Eloise furrowed her brow, nodding. He was clearly shocked -- she just wasn’t sure why. Did people not like staying at Grand Central?
“I thought -- I thought it would be better, maybe.”
Evan had siblings. Two of them. And... Other family? Ellie’s voice immediately dropped to a whisper. “I didn’t sleep... Or... Didn’t sleep much, yesterday. At the very least I should do that before I go back, no?”
She wondered what Evan’s people were like. It was hard to imagine what life would be, if any of her family were here -- a unit or tribe. Eloise often thought of her parents as alive somewhere, if only because she hadn’t seen them die. She was glad she hadn’t. Just seeing her grandmother...
And then something funny happened. Eloise’s thoughts seemed to completely dissolve; they’d been going down a dark path, but that path seemed to disappear, fade along the line where Evan touched her. She had no idea why he would do something like that, but she found she didn’t mind.
Ellie let out a little sigh, nodding. “I understand.”
He was talented.
She hoped he knew that these things still had a place in the world. It wasn’t anything that was easy to express out loud, without seeming too forward -- too up in the air. Eloise was anything but, she hoped.
“This one is beautiful,” she told him instead, eyes bright. “This little house. I like the sense that it exists alone -- in that space. That tree looks like it becomes the sky.”