Talk:EESM 2.0/@comment-4423292-20190310193915

The Past Three Years ends with Ileana greeting the first person from EESM she's seen since the fall. I've long since thought that—if they were receptive to it—Ileana would sleep with that person on that first night. Not out of desire so much, but out of a need for catharsis. I imagine them staying up late into the night, sitting at the table, drinking either wine or tea, and talking for hours, telling their stories and sharing and expressing all the feelings they can. But inevitably, it can never entirely be put into words. At the end, there's always something inarticulable left that must be expressed in some other way.

The key exception to this is Eca, and I think I finally have the proper words to express why: Ileana has always viewed Eca as the pinnacle of responsibly. Responsible in a way that Ileana looked up to even when she was 14. Eca is responsible, but still EESM, which is a big deal to Ileana—Eca proves that those two things can reside together inside a single person.

Sleeping with Eca would be viscerally wrong. I once used the word "incestuous" to describe that, but I think now a better word would be "sacrilegious" or "anathema." Eca is the epitome of the kind of responsibly Ileana most respects and aspires to, and so to do something irresponsible with Eca would be to defile the thing Ileana most admires about her.