Haunt Me (Heartbreaker Duet #2)

twenty-six

Athens

I slam back into the present.

It’s made me dizzy, this dive into the past, and I need a moment to get my bearings.

To realize I am here, in Athens, after my first concert of the European leg.

The woods are nothing but a memory that hurts.

The events of the past few weeks feel like a dream. Did all of it really happen? Was it real? Everything just happened at once, after years of nothing and I try to wrap my mind around it: Meeting Eden on Wes’ yacht. Recognizing her. Seeing her for the first time after all these years. Having my heart stop. Seeing her red hair—her real hair. Writing songs with her, almost kissing her. Hurting her all over again.

Learning the truth, reading the articles.

Learning the truth.

Learning the truth.

Writing a song for her, Pierce Me . Performing it for her, live on stage, in front of thousands of my fans. Begging her to stay .

Begging her to stay.

Wait, Skye said she stayed, but I have had to wait backstage for a while for security to clear me. She might have already left.

The minute I get the all-clear, I jump off, taking the steps three at a time. Eden is standing there on the ground, her face lit up by the sharp stage lights. She looks calm but tired. A little freaked out—who wouldn’t be after what I just did?

She looks so beautiful and sad I can’t look her in the eyes.

“You stayed.” The words are a croak coming from my ruined throat.

She nods. I nearly snap in two.

“Thank you,” I manage to say.

“You made a stadium full of people ask me to stay,” she replies. I dare to sneak another look at her face: she is going paler in front of my eyes.

“Impressed, huh?” I try to make it sound arrogant, but it comes out as if is I’m begging. Which, to be fair, I am. Or I will be in a second.

“Always,” she replies, and my body reacts on its own, my knees buckling without my permission. I reach out a hand and white-knuckle a random piece of railing that’s thankfully behind me.

“Listen, I’ve been thinking,” I lift a hand to touch her elbow, then think better of it. I lose my words and stutter. Sweat drips from my hair into my eyes. She looks up at me with something like pity in her eyes.

“You’ve been singing ,” she corrects me. Her voice catches before the word ‘singing’ and she inhales sharply. Oh, so my songs still have the ability to steal her breath. Good to know.

“I’ve been thinking,” I insist. “My mind wasn’t really in the singing part, I can do that on autopilot. I… I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“For what I am about to ask you.” But I can’t ask it. I just stand there, looking at her.

“All right, ask me,” Eden says eventually.

“How did you stand it?” I ask. “How did you survive?” The air leaves my lungs all at once as soon as I’ve gotten the words out, leaving me light-headed. But Eden is not reeling.

“You,” she replies without hesitation. “That’s how. You.”

“Are you looking to make me fall to my knees in front of you twice in a single night?”

“No. You asked me a question, I answered it. Are there more? ”

She is talking in the same way she always used to, level-headed, logical. But nothing makes sense right now: how can she speak so calmly?

“About a million of them,” I say. She looks away. She doesn’t want to talk about these things now—here. I don’t either, but it’s not a choice, it’s a need. I have to know.

I look up. The night is dark and noisy with the aftershocks of my concert. I am running out of time. In a second, my security will come to shepherd me into a limo before a tidal wave of screaming fans discover me behind the stage.

“I don’t know how to process what you just said,” I tell her, “so I’ll go on to the next question.”

“You’ve thought this through? These questions of yours?” she lifts an eyebrow.

“Excruciatingly,” I reply.

“When? You have been singing.”

“Singing is like breathing,” I shrug, “I can think at the same time.” I can feel her looking at me curiously, and I avoid her eyes. “I would like to kill the man who hurt you, Eden. That’s what I have been thinking. Over and over again. That’s all I have been thinking, since I found out the truth, about twelve hours ago.”

We both go quiet for a second. I think I forget to breathe. My chest heaves, trying to get in enough air.

“But now I realize,” I continue in a voice so low I can barely hear it myself, “that I am the man who hurt you.” She doesn’t say anything. “Aren’t I?

“You weren’t a man, you were just a kid, Isaiah.” The way she says my name. “Besides, I was the one who did the hurting.”

“No. No .” I shake my head and look down at my shoes. I can’t believe that she just said this. I can’t handle it. My eyes drift shut, but I can’t escape—not by closing them, anyway. “I’ll never hear you say this again.” I swallow hard. “Please, promise me or I’ll lose my mind.”

“Fine, I promise.” She sounds kind of resigned, and I think I hate that more than anything.

“Ok, ok.” I try to calm my breathing, because I am hyperventilating already. Even though she is talking calmly, she looks like she is about to fall apart in front of me. I know I am pushing her past her limit. This has to end. Now. “Look, Eden, in light of what I just found out, I… I think you need to be with your family right now. You should be with your sisters—I think that’s what we should do for you. ”

“My sisters? You—?” She looks shocked that I know about her sisters.

“Yeah, I’ve been pestering them for the past few hours.”

“You talked to my sisters?”

“I did. I called them before going on stage. I’m sure they’ll tell you everything.” I wince, remembering how much of a mess I was when I talked to the girls. Did I even introduce myself? I’m sure I made a complete ass of myself. And, somehow, I’m sure they told me so. “Please have mercy on me when they do—I know they won’t.”

“How did you find them, how did you—?” Her eyes have gone wide. “You were on the stage!”

I shake my head. “As if a small thing like a stadium full of fans would stop me from doing what I had to do.” Finally, I meet her eyes. We exchange a look that whips me back to six years ago within an instant.

Suddenly, the girl standing in front of me is her. My Eden.

“I am sorry for making you stay here when you wanted to leave, but you…I wanted to make sure you were ok,” I tell her, dropping my gaze. “I didn’t want you to leave like that, upset or in pain; I couldn’t stand it. But if you want to go be with your sisters and your dad, you should. You were right, you… you shouldn’t be around me right now.”

“Why?”

Of all the things she could have asked, that is the hardest one to answer.

“Because I am about to break something,” I say and her eyes snap to my face. She’s wondering if I mean it: I do. My hands curl into fists. “A lot of somethings. I can’t… I can’t process what I just found out.”

“I can’t process it either,” she says, “and I didn’t just find out. In fact, I…”

I lift a hand and she stops. Her face goes all worried and I’m sure I look like crap, or like I’m going to pass out.

But I have to stop this right now, before it goes any further. Further out of my depth; I am already drowning. But when I face this, and I will, I will face it bravely and not like a coward.

‘ The coal has touched your lips.’

‘I am unworthy.’

I need to find where this phrase is from. I can’t get it out of my head.

‘I am unworthy. ’

If I did not make it up and it is actually written somewhere, then it surely is written about me. The coal of truth has touched my lips. I told her I love her on stage—I said it to the whole world. I know the truth now, but I need time to process it. To become someone she can count on. Someone who won’t hurt her because he himself is hurting.

‘Did she do this to me?’

The question is finally answered: She did not. The person who did this to me did even worse things to her. I close my eyes in relief—and pain. I wish I had never doubted her. I wish I had been there for her, instead of worrying about myself. I wish she had done this to me, instead of the things that were done to her. I wish I was the only one who had suffered. I wish…

“Eden,” I breathe. She is beginning to shake.

She needs time to rebuild herself and I need time to become someone who deserves her. Right now I am not. And I know I will never be, but I can be better. Better than that guy who was completely destroyed in front of his fans tonight. I can learn to stand tall under pressure.

I can do this for her.

For us, if there ever is an us. And even if there isn’t, in the end.

I should be that person.

I should be stronger for her, but for myself also.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. I’ve been silent for too long and she is thinking that I don’t want to talk.

“Don’t fu—don’t say that!” I bite back a curse. If she apologizes to me again, I’m going to go insane.

“I can see that you’re close to breaking.”

“We both are,” I reply.

She is standing so close I don’t know how I am not sinking my head against her neck. I could shut my eyes and breathe her in, feel her hair on my lips, her heart beating against mine. I could let my arms close around her waist and all of the world would disappear.

But she is wrong: I’m not close to breaking; I broke hours ago. I keep breaking and breaking.

I’ll break again in a few minutes when I begin to think of what she went through. I don’t want her to see me like I’m going to be for the next two days, crying, on my knees, going crazy with pain, trying to come to terms with all this ugliness. If I stand here talking to her for a minute more, I’ll start crying.

Right now, I can’t even see the future. I can’t see how we can fashion this pain into something beautiful .

All there is, is darkness.

“Ok, listen,” she says suddenly with this new, determined, strong voice I’ve barely had time to get used to. “You are tearing open your chest here, showing me your heart, and I need to tell you something as well. When I first saw you on the yacht, I was in complete shock.”

I flinch. ‘Shock’ is a kind way to put it. I was an utter ass to her.

I swear she can read my mind, as she always could, because her lips turn up in a half smile.

“But as the days wore on,” she continues, “I realized you didn’t know what had happened to me. By some miracle, you hadn’t recognized me from the news. And that’s when it hit me: Finally, here was someone who wasn’t walking on eggshells around me.” I try to breathe. I can’t. I grab my chest, trying to hold my heart together. “You were rude to me— rude . Do you know the last time someone was rude to me? It was before the police came the day Solo—the day that monster died. Over four years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I choke out.

“The person that had been rude to me all these years ago was also you, by the way,” she smiles in this new, sad way that I absolutely hate. “There was no one else.”

I will ignore that.

“I’m sorry for how rude I was,” I choke out. “You have no idea how sorry. It—it was a self-preservation instinct, because I still had feelings for you, and I’m so, so damn sorry for it,” I say.

“I mean, sure, it made me mad, but after everything I have gone through, mad felt ok,” she replies. “Maybe it felt good. It felt alive, you know?”

I hung my head. No, I do not know, and I never will be able to fathom the depths of darkness she has been through.

“Eden.” I sound absolutely shattered. I am absolutely shattered.

“But you were real with me.” Her eyes are shining with tears, her lips trembling. The need to press my lips against them, to taste the saltness and the sweetness is so overwhelming I get dizzy. “You treated me like a person would,” she says.

“A horrible person.”

“A horrible person,” she agrees, “but a person nonetheless.”

“Eden, the things I did to you, I can’t forgive myself—” I am choking again.

“You made me dive into the ocean, when I was too scared to do it by myself,” she says. “You let me hang out with your friends. I made new friends.” I think of Jude, and the familiar wave of rage surges again. Stop it. Jude was there for her when you were a jerk to her. But I can’t stop. “You don’t know what you did for me, Isaiah, you… you made me want to wake up in the morning.” I’m all out of words. I just gape at her. “Did you know I had never done these things before you? You gave me this. You did this. You always do this: You make me come alive. No matter what happens, I don’t… I don’t want you standing there, beating yourself up because you didn’t know the truth.”

“Eden, there is no excuse for what I did, for how I acted—”

“I can’t stand it,” she interrupts me, “the torture in your eyes whenever you look at me now. Now that you know. The pity. I’d rather never see you again than have you look at me this way.”

I’m already shaking my head, but she doesn’t seem to get it.

Pity ? She thinks the torture in my eyes is because of pity ? God, she couldn’t be more wrong if she tried. It’s torture all right, but pity is the furthest thing from my mind.

“I need you to know something,” I grab her arms and look at her with so much intensity, it scares me a little. “I tried to pretend that I had moved on, but I never did. No one could move on after you, Eden. No one. Four years or forty or one hundred; I’ll never get over you. You said you’d haunt me, well, you already do. You haunt my dreams. You are not a girl a guy gets over.”

She just stands there, and I am barely touching her, but my body is turned into a live wire. Electricity is running through me just at her proximity, just at the fact that she exists.

“It will always kill me, wanting you,” my voice is a rasp, hoarse with raw, live want. “I haven’t moved on. I never will.”

I screamed my guts out on that stage, but this feels like the loudest thing I have said tonight. All my life.

Eden opens her mouth. Closes it.

“Don’t say anything.” I don’t know why I’m whispering, except that this feels like holy ground. The place where I spoke these words. Where I found her again. “Just… go.”

“Go?”

“Catch that flight home,” I tell her, “but promise me you’ll haunt me, like you did before.” She turns to leave, but I tighten my grip on her elbow. “Promise.”

“That is stupid.”

“I’m not kidding. Promise me, or I’m not letting you go.”

“Promise what exactly?” she’s looking away from me again.

“That you won’t forget me. ”

“I wasn’t the one who forgot,” she replies and I shut my eyes against the sharp pain.

“Don’t even joke about that,” I fight to get out the words. “I, forget? You were in every lyric of every song, in every breath, in…” I close my eyes, try not to pass out. Again. Skye’s huge form is approaching in the distance—he’s been giving us space, but it’s over now. I’m out of time. “I didn’t forget for a single second, Eden. I remembered everything wrong, because I didn’t know the truth. But I did not. Freaking. Forget.”

Eden looks scared. She looks like she can’t take any more. “Ok,” is all she says.

“Promise me you won’t forget me.” I just look at her, not blinking. I don’t move a muscle until she replies.

Someone, not Skye, calls my name frantically, but I don’t give any indication that I heard. Promise me , I beg her with my eyes. I hope she can’t tell that I’m drowning. She probably can.

She always could.

“I won’t,” she says finally.

Ideally, at this point I would exhale, but it’s impossible right now. My chest is too tight.

“I need to leave you alone,” I say, my voice a rasp.

“You need to drink some tea,” she says with a small smile.

How can she smile right now, when we are both dying? At least, I am. But she was always braver than anyone thought.

“You know what I need.” My eyes are burning into hers.

I need you. I need to feel you in my arms. I need to sink inside your skin. I need you to kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me.

“You needed me to promise, so I promised,” she says.

“I need you to haunt me,” I tell her.

She almost snorts. “Don’t talk to me about haunting. I have been haunted more than any other person on the planet. You’ve haunted me all these years.”

“And you think you haven’t haunted me ?”

“I told you, I thought you forgot I existed. I thought that for years. It’s hard to… unthink it.”

Something violent snaps inside me, and I want to break something. No. She can’t possibly have been thinking that all these years. She can’t. How could I have done everything so wrong? How could I have let her think that? How could I—?

“Eden, if a dead person could be killed, you would have murdered me right now. ”

“Have I haunted you, Isaiah?” she asks in small voice, snapping me out of my red haze of self-loathing. I look into her sad eyes that are studying my face earnestly, without fear, for the first time since I found her again.

There is hope , the stubborn, stupid voice inside me sings. Saint Hope. Tell her. Tell her the truth.

“You heard the whole concert, you tell me,” I whisper, the words wrenched from my ruined lips. “You heard every lyric I wrote for you, you heard every single note I—” My voice breaks and goes silent, as it often does after a concert.

But even if that hadn’t failed me, I don’t know how I could have continued.

I can’t bear this any longer. I can’t. If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to grab her by the neck and bring her lips to mine until neither of us can breathe. Or I’ll crash to my knees and beg her to stay. So I turn on my heel and leave.

I almost bump into Skye, who has been waiting for me with a towel, a storm of worry in his eyes. All I need to do is shake my head at him and he lowers his hands—and the towel. Then I nod towards Eden behind me, and Skye just says:

“I got this.”

And that’s all it takes for me to finally fall apart.

I know Skye will take care of everything. Eden will be safe, her flight booked within minutes, and a small army of my security guards assigned to accompany her on her way back home. Skye will send an assistant or two with her as well. He knows my life depends on that girl being safe and comfortable—he won’t risk anything happening to her.

I collapse into a chair, or the ground, I don’t care enough to tell the difference, and a cloud of assistants descend on me. But I remember nothing after that.