"Annie..." I whispered again. That was the name on my phone, the one I typed myself when she gave me her number.
Already, she was calling me. Eileen. It hadn't even been a day, yet here she was. My finger hovered over the screen as it glowed, asking me to either take the call or decline it.
I should really change the name, I thought. So it would be harder for us to remember her using it. That was Eileen, and no fake name would change that. If there was one thing I was good at, it was forgetting the past. Though, I was staring to doubt that...
Who I was isn't who I am...
I didn't want to make Eileen wait any longer. I felt a bit nervous as I pressed the green button on the screen. What was she going to say? I put the phone on speaker so I could lie back down on the bed. "Hey," I said blankly, "how are you doing?" I had no idea what she wanted to hear, so I kept my tone as neutral as possible.
She didn't respond right away. I listened for any background noises to try and tell where she was, but nothing came through other than a faint breeze.
"Oh!" she suddenly blurted. "S-sorry, didn't hear you." Apparently, she was also on speaker. I shifted closer to where I put my phone on the nightstand. She continued. "A couple of things, uh, first of all, thanks for existing." Existing.
I... guess that was her way of thanking me for the talk yesterday? There wasn't much else it could've meant.
"No problem..." I said. This wasn't Annie, I reminded myself, this was Eileen. Names were confusing. Especially those two.
"Just to make sure, you're not... afraid of me, right?" That was a legitimate concern. Last time I saw her face behind that cardboard wall, I jumped back.
"No," I sighed. I didn't like remembering that. "...It was the deadpan look you had." I wasn't entirely comfortable admitting that to her, but oh well. It was better than the alternative.
"Oh. That... that makes so much sense." The fact that she didn't sound depressed at all was a good thing. I knew she had a knack for quick emotional recoveries, but still, this was a huge thing that she just... shrugged off.
"What's the other thing?" I asked in an attempt to change the subject to something lighter. "You said there were a couple."
Eileen laughed quietly. "Yeah, so me and Jacob are sitting right outside of Deca Tower right now."
"That was fast," Eileen remarked as I landed on the jump point near her and Jacob. The specific table they reclined at a short distance away was the one we always took. She tried to lighten the mood and brushed her hair to the side and winked. It worked.
I went over to them, smiling brightly. I knew what she was offering when she told me where she was, and I was glad about it. Out of all the things we'd done together, this was the least depressing.
But what surprised me the most was their clothes. Why exactly were they both in Octarian soldier uniforms? Jacob looked very out of place with his midriff showing, and Eileen was a lot skinnier than I originally thought.
"Didn't you know that what you always wear is a modified uniform?" Eileen explained, practically reading my mind. "Like, these are pretty flexible, and, you know... battle." I knew all of that already, but I still kept them for the versatility. Like she said, they were flexible, even if they made me look... questionable in public.
I looked back at her. Eileen was faintly smiling at me. I was starting to notice a pattern with the both of us. We just ignored terrible past events and pretended they never happened. I push away Deepsea, and Eileen ignores her two breakdowns. The first being in Deepsea, the second... just outside of Deepsea.
"...And we're going for a theme here." Eileen admitted blankly. They succeeded, since the three of us definitely looked like an organized team.
I was the slightly different one, with the modified uniform and all, so I looked like the leader.
"Come on, I know you want to start." She playfully went to me, patted me on the back, and waved Jacob to head in first. He shrugged, stood up, and strolled away. "Yeah, that's my brother," she whispered when he was out of earshot. It seemed like patting my back was just an excuse to get close enough to tell me that.
How weird is it that I just met her brother in a dead-end alley? If I never decided to walk home that evening, Jacob would've been attacked further. And turned into number 10,009. I wondered if he told her that part.
Finally, I saw the importance of shutting down TarTar. At least the NSS did it and I didn't have to get roped in.
"I figured he was," I said, shying away. "Uh..."
She pulled away and raised the tone of her voice again. "Just use 'Eileen.' Not like anyone knows that name anyway." She pulled me closer to the rotunda, past clumps of other Inklings and Octolings mingling late into the night. The moon was almost at its height, but midnight was still an hour away.
There was still more to tell her, though. I leaned closer to Eileen as we walked and whispered, "Agent 4 said she'll give you a chance." I purposely left out the rest of the details, like how Agent 4 was right outside the building when we talked. She didn't need to know that.
Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks. Up ahead, Jacob turned around to see what was taking us so long. "She will, huh..." she said in a tone I couldn't read. Eileen turned to face me and smiled warmly.
In that moment, she had a creepy resemblance to Rose. Purposefully tired and droopy eyelids, faint smile, bright eyes. "Tell her I'll take that chance."
That night, the tower was a lot more empty than it usually was. Eileen, Jacob, and I picked one, settled in, and waited. And kept waiting.
"One more," Eileen muttered again. I remembered her saying that shortly beforehand asking me to return to Deepsea again, but this time, she was smiling at the floor. Not sulking. That was a good sign, but-
Jacob nodded across from her. "...One more," he agreed. Around Eileen, he seemed quieter.
"Can I ask what that means?" I said, confused. That wasn't the first time she said that, and even Jacob joined in this time.
Eileen turned around to look at me, partially hiding in the corner. "One more of the Octropes. You know there are... three of us, right?"
Oh. I had thought of that, but I didn't mean to bring it up. It should've happened more gracefully, at least...
"We don't know where he is," she continued. "His nickname was Rocky. Got it from his tastes in music." She looked at the ceiling, clearly reminiscent. "But hey, you found Jacob, so Rocky shouldn't be too far behind, right?"
Her face was cheerful, but her voice displayed her feelings. She was worried about him.
I blinked at her. "He was the youngest, wasn't he?" I guessed. I'd never met him, but if Eileen felt that way about him...
"N-no... yes," she conceded. "Fourteen, a year and a half younger than Jacob. Three younger than me." She was gritting her teeth.
I decided to leave that thought to her and Jacob. It didn't really concern me, as much as I wanted it to.
If he was fourteen, that made Jacob fifteen. And Eileen seventeen.
Wait, what?
I shot a glance at her calmly sitting on the black, leather couch. She was seventeen?
That was the second of the the age-related surprises I'd had, the first being how I could freely switch in and out of Octopus form by nine. The longer I knew her, he more similarities I found between us.
Eileen looked up and noticed me staring at her. "I'm... older than you expected, right?" she asked, reading my mind again. I was starting to have a hunch that she knew me better than she let on.
Squinting, I nodded.
She went back to staring at the floor. "I was always the oldest," Eileen sighed. "It was hard being the role model... Sometimes, I wished it was just me. I wouldn't have to worry about 'setting a good example,' or... I don't know, something."
Jacob, sitting across from her, didn't look the least bit offended. Maybe he felt the same way, being the second oldest. It must've been tough being an Octrope. Especially after the death of Akash.
Eileen looked at the door. "And then... never mind."
A part of me was glad she didn't continue. I didn't want another consecutive night of confusing names and our pasts.
Jacob seemed to be the least affected in that regard.
Somebody else — another male Inkling — pushed the door open, and was, understandably, shocked. Jacob's mere existence was menacing, I was creepily hiding in the shadows, and Eileen... she was fine, actually.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time. Filling one lobby took five minutes. I almost put it back, but stopped. There was one more thing I had to do.
As the floor opened, I went to my "contacts" — whatever that meant — and changed Annie's name to Eileen.
This is great, I thought, I'm fine with her being Eileen. Happy, even. Rose gave her a chance, and she'll take it.
Who she was isn't who she is.
Lookee here, another transition chapter. I needed to have something before the next.
Anyway, the next chapter, which will more likely than not be in two weeks, is one I have been waiting to write for a long time.