"How's that?"
Eve, raised brows and smile alit, stares on at Kamale. She eyes the angles in his jaw as he chews, the careful speed at which he does so. And then the quaint nature of his own smile, like it's a secret sacred between the two. When he nods his head, Eve does too. The pair dig into their respective platesâor rather boxes. She can't help the curious glances she tosses his way. Although she's come to realise no matter how discreet she thinks herself he'll catch her every time. There's just that underlying angst, a whisper amidst their rounds of silence, that the kid would bolt. He's fickle, the trust that she's nursing between them is just as much.
She knows the wrong step could bring it all crashing down, on his head more than hers, so she's taken a foreign approachâbaby steps, because he's as closed a book as anything. His mum and the sister he'd mentioned remain unchartered domain. He doesn't want to talk about Parker, or school, or home. He doesn't want to go outsideâat least not until his eye's reduced to its normal size and a colour he can stomach. And there isn't much pastime the trailer has to offer, really.
Instead, she's taken to teaching him how to cookâshe quickly learned he'd sooner starve, otherwise. Although today, in all her laziness, she'd only taught him the wonders of a Two For Tuesday from Dominoes.
"Thanks."
Eve perks at this, a cheekful grin. Two gazes drift back upon the boxed TV at the front of the room, not a clue between them or the slightest bother to set it up. "And for that."
"You're welcome."
"I got a question."
The skin around Kamale's eye is a distracting shade of purple. Harsh and harrowing hues, deep in some areas and deeper in others. And there's strokes of red in the whites of that eye, framed by lids still swollen from this blow he's yet to speak on. It's beyond distracting. Even so, Eve is careful to meet his eye with undivided attention rather than the grimace strung beneath her features.
"Okay."
"Howâ"
"Are you gonna answer my questions?" She prods. His eyebrows pinch, an inward tossup on the worth of all he has to ask next to the answers he knows she's anxious to receive. The ones he's anxious to give.
"Okay, ask. One question."
Eve shifts her box of pizza from her laps and onto the floor beside her. The pair sit for some reason on the prim carpet, backs to the trailer's actual seating. Her legs folded, his legs spread, and then there's a sudden bounce to his furthest knee. Small bobs, that Eve is sure she wouldn't have noticed if not for the awful stillness all about them. "Alright. I guess I can see why you'd steal my bag, but why go nosing around Jahseh's car?"
Kamale's face twists.
"Who?"
Eve narrows her eyes. "Jahseh. That Mercedes at the caf, it's his. Why bother with a car you can't drive? Because I doubt you were gonna pawn it."
"I didn't know it was his car."
"Well you knew it wasn't yours."
The pursed mouth of his all familiar scowl eases, like he'd dare a smile through his moody defence, and then he shrugs. Eve watches him take to another slice of pizza. "Loose change."
"Is that how you get by? Loose change for food?"
"That ain't one question."
"Well," Eve folds her arms. "That ain't gonna work much longer, is it? Stealing from people. You need to get a job. You can stay here as long as you need to, but you can't get by without a job. You're lucky it was him and I you ran into, someone else might not've spared you."
"Lucky? Are you having me on?"
Eve's brows shoot upwards. Aside from his blubbering plights, it's the most of a reaction she's gotten out of him. Although there's something starkly uninviting about the way he fixes his face to ogle at her and what she to say. Still, she's thankful for an actual conversation, rather than the clipped phrases and no eye contact he constantly meets her with.
"What?"
"I got a question, how do yous know each other? Do you even know him? About lucky." Their wooden backing chirrs behind the weight of Kamale's shoulder, as he faces himself better towards Eve. Suddenly, it feels like a conversation they're not supposed to be having. His voice teeters on a whisper and his tone is all-knowing, heavy with secrets he's careful not to spill. No one's listening and she's sure of it, yet she throws a wary glance about the room as if Jahseh himself could leap from the floorboards and grind Kamale's head into his neck.
"He's myâwell... He was a friend of a friend, now he's my... We just... I don't know really. We spend time together. Do you know him? Is that it?"
Kamale gives a definitive shake of his head.
"Is he your boyfriend?"
Her cheeks flush hot and bothered at this. I wish. Eve's always considered herself one with her emotions, and all but slow to fall. Her feelings for Jahseh didn't catch her off-guard, they didn't strike her senseless like a bolt from the blue. She welcomed the burn with open eyes and open arms. A spark turned to a fever, a fever to an all consuming blaze at as little as the mention of him. He'd blistered at her loneliness till she struggled to recall the feeling, and welted along the charred contours of her heart. It doesn't beat as it once did, noâyou can only lose so much before it's fated to do soâbut in and out and all around Jahseh, its beat is... Different. It's a rhythm she has no qualms getting used to. She tells herself it's only a crush, but the searing heat of it kindles a smile upon her face, unfailingly. She fancies him, and tragically so.
"He's not my boyfriend."
Kamale frowns. "But you like him."
"Maybe."
"Why?"
He startles slightly at the laugh she echoes throughout the trailer, "What do you mean why? He's sweet."
"He ain't sweet."
"I thought you didn't know him," Eve tuts. Between naivety and her faultless oblivion, the glaring omen he lays out goes right over her head. She watches him reach for his forgotten slice of pizza, deaf to the fact.
"Everyone knows him," Kamale mumbles. Eve's head lolls leftwards, she eyes his guarded expression, breezes over his guarded words with a gentle mind rather than the cautious one she'll soon come to learn she's better off for. With eyes unstained by the keel of Abbey Wood, by the innermost nooks of its shadows and the trouble forever looming around any of its corners.
She smiles, and Kamale finds it fatally stupid. "Look, I know Jahseh seems all doom and gloom, and he's a little harsh and very much intimidating, but he is sweet. He helped you out, he gave you somewhere to stay and we didn't even ask him to, did we? He's a nice guy, trust me. Don't worry about him."
Miffed, he shakes his head. And before he takes another bite from the little of his slice he has left, he mutters beneath a loaded breath, "You don't know him."
Although he's yet to say it, he holds more gratitude for Eve than he has for anyone or any God-given thing, ever. More than he could ever string together in words of no account. He might even go as far as admitting within himself that he likes herâbut he likes his life a little bit more, particularly the ability to live it. And if Jahseh were to have it his way, Kamale knows he could and as sure as eggs would snuff the life right out of him if he so much as uttered another word on their at hand topic. Nor would it take much for him to do so. Instead, Kamale focuses elsewhere as their conversation yet again quells to silence.
Sooner or later, Eve's gentle mind will be her eventual undoing. What more can he do but watch?
This felt eery! Love that. I love bread-crumbing the lore. Jahseh is the only character I was one hundred percent sure of before I started this book, he's existed to me for such a long time. It's fun to finally write him to life.
Thoughts on Kamale and his stealing? Although there's not much to think of it a this point. I'll soon elaborate.
Thoughts on their discussion about Jahseh? What are you thinking? What's he hinting at? EXCITING.
Thoughts, feels and predictions <3
See ya lataaaaaaaaaa!