Haunt Me (Heartbreaker Duet #2)

eleven

Another vicious panic attack.

This one feels almost lethal. It’s probably because I wasn’t paying attention. I have been spending so much time in Eden’s calming presence that I have forgotten about the void of emptiness that lurks inside of me.

When I leave her and sneak up to my room at night, it feels that I am still with her.

When I look at my bed, I don’t see all the sleepless nights I’ve spent on it: I see the pillow where she slept that one time. When I take off my clothes, I don’t think of how hands that were not my mom’s dressed my dad’s body after they took him away. Instead, I bury my nose in my blazer and smell her shampoo, its scent seeped into the sleeve from all the hours she spent lying on my lap, reading her book.

Eden keeps me safe from the painful memories, the excruciating thoughts. Maybe that’s why when they do come back out of the blue, they eviscerate me.

Well, nearly.

It’s the hat that does it. Who would have thought, a hat? But up here during the winter, a winter hat can make the difference between surviving or freezing to death. I have so many I always pick one at random to wear. All that matters is that my ears are covered when the cold gets vicious. Today, it’s around 20 degrees, and everyone suddenly scrambles for heavy coats, boots and scarves.

I fumble in my closet for a winter hat, and my fingers blindly brush against the familiar feel of scratchy wool. I freeze. No, it can’t be.

What is Dad’s winter hat doing among my things?

I persuade myself there’s no chance it’s his, and I pull it out.

The minute I see it, I fall apart.

I half-stumble, half-run away from my room, struggling to breathe. My steps take me to the forest, to our spot, like the first day I met her. I see her in the distance, as my lungs are about to collapse inwards. I see her through the haze of pain.

My girl is here , I think instinctively, before I can stop my stupid brain from thinking of her as ‘my’ and ‘girl’. It’s too late, I’ve already thought it. Eden is here. N ow everything will get better. Now I’ll breathe.

Except I don’t.

“Isaiah?” her voice finds me. “Hey, come here. ”

She gets up. This is so not good. Usually she doesn’t even acknowledge my arrival, and now she’s standing up? How horrible do I look?

“You look horrible,” she observes helpfully.

I wish I could laugh. I wish I could breathe.

“You’re making that wheezing noise as if you’re choking.” Her face goes white and she runs towards me.

I am , I think at her, but I can’t say it.

“Breathe,” she tells me. She places a slender hand on my chest, pushes. Nothing happens. No air gets in. “Breathe, Isaiah.”

Her name on my lips is the only thing anchoring me to reality.

“Breathe, come on.”

I can’t. I can’t take in air, that’s the problem.

My knees buckle, and her hand comes around my back as I fold to the ground, supporting me.

“I was such an idiot to call you a genius the other day,” she murmurs somewhere above my head.

I sputter and cough.

“Isaiah,” she calls and I can only hear her voice now, I have blacked out. I’m about to lose consciousness. “I thought you were so smart, and here you are, forgetting how to breathe. Come on, you know how to do this. In, out. In, out. Come on. Come on.”

There is an urgency to her voice, and her hand is pressing down on my chest, which helps. But not enough.

“Come on, Isaiah,” she repeats, and something begins to loosen inside of me. “I’m here. You’ll be ok. Breathe, come on. Breathe. Breathe.”

She keeps talking like that until I take a whistling breath, the air struggling to get through my clenched teeth. Great. That sounded like super normal breathing.

“It’s ok.” Eden keeps going. I keep fighting. “It’s ok. It wasn’t the best breath anyone has ever taken in the history of breathing, but it was better than wheezing, don’t you think?”

I wheeze some more in response.

“You do what you can, as long as you can get some air in those lungs. Come on, one more.”

Ok, this is embarrassing.

But it is happening.

She keeps helping save my life one breath at a time, and I keep fighting and being embarrassed at the same time. After a few minutes of this, I stop being embarrassed and just concentrate on breathing. It feels like I’m losing the fight, and I’m too tired to continue, but according to her, I’m doing good.

I don’t think I am, but my chest stops hurting so much. I still want to throw up, and I’m too dizzy to stand up. This lasts for about an hour.

Afterwards, I’m left weak. I just lean back, relishing the grounding feeling of the tree’s cold bark digging into my skin. I fill my lungs with freezing-cold air, my cheeks burning with cold and shame.

“I’m…” I cough, my voice hoarse. “I thought I was addicted to saving you, and here you are… saving me.”

“You’re being a drama queen again,” she says.

“Always.”

She settles next to me, our knees brushing. “Did something happen to make you sad?”

I half-smile. What a way to put it.

“Yeah, something happened, Eden. I found Dad’s winter hat among my things.”

“Oh.” She waits for me to take my time.

“A thread has come lose and it’s unsalvageable. Useless. No one can ever wear it again. I can’t wear it. He can’t either, well, of course he can’t. I just… it broke me to see it like that. Stupid, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Discovering it like that, destroyed… it was as if my dad died all over again. If I had just found it, and it was in perfect condition, it would feel, I don’t know, it would feel as if he wasn’t really gone. As if he could come back to wear it any day now. But suddenly his hat is gone, and it made it even more real that he is gone too. He’s not coming back for his hat, Eden. He’s not coming back. He’s not coming back.”

I’m crying.

I don’t realize how it happened, but suddenly Eden is taking my hands in hers, warming my frozen fingers, prying my dad’s ruined hat out of them. She is crying too.

“He’s not coming back for his hat, is he?” I ask her.

“No, he’s not,” she says, “he’s not, Isaiah. But you are here. And I am here with you.”

I hold onto her hands so hard her knuckles turn white, but she doesn’t let go.

“Don’t let go,” I whisper, closing my eyes.

“Ok. ”

“I love you,” I whisper. I don’t think she hears me—I barely have enough breath left in me to make a sound. She doesn’t reply, which is just as well. Then, I remember something. “Did I tell you that I am addicted to saving you?”

“You did.”

“Sorry. But I am, it’s true.”

“Erm… All right?”

“It’s strange, you saving me,” I try to explain.

“Don’t get addicted to that too,” she says dryly, making me laugh. It hurts. “You took five years off my life today.”

“Too late. I already am addicted.”

“Drama queen.”

“Always.” I try to catch my breath some more. “It’s your fault,” I tell her when I’m—mostly—back to normal.

She just raises an eyebrow.

“When I’m with you, I feel ok,” I explain. “So ok that I forgot he was gone for a second. And then it hit me all over.”

“I’m not sorry I made you forget,” she says in that calm, intense way of hers. “I have been trying to since the day we met.”

“You have? But you didn’t know I had,” I gesture, “all this crap going on.”

“I knew you were sad,” she shrugs. “I wanted to chase it away.”

I hug her then. I pull her to me with my arm around her shoulders, and she lets me fold her to my chest. I press her face into my neck and breathe into her hair.

We stay like that for an entire minute. An eternity.

That is the first time I don’t kiss her. I fight myself, and I win. For now. I don’t know how long I will last, but this time, I don’t kiss her.

She’ll never know what it took out of me.

…

There will be more times I will not kiss her. I will be counting them, one by one. Six years later, I will remember exactly how many they were. I will remember them all.

But that was the first day I wanted to kiss her so badly I couldn’t stand it, but I didn’t.

It was also the day she gave me her phone number, telling me to text her if I have another panic attack again.

I remember that night I fell asleep smiling, my phone in my hand .

I hoped she did too. But I know now that she didn’t. She fell asleep thinking she wouldn’t wake up the next day. Thinking she was dying.

The whole time she was taking care of me, she didn’t once mention what she was going through. She was dying too, but she put that aside to help me.

I hate that she did that.

I hate that I didn’t know.

I hate that I never saw.

I just hate it.

….

The next day, Eden is crying under our tree. She is making no sound, but her face is bathed in tears, and she hiding behind her book, trying to not let me see.

I kneel next to her and grab that stupid book. I push the strands of hair that are plastered to her wet cheeks away. Her skin is burning and her whole body is shaking.

“What’s wrong, baby?” I pull her into my chest, and she cries against my shirt, soaking it with her tears. Real fear grips me. “You’re not alone,” I tell her. “I’m here,” I keep repeating. “I’m here. I’m here.”

She whimpers against my chest, and the sound of a wounded animal escapes her. I feel her wilt against me.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong? Are you sick?”

She tries to pull herself away from me, but she is shaking too violently. I swallow hard.

“Can I see if you’re hurt, baby?” I ask again. “Please?”

“No.” She starts shaking her head, and suddenly she is like a wild animal, struggling to get away from me.

“It’s ok, it’s ok.”

I catch her elbow as she turns to run away; she stumbles and falls to her knees, shaking. In pain , I realize. She is in that much pain. I drop to the ground too, but she sees my outstretched hand and pushes it away.

“Should I call someone? Should I call for help? Tell me what’s wrong, Eden.”

She looks up at me, eyes puffy from crying, mouth slightly open, chest struggling for air. I would give my life to stop her from being in pain .

“It’s too… embarrassing,” she says finally.

“Try me.”

I sit cross-legged on the dead leaves. She is still crouched awkwardly, a little ball on the ground, holding her stomach as if to let go would cause her to fall to pieces.

She goes silent again.

“Talk to me,” I say. “Please. Do you trust me?”

She nods.

It does something to me, her admitting she trusts me. I sit up straighter, I brace myself. I become . I don’t know if I become someone worthy of her trust–I doubt it. Later events will prove I have not. But right here and now, I become something more than what I was before. Something better. Some one better.

“I think…” she groans in pain. “This is so embarrassing. Could you please not look at me while I say it?”

“There is no way I am taking my eyes off you.”

She turns slightly pink and I am counting it as a personal triumph that I don’t grab her and kiss her until we both drown, right there and then.

“You’re not going to make this easier for me, are you?” she says.

“I’m here to help you any way you need,” I reply.

“Well, not looking at me would be helping.”

“Not happening. Talk to me, baby.”

She shoots me a murderous glance at the ‘baby’ part.

“Look, Eden, tell me, ok? It’s me. You can tell me anything.”

“Well, I think I’m either dying…”

My breath hitches.

“Or I am having my… erm… my period.”

I nearly jump to my feet, but I stop myself at the last minute. Stay calm. “Your? What? You…” I say incoherently and, if do I say so myself, intelligently.

“For the past seven days,” she adds. “There’s bleeding. Oh, this is beyond embarrassing. It… It won’t stop.”

“It…” I’m at a loss for words.

“I’m too old for it to only start now, aren’t I? Is that why it won’t stop? Is that why it hurts so much I can barely move?” The tears start again, silent, sad ones, full of despair. I can’t stand it. “I’m nearly sixteen and it’s never… It’s never happened before.”

I swallow. I am so out of my depth here. I have no idea what to do, what to say. How bad is this? Is it life-threatening? Why is it happening to her? I barely know anything about the subject matter .

“What did your mom say?” I ask her, like a moron. “Oh, sorry, you don’t have—”

“I don’t have anybody.”

“You never say that again, do you hear?” It comes out more intense than I had meant it to.

“Well, if you mean I should talk to Dad, I’d rather die than tell him that I…”

“I mean, you have me .”

The tears just keep flowing silently down her cheeks, dripping down her chin. I catch them with my thumb, but more follow, soaking my fingers.

“Ok, that’s it.” I stand. My brain is on fire, my heart cracking open. “I’m calling my mom.” I am dialing already, ignoring Eden’s breathless “Please don’t, please…”

Mom doesn’t pick up, so I sneak Eden into my room, and step out into the hall to call Mom again. I try to get Eden to talk to Mom directly, but she is too incoherent, so I handle it myself.

After the phone call, I hate to leave Eden alone in the dorm, but Mom told me that she is going to need some supplies. So, I quickly drive to a store, and I tell the shop girl I am buying all this for my sister. She could care less.

When I come back, Eden is crying again. She is in so much pain, her breath is shallow and she is struggling to sit up. I give her the painkillers and the sanitary pads. I tell her, as Mom told me, that she should take the pain medication every six hours or the pain will be unbearable. I know it already is.

“I am not allowed to take medication,” Eden says. I close my eyes. I think I should like to murder her dad—I bet he wouldn’t allow that, either. “Nothing that is not a natural remedy.”

“Well,” I tell her, “Mom also said that hot baths would—”

“Not allowed those either,” she cuts me off. “They are too indulgent, and they…”

“Hey, you don’t have to explain any of it,” I say quickly, my heart beating fast. What the hell? She isn’t allowed so many things. “Not to me. Hot showers should help too.”

She nods. “I’ll try not to get caught,” she says.

“Not caught—having a hot shower?”

She just looks at me helplessly. “Wasteful,” she says. “It’s a sin.”

Ok, that’s it. I can’t let this one pass .

“It’s not a sin, Eden,” I say softly. “Taking care of yourself is the opposite of a sin.” But I see the look on her face turn stony, so I stop. I try to hide my shudder. I need to remind myself that that man has every right to raise his kid as he sees fit, and it’s none of my business to judge him. Only to want to shake him. “Well, what exactly are you allowed?”

“Books,” she says and we both laugh.

“Books are good,” I agree.

“Some movies, but only if we watch them together. Some clothes, some…”

“Wait. He controls what you wear?”

“He controls everything,” she shrugs as if it’s normal. It’s not.

A chill runs down my spine. Of course he controls her clothes as well. I mean, he controls the temperature of her showers, for heaven’s sake. Something is seriously wrong here. I look up—Eden looks ready to bolt. Ok, I need to tread carefully. I need to keep her trust, at all costs.

I can’t antagonize her dad openly. Obviously, she thinks his word is law. I bite my lip.

I won’t be able to help her ever again if I lose her now. She clearly adores her dad, and so I’d better start acting like his oppression is no big deal and stop acting as if I want to throw up a little—which I do. I’ll figure out what to do about it later.

“Ok, yeah, about the showers then,” I say tentatively, “try not to get caught, but take them.” She nods. “Wash anything with blood on it with cold water, it should go away.”

At the mention of blood, she turns away, her thick braid falling over her exposed throat.

“Hey,” I say softly. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s me.”

“Oh, we’re way past being embarrassed right now.”

But she’s still not looking at me.

“Mom said you are not going to die,” I add softly. “Six days is a lot, but perfectly normal. It will go away soon.”

Eden just cries more, but this time I think it’s in relief. I hold her until she stops crying.

I smuggle her out of my room shortly afterwards. This sneaking around is going to get really dangerous really soon, but I can’t help myself. It’s too necessary, and too delicious, if I’m being honest. I imagine how it could be if we did this regularly—stupid idea thought it is.

I imagine her snuggling in my bed when her dad is away, me on the floor playing a song on my guitar, or stroking her hair until she falls asleep. I imagine her falling asleep to my music. Feeling safe. Not being alone, for once.

“Can I text you?” I ask her. “After you’re gone.”

“I might take a while to answer,” she says.

“I’ll wait.”

“And…” she hesitates.

“Tell me.”

“I’m worried my father will see the texts,” she is biting her lip. “Is it ok if I delete them afterwards?”

“It’s ok, Eden.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you ever apologize,” I nearly snarl, then try to reign my sudden anger in. I can’t seem to control myself around her. The idea that she feels she must apologize for the fact that her dad is forcing her to hide herself… it makes me rage inside. “Besides,” I add more calmly, “we’ll know we said these words. No one can take that away from us, right?”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “We’ll know.”

There is so much sadness in her voice it’s almost unbearable, and I have to turn my head aside so that she won’t see the devastation on my face. Back at the woods, before she goes home, I play her Beethoven’s 5th on my violin. It helps calm us both—and it helps to make this day about something other than pain. It is now a day I played Beethoven for her. I’ve played it to her so many times; it’s her favorite.

This is our song , I think. Beethoven’s 5th is our song.

How cool is that?

….

I will read later on the news sites that the medical team who took care of her testified in the trial that she was so malnourished that she hadn’t been menstruating.

However, that’s not accurate. I am the only one, apart from Eden, who knows that she had had her period exactly three times until she got out of that monster’s den, and that all three times she nearly fainted in my arms. I don’t know if that crap can kill you, and I was too stupid and clueless to actually look it up back then.

You don’t think, ‘oh, this girl has got such a violently painful time on her period, I might as well call the police because she is probably living with a monster who has stolen her from her family and is keeping her his prisoner’. At least I didn’t.

She went through all of it alone.

She didn’t have anyone to help her through it but me. And that’s not how it’s supposed to be. She should have parents, cousins, siblings, friends, teachers… And me, if she wanted me. But not just me. I didn’t know back then how wrong that was. I hadn’t realized it until now.

I now remember that day as one of the saddest of my life–including the day my dad died. This was somehow sadder. I didn’t know why then, but my instinct was right.

It was such a sad day.

The truth was staring me in the face, but I couldn’t see it.

At least I could see one thing: This girl.

She had now become more important to me than my own family.

More important to me than air.

I knew that suddenly but surely, as one knows that the water has closed over their head and they are about to sink and drown.

So anyway, six years later, I will read the article and stop half-way. Then I’ll pick up where I left off, and read the whole thing through. Then I will read it again.

And I will remember. And I will cry and cry.