@landsfew / "thank god i’ve got you." (from rat boy 2 dottir)
when eve remembers the past, it’s hazy. she isn’t sure about most of it. all she knows is growing up with a father who was always busy and a mother who carried a sadness, then---stability. jordan and tom were fine parental figures (not real parents, though they tried their best) but if eve closed her eyes, if eve pretended, then she could feel better about it.
when eve remembers the past, she remembers her father most of all. he tried his best, but she never noticed the underlying rage that bubbled underneath his skin (not until she grew up enough to recognize that...it wasn’t healthy). there was once, years ago, when she was a little girl, that her father talked to her. it wasn’t the first time (though she though there’d be many more), but it sticks out in her mind like a sore thumb.
he smiled, something real and brilliant, not one faked for the followers. “thank god i’ve got you.” it was a soft thing, something that made her heart warm. in retrospect, eve isn’t sure if it was genuine or if was something else. she’d much rather believe it was him being an actual father. surprisingly, she doesn’t harbor any resentment toward him. that’s what she got from her mother---an understanding, a warmth, no reason to still have a grudge for years and years after. after all, he tried his best. that’s all she could have asked for (a selfish part of her wants more, wants a stable father and mother, a family that was really hers and not shared between other people. at the end of the day, all she got was shells).
when eve remembers the past, she remembers seeing the flies swarm her father’s shoulders.