takes a bit more • matthew healy

xxx.) eunice

eunice doesn't stop sobbing until after three minutes or so, until she finally looks up and glares at me with mascara-stained cheeks. "and why are you here?" she snaps, attempting to wipe off the black liquid in her eyes with french-tipped nails.

i merely blink at her. "erm, this is my show, in case you haven't noticed—"

"do you love my sister, matty?" she furrows her eyebrows. i must admit i'm taken aback with such a question from someone you barely know.

"of course i do." i answer under my breath, shaking my head a little. you don't understand. i love her but i know i'm tearing her life apart.

"would you like to tell me why she's with you on tour all of a sudden, then? has she dropped out of school for this?"

"she... she dropped out after her dad died." i explain. "erm... your—your dad died."

"it's fucked up, isn't it?" she inhales sharply. "my mum and i... we haven't got a clue. we always thought he was just with his other family—rhiannon's—living with her own mum. shit, i still can't believe he's gone—"

she starts crying again.

i clear my throat. "i'm—i'm sorry, eunice—it's eunice, isn't it? i... don't really know what to say, or what to believe. frankly my girlfriend still doesn't believe you could be her sister, and i would like to trust her on that."

in all honesty, this woman and my girlfriend do have a few features that could pass them as siblings. for instance, rhiannon has thin pink lips and perfect white teeth (something my crooked set of teeth would want. it's the smoking.) and eunice has the same mouth shape as hers. equally beautiful.

not to mention her eyelashes. long and alive like rhian's. and their eyebrows are equally thick and bushy.

my, am i really into rhiannon's sister right now? fucking hell.

eunice blows her nose with a handkerchief she's produced from her pocket. "doesn't matter if she doesn't believe me." she says through washed out tears. "i have photos on my phone i could show her. and then i'm gonna have to take her home."

"wait, hold on." i look at her, and i'm near to losing my shit at this point. "you're bringing her home? back to her mum's?"

"well, that's a better place than living in a tourbus, isn't it?"

"you're making a mistake." i say at once. "she's not safe there. her mum treats her like shit."

eunice pauses. "her mum? and how do you claim to know what her mother is like?"

"because i've been there." i run a hand through my hair, and all of sudden i just need to fucking smoke to ease the anxiety building inside of me. the thought of taking rhiannon back to her monster of a mother. "her mum made her leave the house. that's why she's with us. she doesn't have a place to stay."

eunice is staring at her phone, looking at a photo she had dug up. she then shows it to me.

a photo of a little girl in a dress, right next to someone who looks like rhiannon's mum, and then her dad. they were standing outside the house in london. it saddens me the way they looked so happy in the photograph. no sign of addiction from her mum, and her dad looking like he was contented with such a family.

i mutter suspiciously, "why do you have their family photo on your phone?"

"my father had sent it to me once. my mum cut ties with him the moment he said he was having an affair, so he was trying to reach out to me instead." eunice explains. "i... i asked him once what his new family was like. and so he sent me this old worn photograph of them. it still kind of hurts me. i suppose that was why i never asked him to introduce me to rhiannon."