Eleanor had to stop herself from catching her breath at the unexpected (but not unwelcome) sensation of his hand coming to rest over hers, for a moment deliberately conscious of the warmth and the weight of it. It had been long enough since she'd last had so much as a kind touch, not to mention a kind word from anyone who seemed even remotely sincere, that for a moment she was actually stumped for words of her own.
It was all in her head. A shitty thing to tell yourself when in fact, you already spent so much of your time wondering if something you were thinking or feeling was real or simply just a manifestation of your mental illness. Eleanor had spent so much of her life second guessing everything once she'd received her official diagnosis. Being Bipolar? It had its ups and downs. Mostly downs, and the ups were often even worse. There was nothing worse than not being in control of yourself, and there were times when her mood swings could get so bad that Eleanor lost all track of what was real and what was manufactured by her manic episodes.
After years of being on medications to manage her disorder, those emotional highs and lows were fewer and farther between, but she never forgot what they were like. Losing all control, unable to stop yourself from spiraling in either direction when it happened. The worst thing about the mania was that she often didn't remember much about what she'd said or done during those episodes, like some kind of hysterical blackout. The worst thing about the extreme lows was that Eleanor was usually aware underneath the heavy fog, but she couldn't snap herself out of it. Trapped inside the cage of your own body and left to rot.
No matter how bad things got, she'd always had an anchor. That anchor was Aaron. She might have been the protective twin, but he was the solid one, and now he wasn't here. But Spence was, and he felt solid and real in her hand. When she looked up to meet his gaze, it got harder to tell herself that it was all just the convenient fabrication of a questionable mind. Even harder when he insisted on making promises that she desperately wanted to hear, but knew that she shouldn't take to heart at the risk of disappointment. Not when there was this much at stake, and still, the moment he made it, Eleanor felt herself latching onto that hope.
Latching onto that hope and the person responsible for it, who just so happened to have eyes the color of water that might make a person want to jump in and swim in them.
Eleanor felt the heat rising in her cheeks, quick to turn her thoughts to something else, anything else. She was just projecting. She missed Aaron, and she still hadn't properly dealt with the grief of losing her father or processing their mother's mysterious disappearance in the same amount of months. She knew that, and it was still difficult for her not to put all of her hopes into this person she'd only met maybe twenty minutes ago. Aaron was too important to get that kind of thing wrong, but Eleanor couldn't shake the feeling that she wasn't wrong about Spence at all.
He was going to be the one to help her.
For fuck's sake, he's hot but he's not that hot. Helena's harsh, exasperated tone in the back of her head made Eleanor bite down on her lower lip to keep from laughing while privately disagreeing with the disembodied voice. Of course, his looks had nothing to do with whether or not he'd be up to the task of finding her brother, but they didn't hurt either. She and Helena would both just have to agree to disagree there.
Giving Spence one of her appraising looks while they had the privacy of being on the other side of the door, she decided that he really seemed to believe he could solve this for her. That was enough."I know. That's why I came to you," Eleanor replied, her more natural edge seeping through in her voice, almost in challenge. If he was going to start making promises like that, he better back them up with real results. Pausing long enough for Spence to open the door so she could regretfully slip through, Eleanor's eyes glittered with an anticipation that made them look more gray than blue as she walked to where Victoria was waiting in reception, only glancing back once to make sure she hadn't made him up entirely.