My Favourite Part

45(c): one last time

"Evie?"

Eric presses his fingers to his sleep-heavy eyelids before opening then, squinting as he finds the lamp switch.

"Evie, what are you doing?" He whispers.

I shuffle on the carpeted spot, suddenly feeling very exposed.

"I thought maybe I could sleep in here... with you."

His eyes on me are careful, and I tell myself it's because he's just waking up, but when he sighs and the silence goes on a little longer, my hearts breaks a little.

"Evie..." he starts, sitting up, "love, I don't think that's the best idea. Your dad being just downstairs and all."

He's right – I know he is. But after all this week's madness, I don't think I care. I just want to be by his side.

"I know..." I murmur, gnawing at my lip, "I just... Dad's room's on the ground floor anyway, so I doubt he'll even come up when the night's over, and it just felt a bit weird not to go to bed with you for the first time in, like, a week, and I was thinking about how when we get home it'll probably be months before I get to again, and..."

I exhale, trailing off before I babble on any longer. There's no use. He's right.

"No, you're right. It's not a good idea. I'll just, I'll just see you in the morning."

I turn on my heels to leave, but as I wrap a hand around the doorknob, darkness falls again with the click of the bedside lamp.

"Come here,

After this week, it feels instinctive to nestle into him like this – pressed to his side with his arm around my back, holding me infinitely closer as he strokes my hair and draws patterns on my back to lull me to sleep. I don't know how quickly sleep will come tonight, but I feel warmer in his arms – safer.

"Do we need to lock it?" He asks, and my eyes dart up and across the room to the keyhole in the polished golden doorknob. I shake my head.

"Once he's said goodnight, he doesn't tend to come back upstairs." When I feel him nod above my head, and his tensed torso relax, I snuggle further in, curling my legs beneath me so he can hold me closer.

With a deep chuckle, he happily obliges.

"Comfortable?" He teases.

"Yes, thank you."

He breathes in deeply, and I can hear his heartbeat, fast and steady in the evening's silence.

"She's so pretty," I say.

"Hm? Who?"

I nod up at the poster of the pinup model on the wall. The girl's a buxom bottle blonde, leaning over a BMW bonnet with a red-lipped smile.

She sort of looks like his ex-girlfriend, Lea. Only sort of. But that's all it takes for Kitty's 'specific path' and 'certain sort of woman' talk to find its way back into my head.

"Huh," he says, "I didn't even notice that there."

I snort, nudging him in the stomach. "Yeah right." He laughs too.

I let a beat of silence pass before I whisper, tracing shapes on his chest,

"I wish I could look like that."

His soothing designs on my back still abruptly.

"Evie."

"I didn't mean it in a bad way, I just think she's gorgeous and most people would like the way she looks. Don't worry, I won't get the plastic surgery until I'm way older."