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“Oh my God, Eden,” she whispers, looking down at the ceramic and sugar graveyard.

Then her eyes flick toward the corner, landing on the pile of soaked, dark fabric still dripping steadily onto the floor. “And that? What is that?”

“Matthew’s,” I blurt out before she can even finish the thought. I can’t tell her I summoned a demon who had a tea-related wardrobe malfunction. “The shirt and tie. Please... just don’t ask. I was... going through his things. It got messy.”

She flinches at the mention of his name out loud but doesn’t push it; just starts rooting through the first-aid supplies from the junk drawer with the practiced efficiency of a big sister who patched me up too many times when we were little girls.

“Why don’t you have any actual first-aid supplies?” she huffs, tossing aside a dead battery and a stack of menus. “There’s just gauze.”

“I don’t know… I… I’ll pick some up later,” I mutter. “It’s just been a long couple of days, alright? I’m tired, Pipes.”

She stops digging and looks up at me, her eyes softening into that terrifyingly perceptive big sister gaze.

“Is it getting too much?” she asks quietly, stepping closer. “Is this… is it the nightmares again? Or the flashbacks?”

“It’s just a bad week, Pipes. I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to downplay it for me,” she says. “You don’t get bonus points for pretending you’re managing.”

“I’m just…” I hesitate, then settle for the safest version of honesty I can manage in this already-growing web of lies. “I’m struggling. Some days it’s heavier than others.”

The hardness in her face vanishes. Her features sag, muscle memory sliding them into that familiar, suffocating sympathy.

“Eden,” she says gently, stroking my cheek. “Of course it is. You don’t just get over something like that. Nobody expects you to be a superhero. But you can’t be cutting yourself, not even if it is for some grief-meditation-thing… okay?”

“Okay,” I whisper.

Looking at her, I feel a sudden, all-consuming urge to just lean forward and bury my face in her shoulder. I want to fold into her, to let her be the big sister and let myself be the girl who’s boyfriend died—not the girl who’s currently got one big, huge, demonic mistake in her bedroom.

But another part of me is screaming.

I can’t let her see him. I can’t let her hear him. I can’t let her stay long enough for the impossible to make a sound.

“I think I just need to sleep it off,” I say, shaking my head softly. “I’m exhausted, Pipes. I think I just need some time to myself.”

I move, forcing my limbs to act like they belong to a person who is merely tired, rather than a person oozing with terror. “I’ll contact work. I’ll take some time off. Just... please don’t call Mom.”

She leans against the counter, her expression hardening into a wall of steel. “Oh, I’m not going, Eden. Not a chance.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“We’ll have tea,” she continues. “You’ll eat something. We can ring your therapist together—or I’ll do it for you.”

A sharp, demanding meow echoes from down the hallway.

“Ah. There’s Vesper,” she says, heading right for my bedroom and my heart stops, every alarm bell in my head going off at once. If she opens that door, she doesn’t just find a pissed-off cat; she finds a very tall silver problem probably lounging on my duvet.

“No! Don’t!” I bolt forward, nearly tripping over the rug to intercept her.

She stops, her hand inches from the handle. “Eden, what⁠—”

“The... the kitchen!” The words rush out. “I don’t want her cutting her paws. I tucked her in there to keep her safe until I can deep-clean the floor.”

The silence stretches, agonizingly long, until finally, she sighs.

“You’re a disaster,” she mutters, her voice softening from furious to just plain worried. “But you’re sure? I don’t have to go. I could stay, help you get the sugar up, we could just put on a movie and not talk. We could⁠—”

“No!” I catch the sharpness in my tone and immediately soften it with a weak, watery smile. “No, really. I just need silence. You know how it is. Please.”