eva used to do karate in high school. we didn’t know each other at all when we moved in together, but i remember that being one of the first things i found out about her. one day (we hadn’t been living together for that long), she said to me, ‘do you think i could try and flip you over your head? i used to be able to do that. don’t worry, you’re not gonna feel any pain,’ and then she paused and added, ‘if you don’t try to fight back.’
i remember us fighting once. eva got so mad that she turned around on her heel and left; we were waiting for a bus, and she just left and walked all the way home in the middle of the night. granted, i was being an insufferable asshole, but i wouldn’t have admitted it at the time. we stopped talking after that night; i think we stopped talking to each other for about three days, and then i was ready for that to be over; i wanted the girl in the bedroom right next to mine to be my friend again, so i found a single cigarette lying around in my room (it had fallen out of my friend’s pack a couple of weeks ago on new year’s but he couldn’t find it at the time). i took that cigarette and pencilled ‘peace pipe’ on it, and rolled it across an ugly carpet with a badly patched up burn hole in it into eva’s bedroom. she looked down at it for a moment, prompting instant regret in my mind. maybe that was just going to annoy her more? maybe i should have just said something, like a normal person?
she then stood up, grabbed one of her big sweaters off the back of a chair, picked up the cigarette, and said, ‘let’s go.’ fortunately, she’s not a normal person either, and so we smoked that peace pipe together, and that was that. rarely have i felt as unconditionally and unquestionably accepted by anyone as i always did by her.
eva is, hands down, one of the toughest, most badass yet most delightful, gentle people i have ever met. she always thinks about others; she would come home, jump on my bed, and thrust a milky way chocolate bar that she had bought for me that day into my hands while filling my ears with a shrill ‘this is for you, glen coco!’, just because. i remember her bringing me a slice of bread topped with icing and two birthday candles stuck in it while she was making a cake for a friend’s birthday one night; she said she’d whipped that up for my 21.57th birthday. she’d have so many preconceived notions, about people and about the dark knight trilogy, but she’s never afraid to change her mind in search of what is true to her. and she’d fall in love, my god how she would fall, in love with people and with days and pictures and cadbury’s creme eggs. she would always tell people little anecdotes about me as proof of how weird i am, and she’d always tell people that i made her weird too. she’d sometimes (or maybe just once, we will never know at this point) carry handfuls of crisps in her hoodie pocket, which i’ll never let her live down. she’d go for walks with me and have little day trips with me; they were like our small whimsical adventures in a large serious world. she agreed to go with it even when i was insisting on having a picnic at 10pm this one night and then it started snowing, but it was never cold, in my memories at least, because it warms my heart to know that she was the only sane person who would have sat there with me anyway, having our snowy picnic. she’d constantly forget the names of simple, mundaine things, like waffle iron, and say the first word that came into her head, which was often nowhere close to what she really had in mind. she taught me to celebrate palentine’s day instead of feeling left out on valentine’s day, and whenever one of us got the flu she’d make sure we had some mulled wine to fight it. she’d score me free coffee and muffins from whatever coffee shop she worked at the time, but it was never a bargain, never a trade or an attempt to gain something; it has always been genuine care that goes beyond any logical, coherent thought. it has always been a given. there’s always room for me in her world, there’s always warmth.
my eyes fill with light of a thousand and one beautiful memories, shining from however long ago, of how we both love baking and how eva hates horror movies, and how against all odds we met. how her genuineness and almost childlike honesty, her wonderful, strange complexity won me over, and her boundaryless friendship made me feel at home, and her intelligence and her science smarts make me so proud my chest could burst, and it will always be my absolute honour to call her my friend (and also to call her ‘evelina’, which she absolutely hates).
our friendship has always been the most beautiful, most functional compromise. if eva was in an all encompassing christmas spirit and wanted to make decorations together, she’d let me put on how the grinch stole christmas. if we cooked together she’d often end up eating vegetarian meals with me. if we went out, i’d dress up a little more and be prepared to keep up with her, no matter how many shots i was going to have to down. if one of us couldn’t figure out how to turn the electricity on, the other one would try until it worked. if she wanted a christmas tree, i’d steal a huge branch from the one stood in the town hall. it’s always been an unending series of littler and bigger compromises. it’s always been like clockwork. it’s always been so simple, so organic, so familiar.
this one’s for you, my beautiful friend.
long eyelashes and crooked teeth 