twenty-nine
Chicago
The buzzer has sounded; the door is open. Still, I’m not walking in.
I look down the street, away from the Elliots’ front door. The row of brownstones looks stately and quietly dignified from the outside, a neat set of stairs leading up to each identical house. The pavement is sprinkled with tiny leaves as trees rustle above our heads.
I think of the childhood Eden could have had here. In my mind’s eye I see a little girl, a tinier version of the Eden I met in the woods—a healthier version. A red-headed version. A version that’s jumping around, free. Loved. Safe. I think I see her as a little girl, thick red braids, jumping down the stairs, excited on her first day of school. Little snow boots in the winter, ice crunching under her feet as her dad holds her tightly by the hand. Peeking into a mailbox packed with snow. Larning to ride a bike with her sisters.
I need to lean against the railing and hide my eyes with my hand. They sting as if I have a fever.
“Zay? You ok?” my brother asks softly.
“No,” I reply. “I’m not ok. Nothing about this is ok.” A butterfly floats by, fluttering for a second around my ankles before flying off. It makes me think of Eden.
Exquisite. Fragile. Powerful. Reborn from what felt like death.
“Do you want to leave?” James asks me.
I glance at the two security guards following us from a respectful distance. There’s no way any crazy fans could ever find me here. We took all the precautions and then some, so that’s at least one less thing to worry about. I think. I hope.
“We are not leaving,” I say, trying to breathe normally. Or just breathe, however I can. “We are going in.”
So we do.
I thought I would be curious to see the inside of the house, but I barely notice anything, because the minute we walk in, my eyes fall on Eden’s dad .
I recognize his eyes at once—they are Eden’s eyes. My own go wet as I look at him, everything else fading around us. I didn’t even get a chance to look at her sisters, they are just two blurry figures standing next to him.
But all my attention is on him.
Gosh, he looks so much like Eden. I swallow past the lump in my throat.
He is a tall dude who looks like special forces cop—or rather, as if he’s playing one on TV. He is almost too good-looking for a real-life dad. He’s younger than I expected, taller, stronger. His cheeks are chiseled, the same sharp lines that I have memorized in Eden’s face since she was a teen. His hair and beard are a darker auburn shade than Eden’s real hair and peppered with gray, but he looks vibrant, smart and full of life. And, right now, pale as a corpse.
I just stand there, mouth agape, as he takes two steps towards me. Before even meeting my eyes, a sob burst out of him, the sound strange, poignant, unexpected. He turns his face away, and walks up to Mom instead. He takes her hands in his and kisses them.
“Thank you,” he says to her, his voice thick with tears. “Thank you for raising such a young man, who kept my daughter alive when I couldn’t.”
“I didn’t keep…” I start saying, embarrassed beyond words, but a girl steps out of the shadows.
I know her at first glance. It’s Faith. She is the spitting image of Eden, except that her hair is a blonder shade of red. She steps up to me quickly and shushes me.
Shushes me.
What a fine beginning this is: tears and shushing.
I thought Manuela would be the more vocal of the two, but out of the corner of my eye, I see her biting her lip and struggling not to cry. She is less alike her dad in looks than the other two, even though she is the only one near his height. Apparently, she has inherited his emotions as well. Although I would pay good money to find someone in this living room who is not about to become a blubbering mess.
Eden, thankfully, is nowhere to be seen.
Small mercies.
“Isaiah is right here,” mom says gently to Mr. Elliot. “He would really love to meet you.”
I gulp down my panic and swallow. James clears his throat above my left my ear, and I can almost hear him think at me: Hold it together, you idiot . I would if I could. I straighten up my spine and clutch the lapels of my jacket. You can do this , I tell myself, fully knowing I can’t.
I’ll probably end up crying too.
I prepare to give Eden’s dad my hand, even though I’m shaking so hard he can probably tell, but to my surprise, Mr. Elliot turns his back on me, hiding his face with his hand.
“I can’t,” he whispers. “I can’t meet the young man right now.”
“It’s all right,” Mom tells him, placing her hand on his elbow.
How does she always know what to do? She smiles at me behind Mr. Elliot’s shaking back, calm as anything. I know what that smile means: Give him space .
I turn to Faith and Manuela.
“I hope he’s ok,” I tell them helplessly.
“He’s fine,” Faith says at the same time that Manuela says:
“He’s not.” I look at her sharply and she shrugs. She is tall and slender, the opposite to her sister’s pint-sized curviness. They are both gorgeous. “He’s ashamed. He blames himself for what happened to Eden. He thought she had died for so many years, and he… he still can’t realize she’s alive. And that she turned out ok.”
“Ok?” I scoff. “She turned out amazing.”
“She did,” Manuela agrees, wiping her eyes angrily, as if they are tearing up without her consent. “And it’s in no small amount thanks to you, I guess.”
I’m shaking my head already. “She was amazing when I met her,” I tell her. “You have no idea how amazing.” She nods solemnly, and I decide to put us both out of our misery. “You’re Manuela, right?” I shake her hand. “Nice to meet you in person.”
She smiles up at me cheekily.
“And, of course, Faith,” I turn to Faith, but she brushes my hand away and hugs me so fiercely I lose my breath.
“Thank you for that,” I whisper into her ear as she’s hugging me. “I needed it.”
“I know,” she whispers back. Her face is one big smile. “You look like a statue up close.”
“Shut up.”
“No, you do. Manuela had a mini panic attack at the sight of you. I’m more dignified, of course.”
“Of course.” I let her go, suppressing a laugh. She’s managed to calm me down in a few seconds. I won’t say I underestimated her, because I didn’t, but she might actually be made of magic.
They both have their dad’s red-brown hair, but that’s where their resemblance to Eden ends. Manuela is tall and willowy, like her dad, and she has light blue eyes and a soft mouth. Faith is shorter than Eden, with wild, strawberry blonde hair and shining, smiling eyes. I feel like I have known them forever.
I remember my manners and introduce them to James, who proceeds to demand they call him ‘Pan’, which they do, giggling. Then he instantly steals both their hearts. He makes himself at home on a comfy-looking couch I just noticed is here, sitting down on it without being asked to. Then he proceeds to make himself at home on it, getting snugly sandwiched between the two girls, and Eden’s sisters start fawning over him.
I roll my eyes so hard my head hurts.
“James,” I bite out his name under my breath, but he isn’t even listening. He is giving his full attention to something Manuela is telling him, smiling up to her, dimples and all. Faith, seated on his other side looks at him adoringly.
“Annoying, isn’t it?” A voice says behind me. “How they will immediately become obsessed with any half-decent looking man, as if they have never seen one in their lives?”
I turn around to meet a guy about ten years older than me with a baseball cap and a kind face. He is wincing, as if he can feel my embarrassment. I like him straight away.
“Isaiah Pan.” I give him my hand. “I am Eden’s friend.”
He shakes my hand, and me too a little bit, he’s that strong. “Nice to meet you,” he says, and not ‘I know’, like I had expected. I am liking him more and more. “Justin Olson. Manuela’s husband.”
“Do I need to apologize for my brother?” I wince.
“If you do, then I need to apologize for my wife,” he smiles. “Besides, I feel like I am about to apologize for the avalanche of fangirling that is about to attack you. They are restraining themselves, because you only just got here, but…”
“I think we are over that,” I smile.
He raises an eyebrow at me. “Over the fangirling? These two? Over Issy Woo? Never!” He must see the color drain from my face, because he bursts out laughing. “Man, you should see your face. Believe me, you would be even more freaked out if you were living in the same house with one of them,” he points his thumb to Manuela, “and were forced to learn all your songs by heart. Which, I do, naturally.”
“Ughhgm,” I say.
“I just wanted to welcome you to the madness, as a fellow outsider.” He taps me lightly on the back and then leans in and whispers: “You won’t be one for long. Not if these two have anything to say about it.”
He nods towards Manuela and Faith’s heads, bent over something James is showing them on his phone. Ok, I’m getting jealous over here. In the corner, next to the window facing the thick rows of bookshelves, my mom and Eden’s dad are quietly talking about loss. I am not going anywhere near them. My only other choice is to plonk myself right between James and Faith.
Faith doesn’t seem too happy to be separated from my idiot brother, but I don’t give her a choice. We’re a bit snug, four people packed into a three-person couch, but none of us seems willing to move.
Justin glances at us from the other end of the room and sniggers. Lucky bastard.
Could this get any more awkward? I guess it can. But it’s up there already.
“Right,” I say to Eden’s sisters. “Tell me about the day you guys first met Eden.”
And that’s how, shyly and extremely awkwardly, we finally start talking.
At some point, Eden’s dad walks to where I’m sitting with the girls, and I stand up so fast, I get a head rush.
“Thank you,” he whispers, “thank you, Isaiah.”
He bows his head to me. He bows his literal head. Then he gives me his hand to shake. He doesn’t say anything else. No introductions, nothing else. Just ‘thank you’. Then his eyes start leaking.
“Dad,” someone hisses—Faith—but even she stops. Everything stops, as if everyone around us is holding their breath. I feel off-kilter. I don’t know what to say.
A tall, strong man like that, crying like a child as he thanks me.
“I knew you were her father instantly, Mr. Elliot,” is all I can say. I keep repeating it over and over. “I knew you were hers.”
He is crying so much he can’t talk. And then, finally, he says:
“Call me Walter, for Pete’s sake.” As if we are family. Then he wipes his eyes, right there, in front of everyone, unashamed of his tears. “You took care of my girl when I couldn’t.”
I don’t know if I should nod or just shrivel up and die. The carpet doesn’t seem to be giving any indication of being about to swallow me up, so that’s a bummer.
“Let’s sit down, Dad,” Manuela’s voice says in a quiet, gentle tone, which, by the way, she has never once used with me .
I didn’t even know she was capable of it.
…
It’s two hours later, and we haven’t moved from the couch. We’ve just been sitting here, talking.
Well, I don’t know if what we are doing could be classified as ‘talking’. It’s more having several conversations at once, words overlapping and leading to hilarious misunderstandings and entanglements of different meanings. Half the time we are just repeating what we just said, so that the other person can hear over all the clamor. What is time? It has completely stopped to exist as a concept.
At some point, Justin gets up to bring snacks and coffee and we gulp everything hungrily while still talking over each other. Manuela tells me privately that Eden is upstairs in her room, gathering her courage to climb down the stairs. I nod, as if I’m calm, and meanwhile my heart is hammering, my breath stopping every time Eden’s name is so much mentioned—and it’s mentioned a lot. I am a mess. I hope she doesn’t come down those stairs.
I hope she comes down those stairs.
I don’t know what I hope for. Whatever she decides to do, I hope I can stand it.
Saint Hope is such a sadist.
And then, as if Saint Hope wasn’t torment enough, Eden walks in.
A hush falls over the room, which, I’m sure, isn’t helping, but there is nothing else we can do when she appears, moving like an angel, her chin lifted with courage, her lips trembling. Pooh is trotting along by her heels like a fierce, tiny bodyguard—even though he jumps into my lap the minute he spots me. I rub his ears without taking my eyes off Eden.
The minute I see her, my knees go weak. Her hair is down, cascading in soft curls around her head, and she is wearing skinny jeans and an oversized red Chicago Bulls hoodie that falls down to her knees. Only the tips of her fingers are visible inside the enormous sleeves—and they are shaking. I swallow, hard.
Her hair looks so healthy and luscious and… different. Will I ever get used to it glowing like this? Was she so beautiful the last time I saw her? Was the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks so damn irresistible? Was she this ethereal, this otherworldly ?
I thought I had imagined it. Her. I thought I had imagined her.
She focuses her gaze on me. Did her eyes always widen like that whenever she saw me, as if she is in pain? And did it always make me go hot and cold all over?
“Eden,” I whisper, as if we are alone.
“Hi,” she says shyly.
I stand up and my legs nearly give out on me. Faith quickly stands next to me and grabs hold of my elbow, clutching me so tightly I wouldn’t be able to snatch my arm away if I wanted to. But I don’t. She’d better keep holding me upright or I am going down.
“Hi, sweetheart,” her dad walks up to meet her, all choked up. “There is someone here to meet you.” He wraps a hand around her waist—Eden is shaking so much her teeth are nearly chattering.
“Why are you crying?” she asks him abruptly, and then her eyes travel to mine. I quickly look away, but I know she’s already seen how red they are. “I can’t believe this! I leave you guys alone for one second and you all start crying in tandem? You too, Dad? Manuela? I am so ashamed of you.”
Her dad chuckles, but doesn’t let her go. She is probably shaking still. I know I am. How is she so brave?
“You just wait,” her dad tells her, the corners of his eyes wrinkling with infinite affection as he looks at her, and I melt.
She has his honey brown eyes , I think for the second time. Now that they are standing side to side, the resemblance is striking. She has his facial structure. Manuela and Faith must have gotten theirs from their mom. Maybe Eden gets her slight build from her as well.
“You just wait until you meet this wonderful lady,” her dad says, looking at Mom. “Then we will see who is the worst crier in this family then, Paradise.”
He calls her ‘Paradise’ . I think I might just die.
I want to look away, but I can’t. A quiet sound like a whimper escapes me and Faith elbows me in the ribs. Hard. While still holding me up.
“This is Mrs. Pan,” Walter says, walking up to my mom with Eden by his side. “Isaiah’s mother.”
“Please, call me Lin,” Mom says to Eden.
Eden opens her mouth and nothing comes out. She suddenly turns paper-white, and I jump forward to catch her. Faith’s fingers dig into my arm, holding me back. Eden does not faint. She grits her teeth, visibly swallowing, and flutters her eyelids as if she’s trying to clear her vision. Mom enfolds her in one of her sweet mom-hugs, and Eden’s rigid body visibly relaxes.
“Jesus, I can’t watch,” I murmur, and turn around to hide my face against Faith’s shoulder.
“She’s doing great,” she whispers in my ear with pride in her voice.
“Of course she is.”
Behind me, Mom’s gentle, musical voice is talking to Eden, calming her down.
I turn away, give them some space. It kills me to stay away from Eden, but I let Mom and her dad talk to her over in a corner, while I somehow manage to stay with her sisters.
I have gotten to know them a lot these past few hours. I have learned that Faith is a medical doctor currently completing her residency in hematology, and Manuela teaches English Literature at a high school. She and Justin have a tiny son. Justin took time off work as well, and they hired a babysitter, in order to be here today. He is so supportive of Manuela, his eyes searching hers every few minutes, just to make sure she is ok. I ask what Walter does for a living, and I find out he is an English Literature professor as well—at Michigan State.
“That actually makes so much sense,” I murmur, smiling, as I think of Eden’s love for the classics—and for books, in general.
The more I learn about Walter, the more I understand her, which makes sense. He is where she comes from. She… The version of her I met all these years ago did not have a father. The thought hits me all over again like a knife in the gut. It will never stop destroying me. Every few hours, I manage to sort of forget all the horrible stuff and pretend that Eden is just a girl I lost and am only now getting back.
And then reality comes at me like a sucker punch, nearly knocking me off my feet.
“Would it be ok if you talked a little bit about your mom?” I ask Faith and Manuela, and they exchange a look. Both their faces light up at the same time.
“Oh, it would,” Manuela says, her voice going back to that soft, tender tone that she only used to her Dad before.
“We’d love that,” Faith adds.
It turns out that their mother is their favorite subject to talk about. There is pain there, and grief, but it’s not raw and bitter like mine. It’s not traumatic like Eden’s. It’s just something that time has turned into sweetness, strength and, dare I say it? Identity. These girls know who they are, and their bond with each other as well as their bond with both of their parents seems to be a big part of that.
I sit back and listen, drinking it all in.
Letting it heal me. Well, not completely. But it’s a start.
…
“Excuse me.”
My eyes fly to Eden’s face as she abruptly gets up and leaves the room. At first she’s just walking hurriedly away, but by the time she disappears out the front door, she is running at full speed. Pooh starts to follow, his little feet tap-tapping on the floor, but Faith grabs him and tries to calm him down.
Without thinking, I get up and run after her. It’s only when I reach her as she is unlocking the door, that I realize it: no one else moved to go after her. They all let me go to her, by myself, as if they’ve all agreed silently, without having to even talk about it, that I should be the one to go after her. Take care of her. As if they trust me to do so.
Do they know how utterly useless I am? Do they know that I am the least equipped person in this room to help her? Do they know what kind of an utter loser I have been during these past four years, while they were all fighting for her like her warriors?
“Eden!” I call, but she is already running down the front steps. I run after her. “Eden!”
It doesn’t matter if I can do this or not. I am doing it. I am going to be here for her, and I just hope I don’t hurt her worse than I already have.
I reach her and grab her just as she is about to blindly cross the street. She is crying so hard she is not breathing. I press her face to my chest and fold her in my arms. I tuck her into me; keep her there until she can breathe again. Her hair tickles my jaw. She is in her socks; she was in too much of a hurry to put on shoes. I pick her up and she curls her legs around my waist.
I just hold her like that, wrapped around me, as her body is wrecked by sobs.
“Baby, baby, what is it?”
She just cries, soaking my shirt; she can’t reply. I think I might be losing my mind. Did I do something? I probably did. From now on, I should always be assuming that I did something .
“What is it, Eden? Talk to me. What’s wrong, baby, what can I do?”
“The way you were all sitting together, in that tiny living room, like a family, I…” she can’t go on.
“It’s not tiny,” I murmur, because I don’t know what to say. Also, it’s really not. It’s a huge room, cozy, but big, filled with windows and books and comfy sitting areas.
“There were so many of you, you made it look tiny,” she replies. “I’ve never… I’ve never seen so many people gathered in that room before. Of course I haven’t. I didn’t grow up in this house.”
I tighten my grip on her and she presses her legs to my hips.
My heart is breaking. Our bodies are melded to each other, crushed together as one. There isn’t an atom of air between our limbs. I don’t know where she ends and I begin—but I still want more. I want to take her face in my hands and wipe those tears away from her cheeks. I want her breath on my lips, and I want it to be shaking because I’m about to kiss the sense out of her, not because she is in so much pain that breathing is pure torture.
“Did you know that?” she asks me.
Of course I know—she knows I know. I am the only person who knows exactly where she grew up. I clear my throat.
“I do, Eden,” I just say, and her sobs subside enough so that she can talk to me.
“He stole this from me, Isaiah. He stole this life from me.” She is suddenly furious, trying to cry and shout at the same time, and it’s stealing her breath. I let her down, and she stands on her own, staring up at me with those wide, tortured eyes. “He stole it, Isaiah,” her voice breaks.
She is lightly beating my chest with her fists, and I don’t stop her, because I’m afraid if I do, she’ll start beating her own.
“I know,” I repeat helplessly, thinking back to how I thought the exact same thing while standing on this very spot, just a few hours ago. “I know, baby, I know.”
I take her face between my hands, just as I wanted to. She cries into my fingers, and I hold her. I let her cry here, where she is safe. She needs to mourn all that was taken from her. There is no way around this, only through. There is no way to avoid the pain. It would catch up with her sooner or later.
I’m just glad it did now that I am here to catch her .
“I can’t drive,” she hiccups.
“What?” What does that even matter ?
“I never learned to drive. Everyone in that room can drive, I counted. And I… I missed my chance.”
“My brother can’t,” I say quickly. “He thinks he can, but he is a menace behind the wheel.” Eden laughs in the middle of crying, so I go on. “And Mom hasn’t driven in years. Her hands, you know. Also, I’m pretty sure Pooh can’t drive, but I wouldn’t put it past him—” Her laughter turns into a sob that leaves her weak and trembling. I brace an arm around her back, steady her against my body. “You can learn to drive,” I tell her. “You can learn, if you want to, it’s not a big deal.”
She is shaking her head. “It’s too much, Isaiah. So many things… I have so much catching up to do, and there’s not enough time. I am already in my twenties and I haven’t…”
She lets her phrase trail into nothing and I tighten my grip on her.
“How will I ever be normal?” she murmurs, and I scoff. I am so not the person to ask this. I haven’t been normal for years now. Or maybe all my life. “Can you imagine me wearing mascara and buying… I don’t know, stamps, or going to the carwash or handling a vacuum cleaner or… all those things fully functional people do that I don’t even know what they are?”
Did she just say stamps?
I see red. So many words are springing to my lips that I sputter. I don’t know where to start. Fully functional people? Is that even a thing? There are fully functional hypocrites, yes. Fully functional fakers. But I don’t think the kind of ‘normal people’ she has in her mind is remotely related to reality.
Kiss me , I think at her. Let me take away the pain. You’ll forget everything else once my lips are on your skin. Once the fire starts running through our veins. Kiss me. I’ll never act on it, of course. Now is not the time. But my stupid brain is going: Kiss me. Kiss me. Constantly.
“How do I learn how to live?” she asks, despair making her voice sink.
“Ok, I need to stop you right there,” the words come out of me with such force I almost stumble. “I have not seen anyone more alive than you, back then and now. So you need to stop thinking like that, and realize just how much you are loved, no, not loved… Admired. Eden. Adored . No one expects of you to vacuum, or get stamps, or do all those other things. You are perfect as you are, and the fact that you can’t see it is literally—” I am out of air, but I keep going, even without breathing. I will not cry before getting this out. “It’s literally breaking my heart. That is the one thing that needs to change.”
A second passes by. And then she says:
“I don’t know any swear words.” I lean down, not sure I heard her correctly.
“What?”
“I don’t know any swear words, bad words,” she repeats. “I don’t know what people mean when they use them, I don’t know what they are talking about. I feel like an alien, and it keeps getting worse and worse as the years go by, instead of better. There is so much I have missed, and this is one of the most important ones.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s one of the most important—”
“It is,” she insists, “it is the way people talk, the way the express themselves. There is only so much one can learn from books, after all.”
“Look, baby,” I lower my head so my face is on the same level as hers, “you have seen me drive and do everything else, well, except buy stamps, and you know that I am crap at most things other people excel in.” I look into her eyes intensely, hoping that my voice can drown out all the other thoughts in her head. That she can focus on me. “But one thing I know how to do is swear. That I am confident I can help you with.”
She laughs.
I just close my eyes and breathe, relieved. The tears are still wet on her cheeks and I keep wiping them away, but no fresh ones are coming. My whole body is buzzing with intensity—I have gone into full battle mode.
I’ll do anything, anything to keep those cheeks dry. For the rest of my life.
“There’s one more thing,” she says, her voice dropping. Instantly, chills cover my whole body.
“Yeah?” My lips are grazing her forehead. I can feel her body trembling.
“I mean, not one thing, there are a million things I have missed, there are so many more…”
I step closer until my hipbone is brushing her waist. My arm is around her, my fingers trailing the line of her jaw.
“But you were thinking of one specific thing,” I murmur.
Her eyes lift up to mine. There is naked emotion in them. Want. Hope. It steals my breath. Her own comes chopped, short.
“Yes,” she says. “One specific thing. ”
It’s hard to breathe with her so close. It’s hard to breathe and not kiss her until none of us can stand upright. “Let’s hear it.”
“Kissing,” she says, and I nearly die right there.
“You know how to kiss,” I say.
“It’s been so long. Remind me,” she whispers, her eyes drifting shut. I lose all control. I bring my face down to hers.
“You know,” I have to bite my lip so that I won’t devour hers. “You know well enough how to do it, Eden. You nearly killed me the last time you did it.”
“Remind me.” She lifts herself on her tiptoes, and that’s the end of me.
I bend even lower until I can cover her lips with mine, bending my knees not so much out of want but need—my legs have melted. The kiss starts out hard, desperate, full-force, but it quickly turns into something deeper. A simmering, burning fire that is about to consume us both from the inside out.
I kiss her and she kisses me and everything else falls away. The tears, the panic attack, the regret, the loss.
She trembles and melts against me and I pull her up to my chest, feeling the warmth of her every delicious breath. Every time she so much as moves, it gets the blood thrumming through my veins. Every time she so much as breathes into my mouth, I lose a bit more of my grip on my body’s reaction. She sighs against me and completely ruins what’s left of my self-control.
I tug on her hair lightly, pulling her head back so I can taste her better. I used to do that with her braid, I remember, and my whole body shivers as if run through by an electric shock. The move is so familiar, I missed it like a drowning man misses breathing.
My eyes literally sting with tears as I kiss her, thinking of how many times I have done this exact same thing in the past. It used to be so easy, so effortless, like waking up in the morning, and yet now it’s like a tidal wave washing over us both. I never thought I would get to kiss her again like this, with my hands in her hair, cupping her chin, her trusting me fully. And then she moans softly into my lips, her body going soft against me, and I quickly move to grab her by the hips and steady her against my thigh.
“Eden,” I whisper into her mouth. Her name. My first song.
“Deeper,” she gasps.
“Let me make it good for you.” My voice is deep, hoarse, unrecognizable.
I lift her into my arms, a hand behind her legs, her face on level with mine. I have lost every kind of ability to think. I am no longer myself, I am something that is made for her. I am her toy. She tangles her hands in my hair, bringing my face closer to hers, and I let her do whatever she wants to me. I support her weight effortlessly and groan into her neck, my breath coming fast and hard.
My hand goes down her sweater, but not inside. I don’t know how I stop myself from doing that, but I do. By some miracle, I do. I taste her hungrily, desperately, as if it’s the first time and the last time all in one, but I won’t go further.
I will die before I go further.
Actually, I might die right now. If I don’t let her go this second , it’s going to be impossible to stop. I let her go, panting hard from the effort it took to unglue my lips from hers. She stumbles. I keep my arm firmly around her shoulders, but I don’t touch her otherwise. I need to give her some space to breathe. I am past breathing at this point.
I went too far. Too soon.
This can’t be allowed to get out of control. It just can’t.
“Are you ok?” I whisper into her hair, pressing my lips to her forehead. I can’t help myself; I am addicted to kissing her, touching her. I can’t stop.
“No, I am not ok,” she says and I freeze. “I have too much work to do, I… You know that, right?”
“I do, baby.”
“But knowing it and living it is different, isn’t it? I mean, even being in this house is too much sometimes, and today, seeing you with my family… My two lives colliding…” she can’t go on, but she doesn’t need to.
I completely understand what she means. ‘My two lives colliding’ . I have been thinking of that exact thing since before I stepped foot inside her house.
“I know,” I say slowly, “I can’t even wrap my mind around the memories it must evoke, just seeing me again. I could barely handle seeing you , and nothing has even happened to me.” Her eyes widen, like ‘how can you say that’, but it’s true. What’s happened to me is nothing compared to what she’s been through. “Baby, when I found out what was happening to you all the time we were together… I wanted to die. I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to earth to swallow me up.”
She gives me one of her sad smiles and it makes me feel completely murderous.
“I still don’t know how to drive,” she says .
“That’s not…” I meant to say that’s not a problem, but I realize how close I am to saying the wrong thing on accident and I shut my hole.
“As I said, I need to learn,” she adds and I nod. It takes a lot out of me not speak right now, but I do it. “There is so much more I need to do. There is so much I can’t control. Inside of me and outside of me, because I was so little when it happened… I lived my whole life in…”
No talking be damned. I’m wrapping her in my arms before she can finish her phrase. Her heart thuds against my chest like a terrified bird’s. It begins to slow down as I press her against me, so I don’t move. I just keep her wrapped up in me.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” I tell her. “Whatever you need.”
“I don’t think I’m ready,” she replies. “For you. For this.”
Anything but that. My heart slams against my ribcage.
No. No!
Eden, no!
Anything but that.
I think I knew this was coming, but I didn’t want to accept it. And there is a part of me that is still the sixteen-year-old Isaiah I used to be, a boy who wants to doggedly fight for this, for her, for us, even though she literally told me she doesn’t want it right now. Even though I know I will respect whatever she needs. But my heart won’t. It will not .
“Let’s get you back inside,” I say. It’s a warm June day, but her hands are frozen. Mine too.
It’s not from the cold; it’s because of the fear.
The fear that this might be the end.