Haunt Me (Heartbreaker Duet #2)

Eden’s Old Phone （continued）

F : Yes, it is silly.

Eden : But now I really am going to die. This morning, when I was standing on that highway, I thought I would be stricken dead where I stood like those people in the Old Testament. But I didn’t. Then, after I sinned some more, for good measure, I fully went to bed expecting to die in my sleep. That would be the best outcome, really. You know, I wouldn’t suffer.

F : And then you woke up, and realized you’d been an idiot.

Eden : Why do you always have to be so blunt?

F : I’m keeping it real, aren’t I? It’s why you like me.

Eden : Anyway, I am going to hell, even if I haven’t gone there yet, right? After what I did, I have to be punished. It’s what I’ve been taught my whole life. I was so scared that I almost told him. Father, I mean. Wait, Dad. I should call him Dad, like Isaiah does. But he was in a rare good mood.

F : Oh?

Eden : Yeah, he gave me an extra helping of food. I was so hungry I could barely speak. So I ate and forgot.

F : Until you got up to your room. Tried to fall asleep.

Eden : Yeah, that’s when the dying thoughts came back. Now I’m awake and definitely not dead, but I don’t know what to do.

F : But I bet you do know what you want to do. You want to sneak out again. Explore some more freedom. Even though it nearly got you killed yesterday. Even though it led to you committing sin with that boy.

Eden : Stop saying naughty things!

F : Honey, I don’t think people say ‘naughty’ anymore. I bet you read it in one of those eighties romance novels of yours.

Eden : Shut up, I don’t want Father, Dad, to read this. You know he randomly reads my texts sometimes.

F : Which is why you delete all our conversations anyway afterwards, right?

Eden : I… I do. I wonder when I started becoming so deceitful. So devious.

F : When you realized the truth.

Eden : No, stop it. I won’t talk about this anymore. I won’t think about it.

Eden : I just refuse to go there.

Eden : Father loves me. He’s just eccentric. He’s been hurt by the world, and he’s a bit overprotective and I honestly don’t mind. I love him. And he loves God, and God hates sin.

Eden : But Father loves me, do you hear?

Eden : F? Are you there? Have you left?

Eden : I guess I am truly alone, after all.

Eden : F?