I stayed in bed a lot longer than usual even though there were things I should've been doing. It was like if I didn't get up to see that Eve wasn't there, I could pretend that yesterday had never happened. That I'd walk by her room later and see her reading a book upside-down because she was "training her brain," or I'd see her at her desk, writing in a notebook, the most concentrated look on her face.

What ultimately made me leave the comfort of my bed at noon was that I suddenly remembered the envelope I left on the coffee table in the living room. The one with Emerald's name on it.

I got dressed in my clothes from yesterday that I had thrown haphazardly onto the floor last night before collapsing into bed. I thought it'd be another sleepless night, but nearly as soon as my head hit the pillow I was out like a light. I guess the events from the day really wore me out.

It was kind of nice to spend a few hours not thinking about all of it.

I was ready to leave the house at about half past 12 when Linds reminded me that Em was still in school. So, I was forced to wait around anxiously until she'd be home.

I tried to sit in my office and write, or do anything productive that might take my mind off things, but it was useless. My phone that I kept checking was a distraction and so was everything else. Everything I looked at reminded me of her. Of course, there were the family pictures on my wall, but even the plain black shirt I was wearing reminded me of her because of the time she said that plain shirts are impossible to find in the women's section of any clothing store. Then I see her ukulele leaning up against the wall behind my door. I hadn't even noticed she had left it here instead of taking it with her.

So now I find myself bringing it to her room and placing in gently on the top shelf in her closet, where she always kept it. Instead of leaving the room, though, I stay put, just standing in the middle of the floor. Am I doing this simply to make myself hurt? I must. I can't think of any other reason why I'd keep coming in here, the blank walls and empty bookshelf no easier to look at than they were yesterday.

This time, though, I step into her bathroom. The cabinet is open and empty, and so are the drawers. But one thing catches my eye: the bottom drawer is closed. It looks like she forgot to empty it. When I open it slowly, it resembles the time I opened one of these drawers to find the lunch money she'd been hiding.

My heart stops when I see what's in here this time.

Pills.

Pills thrown carelessly into the bottom of this otherwise empty drawer.

I fall to my knees next to it and run my fingers through them, too many to count. I immediately recognize the small yellow capsules as being Eve's antidepressants she was supposed to be taking every morning. I saw her taking them every morning. She'd hold them between her teeth, and then take a sip of water—

It was all an act.

And now she was in a new city with a mother that doesn't know the extent of her struggles. Laura was entrusted with finding Eve a new therapist, refilling her prescriptions. But if Eve was able to sneak around like this under my nose, she'd most certainly be able to do it with a mother whom she hadn't seen since she was seven.

"We have to get her back," I conclude after telling Lindsey about what I just found.

She nods in agreement and leans her head on my shoulder, sitting with her legs crisscrossed under her on the couch. "I just don't understand why she stopped taking them," she breathes. "I thought they were helping her."

"She was just trying to cope, I guess." I won't pretend that I don't understand the sick appeal of taking hurting into your own hands. When everything on the outside is already an uncontrollable whirlwind of pain and fear and confusion and a million other things. The deeper she falls the more dangerous, but I'm too far away to catch her, I'm afraid.

But she's resilient. She always has been. She gets through things— that's what Eve always does— so she can get better. She will get better. She knows this isn't the end.

Thought after thought swirls around in my head until finally, Lindsey pulls me out of it.

"Emerald should be home from school now." She kisses me. "Make sure she's okay."

• • •

When I walk up to the front door of Emerald's house, I'm nervous but unsure as to why. Jane, Em's mom, opens up.

"Oh! Gerard..." She immediately hugs me. This is where Em gets her friendliness and warmth. It certainly wasn't from her father. "How are you holding up?" she asks, touching my arm.

I shrug half heartedly. "I miss her like crazy already."

Jane nods understandingly. "So does Em."

"I'm actually here to see her," I say, then pull her envelope out of my pocket and hold it up. "Eve left her a letter."

"That's so sweet. I can take it up to her, if you want?"

I rub the back of my neck. "I was actually hoping to talk to her, if that's alright."

Jane breathes a sad sigh. "You can try. She hasn't left her room all day."

I raise my eyebrows. "You mean she didn't go to school today?"

Shaking her head solemnly, Jane says, "No. She refused to get out of bed. She said there was no point in going if Evelyn wasn't going to be there."

At first, I'm shocked. Emerald doesn't strike me as the type of kid to skip school under any circumstances. But then again, Eve didn't either. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach because I realize that that just means Em must really, really be hurting. I need to remind myself that no matter how happy and carefree Em has been for as long as I've known her, no matter how amiable she is, her and Eve only had each other. Now they're both probably feeling more alone than ever.

Jane let's me in and I take my shoes off at the door. I've never gone farther into the house than the porch, so she shows me the way to the stairs. "First door on the left," she says. "Good luck."

I go upstairs slowly, then stand in front front of the first door on the left, my knuckles hovering in front of the wood panels hesitantly. I realize that I have no idea what I'm actually going to say to the poor girl, but decide I'll make it up on the spot and finally knock. It's silent for a few seconds, then I hear Emerald groan, "Mom, please, go away."

"Um," I say awkwardly, my face up close to the door so she can hear me, "It's Gerard, Em."

She's silent again, then without warning, the door swings open. Em stands there looking as I've never seen her before. I'm used to her smiling with her teeth, joking around like she's always been part of the family, squeezing Eve's hand and looking at her with fondness in her eyes even when Eve is looking the other way. Now, illuminated by the light flooding into her dim room from the naturally lit hallway, she looks miserable. Her hair is matted down on one side which confirms what her mom said: She's been in bed all day. She looks up at me with dark circles under her eyes, and I stare back, at a loss for words. After a few seconds, her lip trembles.

I've never seen Em cry, but now I find myself pulling her into my arms without missing a beat like I've found myself doing for Eve so many times before.

"Why... why'd she h-have to g-go, Gee?" she cries desperately, searching for a fair answer that she'll never find. I try and shush her, but nothing I can do right now will bring her Eve back, something that I am yet to fully accept myself. Nothing can mend her broken heart, but I try and keep the pieces together by holding her more tightly.

"She's not gone forever, Em," I say soothingly, rubbing her back. "We're gonna fight for her to come back, I promise."

"I miss her so much already," she whimpers.

"Me too."

She composes herself quickly, and looks down guiltily when she pulls away, like a puppy caught doing something they shouldn't have. I move on, not wanting to dwell on it and make her feel worse than she already does.

"She left you this," I say, taking the letter out of my pocket again and holding it out to her. "I haven't opened it or anything, it's just kind of crumpled because it was in my pocket."

"That's okay," she sniffs, taking it. "Thanks."

I look over her shoulder and catch a glimpse of the inside of her bedroom. The main colour scheme is black and blue. The same shade of blue I remember her hair being when we first met until she dyed it its current shade of black. The same black as my hair is. Lindsey did it for her, actually.

She catches me looking and says apprehensively, "There's something else you're here for, isn't there? Do you want to sit and talk?"

"That'd be great, actually."

She nods and steps aside to let me into her room. I take a seat in her desk chair and she plops back onto her unmade bed and dangles her legs, busying herself by smoothing out the creases in the envelope.

Her room is messier than I thought it'd be. I didn't expect it to be as neat and orderly as Eve's room always was, what with her obsessive way of organizing her closet by colour, and her method of lining up all her books in alphabetical order, and the way she makes her bed always saving the top right corner for last and never leaving any wrinkles, and— well, I could go on. But Em's desk is strewn with papers that, at a quick glance I recognize as being her advanced math homework (not that I understand any of it), and a pile of books and CDs sits in one corner, while a mound of clothes, a mixture of clean and dirty ones, resides in another.

She looks around with that same guilty demeanour. "My room isn't usually this messy," she says apologetically. "I haven't been very motivated to clean it recently..."

"I get you, Kiddo. But you know Eve would want— wants you to keep taking care of yourself."

"I know," she says, nodding. "It's just hard and I feel like maybe..." She interrupts herself with a shake of her head. "Nothing, it's just hard."

"What is it, Em?" I press.

She sighs. "I feel like there's something wrong, Gee. She didn't text me last night like I thought she would."

"Oh," I say calmly, though my heart rate is increasing with each passing second. "I thought of that too. I sent her a Goodnight text last night and a Good Morning one and she hasn't replied."

"She's probably just really busy unpacking and settling in, right? Or maybe she lost her phone charger in the move?" Em tries to rationalize, mostly to reassure herself. "Right? That would make sense."

"Yeah, you're right," I confirm, mostly to reassure her, too. "It would. I'm sure she'll contact us as soon as she can."

I can't believe I forgot, if only for a short amount of time, about the texts. I've been obsessively checking my phone since I rolled over in bed and first grabbed it this morning. But that's not the most pressing issue at this moment, so I resist the urge to check my phone again now.

"Em, there's something important I have to ask you."

She looks scared, but nonetheless says, "Okay."

"Did you know that Eve stopped taking her meds?"

"Oh." She pauses to think. "No. She didn't tell me that. Since when?"

"I don't know," I say. "She didn't tell me either."

"Oh. That's not good," she says back, looking down at the floor. "I had no idea. I mean, I noticed that she'd been more down and stressed out than usual, and her grades were dropping again. Like, she stopped doing homework and studying and stuff. But I just assumed that was because of everything that was going on, you know? I tried to help her but she said she was fine, but I should've tried harder, Gee, I'm sorry, I—"

I cut off her rambling. "Don't apologize, Em, it's not your fault, okay? No one knew and we can't do anything about it now."

"I guess so," she decides. "But now we have to somehow make sure she takes care of herself with Laura."

"Eve is strong, you know that," I say and she nods her head, the beginning of a smile finally appearing on her face. "But speaking of taking care of yourself," I stand up and gesture around the room, "Try and clean up when I'm gone, okay? For me, tidying up my room or my office can kind of help tidy up my mind, in a way."

"Alright," she sighs. "I'll clean up, but not because I want to— because you told me to."

"Hey, whatever works. And if you're ever feeling lonely, you can stop in any time, you know? If you ever wanna watch a movie on a Friday night, you know you're welcome."

"Sounds good," she grins, life having returned to her eyes.