neither emily or eve like sharing because both of them grew up having to fight to be a "real" person.
mallory was clearly codependent on emily and she grew up knowing that her mom lived vicariously through her and saw her as an extension of herself, a version of her who has something she very desperately wanted for herself; emily subconsciously recreates this pattern with rebecca which is a whole other thing, but point is i think she clings to anything that's hers so aggressively as a way to separate herself from her mother and segment her own identity. thus, her sister, her best friend, her boys. hers. and if her mother disapproved of them like she did of the boys then she clings to them even harder as proof of her individual identity. emily's sense of self revolves around the amount of control she holds over these relationships, and anything that threatens that control is registered to her as a threat to who she is.
eve grew up isolated and neglected by her "family". those demons didn't even give her christmas presents. then she gets assaulted by a teacher, but everyone loves the teacher and no one cares about eve, so it's left in the air. she's invisible. and growing up like that has a way of making you feel like you're not real, like you're not really a part of this world the way others are. so eve needs to ground herself and her identity through things that are exclusively hers, and in this case, that are as separate from the world as she is. she doesn't want to share toby or slate or her money or anything at all because she needs these people and things to be hers to define who she is. if someone else, someone who's more real, also puts claim to any of this, she's gonna feel like she's losing it completely because she can't compete with the level of personhood that others have. toby can't love both her and avery, he must either only love eve, or he loves avery more than her. that's how love and belonging were modeled to her growing up, so she can't entertain the possibility of sharing or being equal to others. it's a scarcity mindset.
it's very interesting how emily grew up upper middle class with her whole family focused on her since day 1, while eve grew up poor and neglected by her family yet the two of them share similarities like these.
stormborns
dailybridgerton
izzy806
areudirty
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