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daughterofawolfLater, what will haunt her is that she can’t swear to the exact moment she last knew Ellie was there. They had gone to bed together; she knows that. She’s even certain — pretty well — no, definitely so — that at some point she’d half-woken and curled closer.
She has dreams she wakes from, though, into other dreams. Vivid ones, ones that loop over and over, waking and speaking to usual people until something goes wrong, dreams that leave her uncertain for sometimes hours later that she’s ever finally awoken. So had El really explained, in the purple of predawn, that she was getting up but that Eponine should sleep? Had Eponine said I love you back, aloud, or was that just an nice thought? Was all of it?
Hey, it’s okay. I’m just going to go take care of some stuff. I love you, go back to sleep.
It’s so eerily apt , that later it will turn over and over in her mind long after she’s decided it’s okay to hold onto it.
Right now, though, none of that occurs to her. She isn’t thinking about when she last saw Ellie or what she said. She’s simply letting the silence of the house settle over her.
She knows before she knows. With Rosie, with so many friends now, she’d called, listened to the voice message. Looked for them. But somehow she doesn’t find herself calling Ellie’s name as she pads through the house, doesn’t reach to see if she’s texted about going out or call to see where she is.
She doesn’t do anything, as she looks around. Everything has stopped, sort of: it’s as though time doesn’t exist, the edges of her body uncertain and nebulous, a familiar feeling but rarely coupled with this heavy, cold, calm. Eponine walks out the door still in an oversized t-shirt and shorts, bare feet on frosty ground to observe Ellie’s truck parked in the driveway. There’s a creaking she doesn’t recognize, and she blinks a little before she realizes Bart’s paddock gate is swinging open.
Bart is gone, too. Or wandered off. She does call for the goat, put out hay, clang the metal trough to call her to food, but there’s no sign of her and after a while Eponine goes back in, limbs burning as the cold warms from them. She’ll have to call around. What a dumb fucking goat.
She stands in the kitchen blankly for a moment and then goes to change into something a little more like clothing. She starts the pot of coffee, sweeps up the grounds. Looks out the window while she cleans last night’s late-night dishes and gets two mugs down.
Suddenly she’s dry heaving into the kitchen sink. She stumbles to the bathroom where she sits on her knees and retches around nothing; her body’s absolutely futile effort to rid herself of insides made of emptiness. And still, still she doesn’t cry, just half howls like the feral thing she is and was always meant to be, lets groaning keening monstrous noises come out of her and echo against the nice bathroom.
Eventually she gets up. She mechanically rinses her mouth and brushes her teeth as you’re supposed to, and changes her shirt in case.
And then she leaves the empty house and its empty paddock and its too-full coffee pot. She doesn’t take the bike: she’s not well, but she’s not stupid. She just walks.
Eponine comes back to herself with a start almost as she’s knocking on Bev’s window. This is her own old building and her best friend; she knows the fire escapes well enough for it to be almost as rote as the walk here, so the lack of keen memory of it isn’t important enough to worry about right now.
Still — it might be the best place she could have gotten herself, and she finds herself suddenly overwhelmed with the fervent hope that Bev’s home and awake.
She has dreams she wakes from, though, into other dreams. Vivid ones, ones that loop over and over, waking and speaking to usual people until something goes wrong, dreams that leave her uncertain for sometimes hours later that she’s ever finally awoken. So had El really explained, in the purple of predawn, that she was getting up but that Eponine should sleep? Had Eponine said I love you back, aloud, or was that just an nice thought? Was all of it?
Hey, it’s okay. I’m just going to go take care of some stuff. I love you, go back to sleep.
It’s so eerily apt , that later it will turn over and over in her mind long after she’s decided it’s okay to hold onto it.
Right now, though, none of that occurs to her. She isn’t thinking about when she last saw Ellie or what she said. She’s simply letting the silence of the house settle over her.
She knows before she knows. With Rosie, with so many friends now, she’d called, listened to the voice message. Looked for them. But somehow she doesn’t find herself calling Ellie’s name as she pads through the house, doesn’t reach to see if she’s texted about going out or call to see where she is.
She doesn’t do anything, as she looks around. Everything has stopped, sort of: it’s as though time doesn’t exist, the edges of her body uncertain and nebulous, a familiar feeling but rarely coupled with this heavy, cold, calm. Eponine walks out the door still in an oversized t-shirt and shorts, bare feet on frosty ground to observe Ellie’s truck parked in the driveway. There’s a creaking she doesn’t recognize, and she blinks a little before she realizes Bart’s paddock gate is swinging open.
Bart is gone, too. Or wandered off. She does call for the goat, put out hay, clang the metal trough to call her to food, but there’s no sign of her and after a while Eponine goes back in, limbs burning as the cold warms from them. She’ll have to call around. What a dumb fucking goat.
She stands in the kitchen blankly for a moment and then goes to change into something a little more like clothing. She starts the pot of coffee, sweeps up the grounds. Looks out the window while she cleans last night’s late-night dishes and gets two mugs down.
Suddenly she’s dry heaving into the kitchen sink. She stumbles to the bathroom where she sits on her knees and retches around nothing; her body’s absolutely futile effort to rid herself of insides made of emptiness. And still, still she doesn’t cry, just half howls like the feral thing she is and was always meant to be, lets groaning keening monstrous noises come out of her and echo against the nice bathroom.
Eventually she gets up. She mechanically rinses her mouth and brushes her teeth as you’re supposed to, and changes her shirt in case.
And then she leaves the empty house and its empty paddock and its too-full coffee pot. She doesn’t take the bike: she’s not well, but she’s not stupid. She just walks.
Eponine comes back to herself with a start almost as she’s knocking on Bev’s window. This is her own old building and her best friend; she knows the fire escapes well enough for it to be almost as rote as the walk here, so the lack of keen memory of it isn’t important enough to worry about right now.
Still — it might be the best place she could have gotten herself, and she finds herself suddenly overwhelmed with the fervent hope that Bev’s home and awake.