Overlap

Eponine

"Hey bean," Johnny poked his head around my bedroom door in the late early evening at around half past 6.
I was dabbing tears from my eyes that he couldn't understand.

"Hi," i said sniffling, forcing a smile when I turned around.
It made little difference however.
He'd seen my tears in the mirror and the red rims, the pink tinge at the tip of my nose told him all he needed to know.

"I heard yous on the phone," he said gently, closing the door, hesitant to step inside, hesitant to sit down beside me at the foot of my bed and start messing with the makeup on my floor. He was eyeing up my eyelash curlers suspiciously when he broached the question. "Did you know it was him callin?" he asked, I knew my nod was going to wound him. I didn't know what else I could do.

"Uhuh,"

"So," he started placing my eyelash curlers down, untwisting the lid of my lipgloss instead. The sound of it squelching was the only sound until he spoke, "why did you pick up the phone?" he asked but he already knew. I already knew too.

"Because," i said softly smirking slightly, sadly, when he took the gloss from the container and sniffed it, wincing away when he got a blob on his nose and it stuck to his sleeve and his skin as he tried to wipe it away, "you know what I'm like..."

"Yeah," he breathed, let out a little chuckle, "Epsy don't let him in again," he said looking up at me suddenly his eyes pooling with love and something which looked like begging.

"I'm tryin," i said trying my best to hold his gaze, to return all the love and warmth he was trying to communicate, "its just hard..." i said barely breaking a whisper. There were tears in my eyes again.

"I don't wanna lose you again bean," his voice shook a little. I felt my stomach twist with guilt. He needed me just as much as I needed him.

"You never will Johnny you know that," i tried to give him a little smile, tried to light the lamps in my eyes but it didn't work and he shook his head. Swallowed down a lump in his throat.

"Don't go back to him again Eps," he said a little stronger this time, a little more like he was making a promise to himself than asking me to promise him. I dabbed at my eyes again, squeezed them shut and nodded my head, this was our agreement, our promise to one another. I wasn't going to break it this time.

In that moment, when he opened his arms for me to crawl into, when he held me tight, squeezed me like only a brother could, I really did believe it.
I really did think that that could be the end of it all. That i might get a happily ever after afterall.

"The lads will be round soon beanie, you gonna grace us with your presence?" he asked, "or are you gonna sit in here mardin around to the other John in your life," he teased throwing me a sideways smile as he stood up and I slid from his embrace, remaining on the floor in front of my mirror.

"Look at me johnny," i said with an apologetic smirk but he simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Look beautiful to me Eps," he said as if it were all water from a ducks back, the easy going older brother I'd always known him to be, "Theres a bottle of red all for you," he said pausing in the doorway to smirk, say something else. Something funny to draw a smile and a laugh from me. "You really do look beautiful Eps, you can tell youre my sister," he winked before shutting my bedroom door behind him, disappearing back to the lounge where I heard him shout something to Larry and Van. Two seconds later there was music.

It was The Strokes.

✨

"Howay lads!" shouted Larry when I wandered through my bedroom door out into the hallway. Several sets of eyes watching me from through an open door. "She's here she's here!"