Page 273 of Eternal
Soup first. She chewed like it hurt, like eating meant staying.
“I feel stupid,” she said, voice small.
I smiled. “I love feeding you.”
And I did. Maybe because that’s all I ever did to feel like I was useful. It made me think of when I used to cook for Vlad and the team, back when my hands didn’t shake every time I touched something soft.
She frowned. “Why?”
I brushed a curl from her cheek, chuckled, but it sounded tired. “Because it’s all I knew how to do growing up. Take care of people, it made me feel like I mattered, at least a little.”
She didn’t know how bad it fucked me. How everything burned down after they were gone. One by one. Missions.Mistakes. Grief stacked like bodies in my head.
She looked at me like she could hear it in my silence.
“You’re thinking…”
I set the spoon down and touched her cheek again, slower this time.
“I lost everyone,” I said. “And I don’t want to lose you.”
Her smile was paper-thin. “Guess you’re stuck with me,partner.”
“Oh, what a tragedy.”
She laughed, and it cracked something open in both of us.I’m stuck with her forever…
I kept feeding her until she finished, then sat her down between my legs and braided her hair while she leaned back against me.
Like we weren’t haunted, like maybe we could pretend long enough to believe it.
80
AZRA
“Let It Go” by James Bay
Present
“Did she braid your hair like that?”
His voice was quiet, like he was afraid of spooking something fragile, like me.
He was asking about my mother, and for a second, I didn’t know how to answer. The question felt too... careful, too intimate.
He was trying to understand me, and that alone felt strange. But I wanted to tell him.
It’s weird, isn’t it? Wanting to talk about her, even after everything we went through, like maybe if I say the good parts out loud, the happy memories, it won’t hurt as much to think about her.
It’s stupid, probably, this need to say it to someone who’ll just listen, who won’t tell me it wasn’t real, who won’t make me feel like I made it all up.
“She used to,” I say, feeling his fingers brushing the strands softly. “I remember her hands. Before they got shaky.”
“Talk to me about it.”
I go quiet.
What do I even say? That I missed my mom before she was even gone? That she left in pieces? That love turned into fear so fast I didn’t even realize I stopped calling it love?
