You Know the Truest Me

Amalia is precisely where Evie expects her, eyes drawn to the same place as they have been for years. The motion is as familiar as the face she gazes upon. There isn't a world Evie can imagine living in where Amalia isn't standing there, smile radiant and glowing through her entire beautiful face. If there exists a parallel universe where Evie would have to bear walking through this door only to find the shop barren, she is sure that version of herself would not survive long past losing Amalia. But that is not this world, and Evie's own smile breaks through the clouds converging upon her soul, reaching for Amalia's joy like a physical entity that drinks it down like liquid sunshine and glows all the brighter for it. Amalia flies around the counter, and Evie is waiting for her long before her pounding feet cross the floor, arms flung out in preparation. They clasp firmly around Amalia's waist, laughing into the whirlwind of hair that flies against her face, bringing with it the smell of young dough. "Amalia," she breathes in ecstatic cry, nearly lifting the younger woman off the ground with how she draws her impossibly closer to her breast. As if she can make a home there for the only little sister the world had deigned to give her. Protected, carried forever close, so they may never be parted like this again. Even when Evie hides away, when she exiles herself, she will never be without Amalia again. Refusing to part just yet, she presses their temples together as she lets one hand drift higher to rub idle circles between Amalia's shoulders. Rocks them to and fro gently, unable to help the almost manic grin on her face. Everything is finally right. "I've missed you so much 'Lia," trembles from her lips, but there is a strength in Evie now that she has Amalia in her grasp. A dynamic that had never died out between them, not since they were young and side-by-side with Amalia's mother, learning their basic herbs. Evie had always been the big sister. The guiding hand. To have Amalia still love her, still trust in her...it takes the weight of inadequacy from her shoulders for a moment, reminds her that people count on her. It's enough. It will always be enough. evie Please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere