Edges

Evelyn arrived pulling a wheelie cart with assorted food containers strapped onto it; there were two large cakes, a ridiculous number of cookies, and 3 flats of rolls and bars. "Wow," Dave reacted, impressed but confused. "Is it someone's birthday?" "Like calls to like," Evelyn responded, beaming at all of them assembled for game night, "and none of you are crap, so I'm doing major love language here." Mercy burst into laughter and Landon shook his head. "Validating, but still vague," he chuckled. "I spent hours going through all of the Epstein stuff I could find online; we're hearing about the big names, but there were so many people who lived at the edges of that (drivers, florists, chefs, lawn guys, secretaries, travel agents, bartenders, etc.) ... I read until I was nauseous," Evelyn explained quietly. "All of you are interesting; all of you have been moving about in the world for a fair slog; all of you have climbed and fallen and reset and nobody's perfect, but I had to know - I had to be sure." And they watched her unpack, a little stunned and choked up, because they were just normal people settling in for an evening of getting their geek on fighting monsters; suddenly, they felt grateful for each other and all of the ways they'd resisted turning into monsters themselves.