get rid of it sooner than Monica Geller gets rid of dirt in her apartment. She'd insisted that she wanted to take the first step to her home in The Eva style, and not like a headless and one-legged chicken.

"Our place, Eva," I corrected her, earning a sheepish grin from her. She'd never been here, since she had been staying at the hospital when I'd bought this place. On the times I'd asked her to come here, she'd always denied, saying she wanted to come home only when she could walk on her feet.

Eva looked around and grinned widely when she spotted the huge photo of hers that we'd put up on the wall last night. I shook my head at her. At the rate her smugness was growing, I was beginning to worry if Adrian had more influence over her than I'd initially thought. The mere thought of his name caused my heart to take a dangerous leap off an imaginary cliff. I had tossed and turned all night, at least what was left of it and still couldn't get rid of his word, or his eyes filled with so many emotions, or my heart filled with so many emotions. In the end, I'd decided to talk to him tonight. Tonight. Not at the moment. I shook my head and skillfully held off that topic for now. I had better priorities than keeping an eye over my suicidal heart.

Eva had taken a few more steps toward the living room when her legs started wobbling. I rushed to her side and held her waist just as a loud bang sounded through the door. Allie's loud voice penetrated through the walls before she came into view with Eva's crutches.

"Sorry, sorry! My stupid boyfriend was nearly about to blow up my phone until I'd answered him and assured him that I am, in fact, still in this human world and not taken to hell for my foul mouth. I'll show him what this foul mouth when can do I see him. Here, missy, are your crutches." She came to stand on Eva's other side and helped her take the crutches. I held back a chuckle at her explanation. Allie and Jake acted like an old couple who've been married for years which was adorable as well as strange at the same time. I could only hope that she wouldn't show the powers of her foul mouth in my and my sister's presence.

"Come on now, let's get you to your room." Together, we helped Eva get to her room, which was right next to mine. I stopped myself from cringing when we were attacked by a heavy dose of pink as soon as we entered the room. The room had been decorated under Eva's instructions which meant everything was pink. The walls, the bed sheet, desk, chair, curtains, window frames, vanity, everything.

I wondered how I survived decorating this room last night with Allie, who, of course, hadn't grown out of her teenage and made sure to stop every ten minutes to express how she wished she had a pink room as well. The girl was equally as obsessed with pink as Eva, if not more. Finding out that Eva had the same taste in colors, Allie was more motivated to bring out all the pinks of the world and dump it to her room. Jake had smartly excused himself from this room to go check on the photos that needed to be framed, leaving me in the mercy of an over-energetic Allie and Mr. Pink. 

Looking at the room now, I could only hope that Eva likes this room and grows to love this place as her home. I felt the all-too-familiar pang in my chest when I thought of all the times I'd failed my sister. I was sure that if Eva was the older one, she'd have done a much better job of a sister. Hell, anyone would've done better than I had.

Eva's high-pitched squealing, followed by Allie's higher-pitched one pulled me out of my wayward thoughts and I found myself in the middle of an intense squealing marathon. Both of them were jumping up and down, facing each other as they discussed how pink the room was. Very happily. I rolled my eyes.