your heart can’t help but swell at every sweet compliment she throws your way.

and when her first middle school dance rolls around, you make sure to arrive three hours early, arms loaded with your makeup kit and a box of hair curlers. with a beaming smile, you ask her if she’s ready to be the most dazzling sixth grader linkon middle school has ever seen.

it turns out, caleb had offered to help her get ready, but eve politely turned him down, saving the special time for her favorite person in the world—you.

you barely spare your boyfriend a glance from where he sits on the living room couch as you beeline for the kitchen table, already unpacking your supplies with practiced ease.

“well, hello to you too,” you hear him say as he comes up behind you, arms ready to wrap around your waist—but you pay him no mind. not when you're in work mode.

still, you can't help but stifle a giggle when eve chimes in.

“oh no you don’t. not in front of me.”

she tries, and fails, to push caleb away from you and back toward the archway to the living room. within seconds, she's huffing, barely having moved him an inch.

then she turns to you, giving you that look—the one she knows will have him gone in seconds.

you nod.

“i’m sorry, caleb. but this is strictly girls only." you lift your hand to his cheek, and he leans into your touch, those enchanting nebula eyes full of deep purple and gold making him so hard to refuse. “so, i’m going to have to ask you to leave, my love.”

this moment isn't about him at all—it's about your precious eve.

everything goes according to plan when he finally relents, shooting eve a narrowed look and sticking his tongue out at her, while she beams in triumph.

“your girlfriend loves me more than you,” she taunts.

caleb rolls his eyes in. “yeah, yeah. whatever. enjoy her now while you can, cause she’s hanging out with me later.”

that's when you finally let yourself laugh, enjoying their playful banter.

eve tells you everything—she always has. she trusts with secrets about her classmates and all the little dramas of her age. about aiden dating julianna, and what sarai said about carmela. it makes you reminisce about your own memories and your old friends, too.

she comes to you for advice, too.

advice about trying out for the volleyball team and about things she could never bring herself to ask her grandmother, much less caleb.

and once, on a girls' day while shopping for caleb's birthday present, she told you how happy she was that you were in caleb’s life, because without you, she would never have known what it was like to have a wonderful older sister.

your heart tightens at her words, because you feel exactly the same. your eve is such a loving, wonderful girl. she's just so easy to cherish.

later that same day, caleb finds the two of you, sprawled on the living room floor, surrounded by pillows and blankets, hands busy with crafts—measuring wrists with white string and picking out beads to match each others eyes. you're chatting and laughing about who knows what, and caleb can't help but pause at the sight, a genuine smile spreading across his face.

you've always treated his little sister with so much care and affection...