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summer
ARIEL TELLS HER ONE DAY that the world is rotten. Eve remembers herself nodding to that statement, hiding every inch of the happiness she felt when her guardian truly smiled for the first time in months and—oh Lord, how much did she love his smile. Eve thought about it all night; the giggled that caused to appear in the mouth of her stomach and how his eyes shone with tiny, sparkling lights of hope (or maybe fear and anger, but alas, there was that shine in Ariel's eyes and she's never forgetting it). The feeling stayed until the first rays of the day arrived, and Eve remembers too not sleeping a second that night. She didn't care.
He repeats the same phrase a couple of days later, and Eve nods again, but this time Ariel does not smile with the gesture. He looks terrified instead. Eve wonders with sadness if he's going to shout at her in the way he does every time he catches her daydreaming during a lesson, or if he's going to start crying anytime (she has never seen him cry, so she's not sure if his tears are made of silk and gold as the old man from church said once. Eve doesn't want to discover it either). She doesn't come to think about what makes him feel upset; she knows that they're plenty of things that disturb him, and if she ever tries guessing by crossing each one from a list, she'll never stop.
"There's something wrong" he says, with his voice lowing and lowing until it becomes a quiet scream and Eve has to force herself to listen to his whispers like she had been doing for months by now. "Can't you feel it?"
Eve knows what the answer must be —yes, I do. I feel it because I'm special as you. But she remains quiet, only briefly shaking her head in response.
"I don't understand it" Ariel keeps muttering. Eve still holds the idea that he's going to cry in any moment. Perhaps he'll wait until she leaves the room like those other times she had listened at him doing it across the walls. Eve despises his wailing; she wants nothing but seeing him happy. "We still had some years before it... It's simply impossible."
"You've told me that nothing is impossible." Eve speaks for the first time. She regrets at the second words leave her mouth.
She shouldn't have said that.
Ariel frowns. "There are impossible things" he corrects himself. "But not for you. Remember who you are, Eve. What you are."
I am special, she repeats to herself in a thought. I was meant for this... We were meant for this. We are going to save the rotten world from its rotten people.
She tastes them as the sweetest lie of her life, just as she does daily when Ariel reminds her about it.
Lies are always sweet for Eve, in fact, mostly because they all come from Ariel or they are made for him; sweet enough to please anyone.
