"I WISH YOU'D-"
Eve - Eugene? It was all so confusing... - caught herself. She could feel her heart pounding, ears and cheeks burning, scalp prickling with anger at being treated this way by a girl she was honestly just trying to HELP! ...but some part of her knew she shouldn't let her temper control her. She was - she had been - an adult, a grown w-grown man, however strange it felt to remember that right now, and she'd been around long enough to know how much trouble people could land in when they let their emotions run away with them; and that that went double for teenagers like the girl she now was. And she knew from both her old life and her (mis-?)adventures with the stone how much damage thoughtless words could do...
She was mad, did feel hurt...but she needed to keep herself under control. Even the part of her that was definitively Eve wanted to be mature and even-tempered; that was part of being an adult, wasn't it? Maybe she wasn't quite an adult yet, but she wanted to be, wanted others to take her seriously, to see her as the dependable, capable young woman she knew she could be...not some crazy bitch who flew off the handle any time people didn't see eye-to-eye with her!
She took a deep breath, tried to get a handle on her emotions, tried to think about what she actually meant to say...why did it bother her so much that Willow wouldn't let her help? Okay, the part of her that remembered being Eugene still felt residually guilty about getting this Bill kid caught up in her thoughtless wish, and felt sympathy for the gangly she-nerd even though Willow wasn't nearly as much of an outcast as she'd (he'd!) been...but more than that, seeing someone treat themselves so carelessly was just...just...!
"I, I just..." Eve sputtered, feeling a surge of emotion well up inside her; not hot-blooded anger at being snubbed (or, well, feeling snubbed,) but the kind of compassionate frustration that comes from watching someone you care about make what seem like easily-avoidable mistakes, or devalue themselves instead of appreciating their own worth...the kind of thing she'd once felt for that illusion of Gabriella... She clenched her fist, hardly even noticing what was in it. "I wish you'd care for yourself!"
Bill, for his part, had been ready to lunge and grab for the stone, but stopped in confusion when he (she?) saw Eve suddenly catch herself mid-sentence. He didn't quite know what to make of that, and the part of him that was Willow was surprised at herself for even trying to get physical over something like this (and still smarting from her accident, on top of that,) so she just stood there in confusion until Eve spoke again, and...
...and she realized that she did care for herself. That no matter how confused and scared she was by her predicament, no matter how it worried her to feel this other side of herself becoming more and more dominant, that...that she mattered. That gawky Willow, the lanky girl with the frizzy hair and the braces and the none-too-flattering figure, had friends and family who loved and cared about her, even this total stranger of a school goddess whom she knew nothing about other than that they were in the same boat. That dorky Willow, the social outcast with the silly teen-girl crushes and the cringey fanart on her wall, the girl who was maybe not as assertive or confident as she wished she was and who had maybe kinda questionable taste in boys, had as much right to exist in this world as anyone else...
She stood there for a long minute, not saying anything, as Eve stared down at the stone in the palm of her hand, realizing what'd just happened. "Omigod," the cheerleader said, her voice quavering a little, "I didn't...I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."
Willow shook her head, dazed, as she tried to process the feelings that were welling up inside of her. "It's...um, it's okay," she said. "'M sorry, I d-d-didn't mean..."
"Fucking shit, Wills, 're you okay!?" Matt yelped, scrambling over to the bench and nearly tripping over it himself. Eve, who had already started checking her...friend? (Could she count Willow as a friend?) over again, glared daggers at him.
Was she okay...? She honestly wasn't sure how to respond...