I Choose You

Forty-Two

Mare

Evangeline entered my room in a huff, not even bothering to knock or anything. Her face is bright silver, her walk is quick and stompy. Everything about her seems flustered and furious.

So, normal, I guess.

"You alright, Eve?" I ask peacefully.

She snickers under her breath. "Yeah, but can you do me another favor?" She asks me acrimoniously.

Part of me is happy she is asking me favors like this, part of me isn't. I already have a lot on my plate with the wedding and other miscellaneous things.

I guess sometimes you have to put away your tasks and joys to sacrifice for others, even though sometimes it doesn't make you happy.

"Anything, Eve," I tell her charmingly.

"Would you mind controlling your fiance?" She questions me, her hands going wide out, fanning out. I raise my eyebrow inquisitively.

"Yeah, why?" I question her hesitantly, each word I speak strung out.

"He didn't tell you what he was going to say today?" She heightens her inflection. I rushedly shush her and raise my eyebrows swiftly to Coriane, looking at her sleeping face with my eyes. Eve's face goes pale.

She blows out her breath. "Right," She pinches the bridge of her nose. "I know, I know, I have to change for Coriane, but," She chokes on a sob, then grits her teeth. "Sometimes it's really hard."

I blow out as well. "I get it, I'm trying to change too," I mutter, only audible enough for Eve to hear. She looks at me, her hands go back to her sides.

"Change? For what?" She copies my enunciation.

"Maven," I whisper stilly. Eve looks at me dumbfoundedly and surprised, shocked. She clears her throat and sits next to me down on the bed lightly, trying her best not to falter the mattress too much to wake Coriane.

"You are changing yourself for Maven?" She asks me rigidly. I never really knew I was doing it until now, more absentmindedly. But I was, I noticed that I wasn't myself right after what happened with Cal. The old me, me who lived back at the stilts would never allow that to happen. But it did, suffice to say that I was drunk.

I slowly nod, feeling a tad ashamed.

Eve exhales sharply, hardly audible but intense.

"For real?" She examines my body and my facade.

I nod again, only slower. I have a bad feeling that this might end poorly.

"Mare, you know if you change yourself for Maven, then he doesn't love the real you, he loves who you are trying to be," Eve says with a motherly tone, vigorously and strict.

My face fires up. I know she is correct, it's just hard to admit that she is, I suppose. I am trying to adjust and revert to my normal, old self, but it's hard, like my time as Mareena and running from Maven erased my memory of who I was, and this incident with Cal was my wake up call.

I exhale again, my sigh was shaky and unsure. I close my eyes tightly to flutter out the tears in my acorn-colored eyes.

"What was it that Maven said today?" I attempt to change the matter at hand.

The expression on Evangeline's face goes from cumbersome to rile quickly. "He didn't tell you?"

I shake my head, moaning as well to go along with it.