The longer Eve sits across from Jahseh, with his perfect posture and his moisturised skin and his apparent immunity to the littlest bag of sleeplessness beneath either of his eyes, the more she finds herself compelled to accept she is in no way, shape or harrowing form a morning person. Not against Jahseh, who drinks up the cafe's poor lighting and the daybreak's mist like some undiscovered paragon, unstirred by the sky-splitting crack of dawn or both their slumbers cut avoidably short.
Eve finds that Abbey Wood is somehow twice as peopled at its darkest hour of the night than six hours deep into the morning stretch, where the closest thing you get to pedestrians are the hi-vis garbed cyclists that circle the roundabout and hurtle up the dual carriageway every five odd minutes, sweat bleeding from every pore one has to offer and thighs pumped to the point of no return, only to crumble at the mercy of their AM shifts in any one of Abbey Wood's graveyard of warehouses.
When it comes to early rises, Jahseh quickly grasps that Eve is every bit the Debbie Downer.
"When you said breakfast, you really meant breakfast."
"How you mean?"
He glances her way, but focuses ultimately on his menu. Eve had barely thumbed through it upon their arrivalâthere's not much else to get besides a Full English and a cuppa. And even so, it holds Jahseh's focus like there's gold in it.
"It's really early."
"They open at 6," Jahseh says, as if it's at all the point. He's eventual to drop the menu and then his wrists into his laps. He divides his attention between Eve and Eve's hair, which she's pinned back with a petalled claw clip. The two strands that frame her face soften the effects of that enduring glare she's worn since he picked her up. "What time do you wake up?"
"Like... 9. Sometimes 10."
Jahseh purses his lips, "You should've said 10 then."
"Next time," Eve says, with a small smile. Jahseh's unsure what it is he says to summon that smile, but something within her uptightness melts right along with it.
"Next time."
Like every other blasted time the two happen to find themselves alone, a silence fogs about them. Granted, Jahseh is positive it's never been so loud. Perhaps the oil's cracks and pops from the kitchen, the brittle strum of electricity about them, the proper London-esque banter between the chef and the one man he has to assist him, make it seem as such. Jahseh can only bear about a minute of it, before he folds.
"Can I ask a question?"
Eve smiles, and then nods.
"Why Abbey Wood?"
Jahseh doesn't miss the flicker to her smile, nor does he forget it. Even as that same man pushes up against their table, swaddled in an apron and a smile too large for a morning so grim. He asks for their orders and the two take in turns to ultimately ask for the exact same thing, so he skirts off and returns two seconds later with two mugs and a crystalline teapot.
Jahseh lets her pour for him, and then herself. He watches her fiddle with her milks and her sugars while he opts to take his as it isâblackened and pungent and pleasing to the tip of his tongue, for some indescribable reason. Eve stirs her own drink as she hesitates to answer.
"What'd I tell you last time you asked? Work?" She chuckles, Jahseh fights the mug fighting to surface.
"I ain't really buying into all that," he shrugs. "I don't really appreciate all the mystery, either." Before the words finish leaving his mouth, he already regrets having said themâwhich is an unusual feeling, he must say. Shockingly enough, Eve only laughs in response.
"You act like you don't even like me, more often than not. Why would I tell you anything?"
"I just find you weird," he admits. He'd rather she know that than assume he dislikes her, although one is easily just as bad as the other.
Eve shifts so her elbows can rest against the table and then, to his surprise, she actually tells him, "My mum died in a car accident. An unlicensed, uninsured driver t-boned her and she died on impact. My dad flipped our whole town upside down to find that guy, come to find out the guy was really just some teenager. Either way, we had the whole church behind us so they was quick to find him. Then they arrested the kid." Eve smiles, and then her eyes close. Jahseh can't tell whether she's reminiscing or what, but the sudden stillness is unsettling to him.
"Then what?"
"His people came and burnt our church to the ground at her memorial. My dad and my brother never made it out."
Jahseh grimaces, and this choking lump swells itself right in the middle of his throat. He quickly wishes he'd never asked, because all he can manage in response is a winded, "What the fuck?" And to make matters all the heavier, Eve only offers up a shrug and a tilt to reply, and it does something to him. "That's dark."
"Well, what's dark is the fact the kid's probably, what, 16? 17 maybe, at this point. And when his people came with all their bricks and bats andâI kid you notâactual bottles of gasoline between them, they was all minors. I swear, the oldest couldn't have been past 18. And they was all from Abbey Wood," Eve concludes, but the bulge in her eyes as she does so, even over the rim of her cuppa as she sips from it, is borderline neurotic. Yet it's that same zeal she always sports when she talks about work or the wretched kids that she meets there.
Jahseh is slow to drum his fingers against the heated face of his own cup, "I never took you for the eye for an eye type, Eve."
"I'm probably the furthest thing from it."
"Then... Why you here?"
"Do you know how dark one back-garden of a town like Abbey Wood has to be to breed that many heathens? I can walk from one end of Abbey Wood to the other in about ninety minutesâtown is pretty generous, and its reaping murderers? Child murderers? I had a thought and then another and then I was here, I guess. Buying my flat, buying The Link."
The lore is a lot easier to stomach at her lack of tears as she tells it, but still, nauseating nonetheless. Jahseh is sure there are boulders where his chest is supposed to be, but he breathes through the feeling. He's a prick but he's still humanâa story as wicked as hers still does something to a man, even at its mere retelling. Yet she's been all ring-around-the-posies from the minute he met her.
"You are weird."
Eve laughs, "Just a little bit."
There are only one of two avenues to take out of the murky atmosphere that stalls between themâthe right one, and the wrong one. And although it shouldn't take her tragedy for him to treat the girl any nicer, he at least understands her incessant amiability, her warmth. She's got no one. Or rather, she had no one.
Jahseh decides with ease that she now has Morgan, Sullivan and himself.
"What's your brother's name?"
"Emmanuel, God with us."
Jahseh nods, lifts his cup and takes a leisurely sip. "What's he like?"
Now, if Jahseh only knew how much joy he sent coursing through her veins with his simple question, through the very fibres of her skin, maybe he'd have thought twice before he let the rest of their time together transpire the way it did. Nevertheless, the next hour is filled with anecdote upon anecdote illustrating the legend of the late D'AmoresâEmmanuel, Caleb and Esther. Aside from Jahseh's here and there twopence, the date is filled fundamentally by Eve's own voice, little shared about herself and yet, somehow, Jahseh feels he sees her raw. He clings onto her each and every word but at the back of his mind, wonders why even after the world had taken everything from her, she still wears her heart on her sleeve, in its shards and all.
Jahseh doesn't know whether it's with everyone that's she so open and comfortable, but he tells himself what sounds better which is that it's only with him. And truthfully, he's not far off. Eve can in her own head think of no other word better fitting than safe, his open ears and quiet listening, deadpan but fascinated questions. Like she does with Morgan and Sullivan and the sanctuary she'd erected for herself at The Link, Eve feels safe with Jahseh.
That is, until she loses whichever word she intends to come after her last, lowered fork, squinted eyes and undivided attention soldered to the shadow that lurks about the car park. Her silence draws him from his own plate of food, almost instantly.
And just like that, their date is adjourned.
"Uh, I think someone's trying to steal your car."
I remember I made this account when I was like 14/15, after I'd discovered my first ever London book and realised there was a whole genre of books I could tap into. I was so eager to write but knew I wanted such a good tag for people to remember me by that I figured I can make it whatever and just change it later. Then my first book took off and I got too scared to switch it because everyone knew me by that name.
But Mulla...
Even then, I hated itâon boys, on girls, on MEâand now I'm STUCK with it on here 4L. Don't be like me, guys.
Finally gave some insight into Eve's past. I knew I wanted some arson in there, but I just couldn't bring myself to write her entire family dying in the same fire. Too sad. Although this may actually be sadder. Thoughts and feels!
Jahseh FINALLY accepting our girl with open arms, even though he BEEEEEEN should have because she's nothing but nice to him.
A bit of a cliffhanger but I was unfortunately approaching my word count maximum. I intended for this chapter to be half date and half this new situation but I got carried away. Nevertheless, stay tuned!! Things are finally picking up.
Let me know what you're thinking! Again, too lazy to proofread but I will eventually. Bye.