Eden’s Email
It’s been more than a year since the day Solomon died. It’s been more than a year since I got my freedom. How strange to think that a year ago I was still in my prison, still treated like an animal, a pet.
And now, I am… well, not a normal girl, but a girl. A free girl. A girl with a dad. With sisters, whom I am going to meet very soon. I am out of rehab, writing poetry, and doing much better regarding my panic attacks. As we speak, Dad is making arrangements for us to move out of New York.
The doctors think I might need a few more months here in order to be stable enough in order to move to Chicago, but I’m starting to get impatient. I need to see you.
I know what everyone is afraid of. New York is neutral ground. It’s not Massachusetts, where the tragedies happened. But it’s not my home, either. I was born in Chicago, after all, in Dad’s home. It’s waiting for him—for us—even though he moved temporarily to New York to be with me. The doctors are scared of my reaction to the house. But I was taken from it before I was one. Even my subconscious had the intelligence of a potato at that time. We’re safe on that regard; I won’t remember anything.
I am no longer a girl who was stolen from her family, a girl who was kept prisoner in a house, a girl who was starved, a girl who was traumatized, a girl who watched a monster die in front of her eyes. No. I am just a girl.
A girl, I might add, to whom exciting things are happening, so many of them that she has lost count. Here’s one (you’ll love this one, I bet):
I met a gorgeous guy, I think he is a model, and he is friends with all kinds of movie stars. His name is Theo Vanderau and he is the heir of one of New York’s most well-established billionaires. And he came to one of my slam poetry meetings. It happened to be the night I slammed my poem, So You Don’t Want To Stay .
At the end, everyone stood up and clapped.
People always recognize me from the news and know my story, but I thought I saw sincerity in their faces that night—not only pity. Everyone gave me a standing ovation, everyone except for Theo. He just stayed in his seat, sort of slumped over, and started shaking. I went over to ask him if he was ok, and he started crying so hard he could barely breathe.
We had to step out—two of his massive bodyguards followed, but they gave us space .
He told me he has wanted to die since he was in his teens. He told me that tonight, while listening to my poem, was the first time he felt like he was understood, like he was seen. Like he wasn’t alone—my poem did that. My poem did what none of the hundreds of therapists or pills, bought with his parents’ billions, could.
He asked me if he could hug me. He asked me if he could talk to me again. He asked me if he could be my friend.
I told him I was broken.
He looked me straight in the eye—I expected him to say, ‘I know,’ or, worse, ‘Yeah, me, too’—but instead, he said: ‘No.’