thirty-five
Europe/Chicago
thirty-fiv e
August is drawing to a slow, agonizing end, and I’m exhausted. We are going to have a month’s pause and then a few more UK shows, then Amsterdam, Vienna, Warsaw and Lisbon, and then the much-needed Christmas and New Years’ break.
Still, I somehow manage to find a way to spend every free waking moment in the recording studio. Every single chance I get, when my voice allows it, I’m there. Headphones on, eyes closed, songs pouring out of me like black ink.
The studio has always been my happy place, but I have never felt like this before. The music comes to me, pouring out of my lips effortlessly. Bursting out of my chest. Sometimes I take a break from recording to jot down new lyrics. I end up writing and recording whole new songs right then and there, within the space of a few hours. Jude is with me almost always, and the rest of the musicians come over to watch or play with me.
I imagine her walking in, out of the blue, and my voice breaks.
In the end, I decide to record with my back to the door, but it doesn’t help. I am still picturing her whenever I close my eyes. I am forever singing to her, even when she is not here.
…
And while I sing, life moves on.
Faith lets me know that Eden has gotten into Harvard, which I knew would happen.
‘ Is she happy?’ I ask.
Faith replies by telling me that Princess Olivia’s coronation is going to be live on TV in two days, in case I want to watch it. She doesn’t answer my question, and I don’t press her. I catch the coronation before my show, and I watch Eden climb red-carpeted stairs, dressed in a transcendent, softly sparkling long dress of pale blue. Her red hair is flowing in perfect curls down her back. She looks like a fairy princess.
She recites two of her poems, Survivor and Smaller , and her voice doesn’t tremble once. Olivia looks serious and beautiful, her hair a black halo around her beautiful face, but as soon as Eden steps up to read her poems, her face is transformed. She gives her full attention to Eden, and the cameras can’t decide which one to focus on. The two end up sharing the screen, and it looks like Eden is reciting her poems just for Olivia .
I know Eden: that is exactly what she is doing. Her fingers are trembling slightly, but I can tell by the look in her eyes and she is only pretending to read from the expensive piece of paper she is holding. She knows every word by heart, and recites them flawlessly.
The new queen looks regal and strong, focused and calm, and somehow… ready for her new role. Her features are exquisite, her manners flawless. But I can’t take my eyes off Eden. Seeing her on the screen like this haunts me for the next weeks. The emotion in her voice as she reads, the words she says… It all makes me a complete wreck. I don’t know how I will perform my next show.
Somehow, I get through it.
Afterwards, Jude and Miki tell me that I was pumped up like never before, that I screamed at the top of my lungs, that I was electric. I honestly remember none of it. I was thinking of her the entire time.
I end all my concerts from now on with a new catchphrase: “Be ready!”
The first time I say it, in London, people lose their minds, screaming and then going online to find out what I meant. I continue doing it, until they learn to wait for it and yell it back to me.
I am laying the groundwork for when I announce my new album, whenever that may be. I came up with the idea of saying something cryptic to foreshadow it, so to speak, and my publicists thought the words ‘be ready’ would be perfect. And they are, more than they know.
I feel as if I am saying it to myself every night on the stage, preparing myself for whatever will come, all the sorrow and joys that await me after life on tour. A life without Eden, possibly.
It’s like staring into the abyss.
I will never be ready for a life without her.
…
It’s early October and I’m back in the studio, well on my way to overstuff my new Isaiah album to the gills with new, tortured songs. I have already recorded fifteen of them, which is more than usual for an LP, but there are more coming. And I can’t stop them.
Skye knows exactly what is happening in the studio, as do my producers, but they don’t stop me either. I don’t know if they could if they wanted to, to be honest .
I have just finished recording Shooting Star , one of the songs we wrote with Eden—and one of my favorites—when my phone lights up.
It’s Faith. But she is not texting me; she’s calling me.
“Faith, hey—” I stop abruptly, my heart jumping in my throat. I sit up. On the other end of the line, Faith is crying so hard she can’t talk. I go into panic mode.
“What’s wrong, Fee?” I try to calm her down, and myself, but she is crying so hard I am about to lose it.
Every horrible scenario I can think of is running through my head and I can’t breathe. What’s happened to Eden? Dear God, please, no more. She can’t take any more. I can’t take any more.
“I screwed up, Isaiah,” Faith says eventually, through sobs.
I sigh, trying to control my breathing.
“Want to tell me how?” I ask her gently, as if I’m talking to a little kid .
I need Manuela , I think frantically. I am honestly a little scared of her; I would do anything to avoid talking to her, especially on the phone, and yet I would dial her into this call in a heartbeat.
“Nice slow breaths, Fee,” I try to speak calmly through the drumming of my heart. “Breathe with me. In, out. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”
“I… I am a horrible human being.”
Ok, that’s not helpful at all. But I think I’m starting to get to know Faith well enough by now to recognize that this is how her brain processes things. First she panics, then she blames everything on herself.
“That’s not true,” I tell her slowly, my heart still beating like crazy. “Is this about Eden?”
More sobs. I wait.
“Yeah, it’s…”
My heart stops, but I don’t interrupt her.
“It’s her birthday,” Fee says. For a second, I don’t get what all the crying and panicking is about, but then she adds: “It’s Eden’s birthday. And she doesn’t know.”
It takes me a minute to realize what the hell Faith is talking about—my brain can’t grasp it. But then, I finally do. Realization hits all at once, and then my heart is breaking. And breaking and breaking.
I sit down abruptly, the world going fuzzy at the edges.
“Her birthday? And she… she doesn’t know?” The question comes out as a croak .
Fee doesn’t answer, she is crying again. I can almost feel her nodding. I swipe my finger on my phone and turn this into a video call. I don’t care how dark the circles under my eyes are. I need to see her.
Faith doesn’t open her camera that second, but she does turn it on soon enough. Too soon for her to have changed her clothes or put on makeup. I smile as soon as I see her. Her familiar face fills the screen, and she kind of feels like home. She looks a mess. Red hair in a sloppy bun, a random sweater thrown on in haste. She looks like Eden a bit.
She’s crying her eyes out.
“Hey, Faith, look at me,” I tell her. She turns her eyes towards her phone, and I can see nothing but pain in them. “Ok, good.” I clear my throat. “Now, when is Eden’s birthday? You know, her real birthday?”
“In two days,” Faith says. “We… we always had a ‘remembering day’ for her, my mom, my dad, Manuela and me, on her birthday. And when Mom passed away, we kept doing it. Just sat there, thinking about Eden, praying and crying. It was painful but also comforting; not doing anything on her birthday seemed even worse. So we kept it up. Does that make sense?”
Much more than I’d like to admit.
“It does,” I nod.
She wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I haven’t gotten the day wrong, in case you were wondering. It’s just… It never crossed my mind to tell her. We didn’t have the heart to. She never wants to celebrate her birthday anyway, because she was raised that way, but I’ve had enough of it. She is turning twenty-one this year, and she… She still thinks her birthday is on that other day. You know, the fake birth date. Whatever day that monster told her. And now I have to tell her, only I don’t know how. It just… It feels wrong, you know?”
“What does?”
“For the day to pass by with us doing nothing. No birthday celebrations, because Eden doesn’t know it’s her real birthday, and no ‘remembering day’ either because, thank God, she’s safe and sound, but…”
“What did you do last year?” I ask, and I shouldn’t have, because a torrent of fresh tears comes.
“We didn’t tell her,” Faith says between sobs. “The therapist advised against it. And the year before that, she was in the clinic. And Dad wanted…” I wait for her to catch her breath. “He wanted a fe w normal days with her, as many as he could get, so we celebrated her fake birthday.”
“I’m guessing Eden didn’t even think to ask you for her real one,” I say. It’s a statement, not a question. I’m only just getting to know Faith and Manuela, but Eden… Eden I know. I know her better than myself. I know she wouldn’t even think to ask.
“She didn’t,” Faith confirms. “We celebrated it on the fake day, and she went along, out of habit, I guess. Well, when I say habit… She’d never had a birthday celebration before, ever in her life, Isaiah.”
That’s not true. She had two. With me. But I don’t tell Faith that.
“April fourteenth,” I say.
Her eyes go wide as saucers. “Oh. You know the date of her fake birthday.”
“Of course I do.”
“Of course, you do,” she realizes.
She sounds impressed, but why would she be? I was with Eden for nearly two years. She was closer to me than my family. I might have been too much of an idiot to know what was really happening to her, but I’ll be damned if I don’t remember her birthday. Well, her fake birthday.
“I want her to know, Isaiah,” Faith says after a bit, “but I can’t do it… Manu can’t either. It’s too big. It’s…” She’s about to fall apart on me all over again.
“Ok, hey, don’t cry. It’s going to be fine,” I tell her. “I need you to stop crying right now, ok? Can you do that for me?” She shakes her head. Dammit . “Look, these may be happy tears or trauma tears, or whatever you need them to be tears, and you are welcome to cry your heart out as much as you want. It might be healing, what the hell do I know? But I don’t want you to be alone over there, crying by yourself. Where is your sister, can you call her?”
“She’s out,” Faith sobs.
“Right. But she’ll be back soon, right? You guys live next door, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Great, ok, I’ll stay with you until she gets back. Is that ok with you?” She nods, hiccupping. “I won’t go anywhere, and we’ll get through this together.” She nods again, but she’s still crying. I just sit there, looking at her. “At some point, we have to collectively decide to stop crying,” I muse .
“Today is not that day,” Faith blows her nose loudly. I almost laugh.
It sure isn’t.
“As for Eden,” I say, “I’ll take care of it. Do you trust me?”
“Do I trust you?” She snorts, but she is also crying at the same time, and there are tears and snot involved. It’s not pretty. A laugh escapes me. “Yeah, I trust you. I called you crying my head off in the middle of the night, didn’t I?”
“And what a lovely thing it was.”
“Shut up.”
“Also, not the middle of the night over here.”
“Oh, crap. What time is it? Were you working?”
“Yep. Am in the studio right now. And I’m glad you called me.” She opens her mouth to apologize again, her cheeks scarlet red, but I don’t let her. “Listen, Fee, I…”
I am at a loss for words. This girl called me crying about her sister, and she trusts me. She. Trusts. Me. She was about to murder me a couple of months ago. And now she trusts me, and I don’t deserve it.
“I’ve got this, ok?” I say. “I don’t have to be back on the stage for four more days. I can be there in twelve hours.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” she sniffles.
“You didn’t. Do you think Eden would like it if I came over?”
Faith is nodding eagerly. Crying even harder.
“Good. So, I’ll get there and, if she’ll have me, I’ll make it a birthday she’ll never forget.” I pause. She looks at me, eyes bloodshot-red. “One way or another.”
She laugh-cries again. “Don’t joke about it.”
“What else am I going to do?”
She thinks for a second. I wait. I am not going anywhere, as I promised. I don’t care how many times Skye blows up my phone. I ignore him, and everyone else. Faith has my full attention.
“So you will be the one to tell her?” she asks me finally, chewing the inside of her cheek.
“Yes, I’ll tell her and then I… we will help her celebrate,” I answer with more confidence than I actually feel. But one thing at a time. I have to calm Faith down right now, this is my job. “Or we will help her cry, if that’s what she wants. Or she will spend the day with only her sisters and her dad, if that’s what she wants.”
Faith stops crying; it’s weird, like magic. I think I shocked her out of it. She did not expect me to say that last part.
“Oh,” she says. “You’d do that? Boy, had I got you wrong. ”
“Excuse me?”
Her cheeks go even redder. “S-sorry. Thank you, is what I meant to say.” Then, lower, to herself: “Manuela said I need to start thinking before I say things out loud.”
“Don’t apologize to me, Fee,” I smirk. “I personally enjoy the heck out of your honesty, but maybe Manuela is right. And you know how much I hate to say that.”
That starts her laughing.
….
Man up , I keep thinking at myself. You can do this.
And what’s more important, no one else can. You have to do this.
Ergo, you can do this.
But here is the thing: I’m not sure I can. Trying to distract myself, I spend the entire flight to Chicago writing a song for Eden. I mean, it is for her, but there is no way I am going to let her—or anyone else—hear it. Ever.
I name it Happy Birthday and record a melody for it on my guitar, which is my only companion, apart from my security team.
Sooner than I’m ready, I’m standing outside Eden’s house, feeling even more nervous than the last time I was here, if possible. Faith lets me in, her eyes hooded with worry.
“It’s ok,” I say, hugging her quickly. “Everything will be ok.”
For once, she doesn’t say anything back, and that terrifies me more than anything.
“Right, let’s get this over with.”
The minute we step inside the door, I see her. She’s just standing there, my whole world. Stop it, brain.
Eden goes a little pale upon seeing me, her eyebrows raising in worry.
“It’s not bad news,” I tell her quickly. Manuela and Faith flag me on either side, looking like the harbingers of doom. We really should have prepared a silly little song instead of this. A silly little anything. This feels too pathetic, even for us. “It’s just…” My throat goes dry.
“Out with it,” Eden says in her calm, measured way. “What is it?”
“It’s your birthday,” I croak.
“Yeah, I know.”
“What?” I just blink at her, feeling like a deflated balloon .
Realization hits her and she smiles. No, she isn’t just smiling: she is barely holding her laughter in.
“What,” I say again, defensively this time.
“Wait, did you think I didn’t know? That I didn’t know when my own birthday was? And you came here all brave, the three musketeers together, to tell me? Oh, this is so funny.”
“Is it,” I reply, unimpressed.
She starts laughing, quietly at first, but then it bursts out of her in waves.
“The real date of my birthday was the first thing I checked, you guys. Or one of the first things, I don’t remember.” She is laughing so hard she can’t breathe. I look at Faith awkwardly, and she looks sheepish. “Oh my gosh, you looked so scared, the three of you. You are so cute!”
“ Cute ?” Faith is about to explode. Good, I would hate to be the only one.
“Cute and silly,” Eden wipes tears from her eyes, but more stream down as she keeps laughing. “I need to sit down, this is way too funny.”
“I’m glad you find our efforts so ridiculous.” I clench my jaw.
“No no, I said silly,” Eden tries to say, but laughter steals her breath.
I am having a hard time finding this anything else than immeasurably tragic, so I take myself off to the bathroom to seethe in private. When I come back, all three sisters are laughing, a bit more calmly. But not too calmly.
“Still finding it cute?” I scowl. I wish I could laugh with them, but I just can’t. My mouth won’t move that way. At all. I don’t see this as remotely funny.
Eden glances at me and laughs harder.
“ You don’t?” she asks.
I sit down next to her. “Nope,” I say. “Can’t.”
“You should see your faces,” she says to me. “That’s what was so funny. You know, not the… other stuff.” She places her hand on mine. “The rest of it was very sweet. Thank you.”
I’m still not laughing, but now she isn’t either.
“You know, I have already made reservations at a restaurant for later, but now it occurs to me that…” I just completely lose my train of thought, looking into her eyes.
“Yes?”
“I think that your birthday wouldn’t be perfect without a trip to a bookstore,” I tell her. “Or three. What do you think? ”
Instead of an answer, she squeals.
…
I was kind of hoping for a hug, but I’ll take the squeal. And the smiles, and the happiness that shines out of her eyes for the rest of the day.
We have the most perfect day, driving around in her new car and going to different bookstores. Meanwhile, all I can think about is how proud I am of her for driving and for walking into shops and browsing books casually, as if she has been doing it all her life. Because she hasn’t been doing it all her life, but if I start to think about that, I will start crying.
And while Eden was putting on her shoes, Faith and I decided that there would be no crying today. Zero. We made a pact. Well, by ‘pact’ I mean that she tried to bet me against it, but I nipped that idea in the bud.
The four of us go back home to put away two small mountains of books, and then Eden and I drive to the restaurant I have made the reservation at. Except that I am not going to let her drive us there, no matter how much she enjoys doing it.
She changes into a little black dress that comes down to just above her knees, and it’s perfect in its simplicity, because it lets her own beauty shine. I don’t know how I will ever take my eyes off this girl tonight.
I open the door for her and then sit behind the wheel. I try to drive calmly and act like a gentleman, even though the whole time I am gripping the wheel tightly and thinking to myself ‘this is not a date this is not a date this is not a date’ .
Walter, Faith, Manuela, Justin, their little son, and Pooh are waiting for us at the restaurant as a surprise, and I only teeny-tiny hate their guts for being there. Ruining our not-date. But the minute Eden sees them, she bursts out laughing. She hugs them all and looks so freaking happy that I feel guilty for resenting their presence. It’s the other way round; Eden needs them right now, and I am lucky to be included.
After our five-course meal, I play a private concert for them—just me and my guitar. I booked the whole restaurant, so it’s completely empty apart from us and the flowers. Finally, Eden stands and a hush falls over all of us.
“I know this is supposed to be my birthday—it is my birthday, I’ll get used to that, I promise,” Eden says. “But I wanted to give you something. It’s not a gift, so don’t get excited. And it’s for all of you. You are my family.”
She looks at me as she says the last part, then reaches into her bag and pulls out a phone. It’s outdated, almost analog. The minute I see it, I have to cover my mouth with my hand in order not to gasp out loud.
It’s her phone, isn’t it?
Her old phone.
The one that was entered into evidence at the trial.
And Eden got it back somehow, and is now giving it to us. So that we can read her texts. All the blood leaves my head, and I lean heavily on the table.
Faith takes the phone first, but her hands are shaking so badly she nearly drops it. Manuela cups her hands around her sister’s, but she doesn’t take it from her. They both hold it together.
“I couldn’t just leave it,” Eden says. “It’s my soul, it’s…” She makes a gesture towards me. “Isaiah knows what it is.”
“It’s you,” I say through a clogged throat. “As you were back then.”
Faith and I crowd over the tiny screen, as we open the texts Eden used to send to herself on this very phone. It reads *messages deleted* all the way down.
Then, one message is still left there:
I think I’m dying.
Immediately I look away. I can’t do this. Faith closes the phone and puts it on the table with a snap. She looks like she is going to be sick.
I know what day that was. It was the day Eden sneaked out for the very first time. She hurt her knee badly climbing out the window. She was bleeding, and she thought she was going to die from it. That monster had drilled it into her head that if she ever stepped outside her prison, she would die.
In the end, all it took to keep her in was fear. No other shackles were necessary.
And even when she left his house, she took the prison with her. She carried it in her head, with his words.
The whole table has gone dead silent.
“I took care of her,” a voice says. It sounds thin, like a wail. Wait. It’s my voice. I am the one talking. “She didn’t die,” I say. “She was ok, she was taken care of. I promise you, she was ok. ”
“We know,” Faith replies, but I can’t hear her.
“She was ok, she was ok,” I keep repeating, until Walter stands up and grabs me by the back.
“Thank you, son,” he says and presses me hard against his chest for a second. “Thank you.”
His gravelly voice wakes me up.
In one move, he swipes the phone and puts it in the pocket of his jacket. He looks oddly calm, especially since he is usually the one to lose it. He helps me sit down. My jaw is clenched so hard it hurts.
“You know, all this time,” Walter says, “we thought that no one knows what went down, how it was with her, what she went through… We thought no one knew but her. But that’s a lie.”
“Because I know,” I say. “I was there.”
“You do. You were.” Suddenly, I realize the source of Walter’s calmness. It’s me. It’s the fact that I was with her back then. She was safe with me.
“She wasn’t alone. Dammit, I’m crying again.” I try to laugh, but it comes out as a sob. How pathetic. I would have lost the bet too. Wait, or won. But the girls are crying too. One of them—Manuela—grabs my hand and I let her. “She wasn’t alone.”
“She wasn’t alone then, and you aren’t alone now,” Manuela tells me. “You have us, Zay.”
…
After dinner, Eden and I drive back to the Elliot house. The car hums with electricity just at her proximity. I can’t utter a single word.
“Thank you for the first birthday of my life,” Eden says eventually.
I raise an eyebrow at her, barely taking my eyes off the road.
“Not for the best birthday of your life?” I ask her, smiling.
“You gave me two best birthdays of my life already,” she replies, “even though it hadn’t been my real birthday then, but who cares? They count as the best birthdays ever. As does this one.”
“You can’t have three best birthdays of your life,” I say.
“Watch me.”
“Are you planning to have a fourth best birthday?”
“I am planning to have a thousand,” she replies. “Well, that’s not realistic. But at least ninety of them. ”
I bite my lip to keep from cheering. This is the first time she has actively stated that she is excited for the life that is ahead of her. That she plans for it to be a long, good one. I did not doubt she was, but hearing the words come out of her mouth makes my eyes sting with unshed tears. Tears of gratitude. Joy.
I blink rapidly.
Eden sighs. “You carried my books today,” she says dreamily. “They were so heavy too. Of all the things you have done for me, that is my favorite: carrying my books.”
This is not a date this is not a date this is not a date.
“What, you don’t have anything to reply?” she teases, unaware of how hard I am clenching my jaw.
“Baby, if I start talking right now, I’m not going to talk about books. Change the subject?” I hope she can’t tell I’m begging.
Ah, I shouldn’t have said that. It will scare her. I just can’t help myself when she is in such a good, playful mood. If my hands were not full with this steering wheel, I would not be able to keep them from straying all over her body. That body I know so well, every inch of skin, every hollow, every curve—but it’s now going to be new in so many delicious ways. I have missed holding her so much that I can barely—
“I never want this night to end,” Eden interrupts me and I take a much-needed deep breath. Focus on the road. “Sing to me, Isaiah?”
“Zay,” I say. “My family calls me Zay.” I remember saying this to Faith and Manuela a few months ago, and they already do it, but the one person I need to call me that, doesn’t. “Zay,” I say, almost inaudibly.
Eden is quiet. Her eyes have drifted shut.
“Please call me Zay,” I whisper, my voice a rasp.
“I can’t,” she says, breaking my heart.
So I start singing to her. My voice cracks a few times, but I smooth it out as we drive into the night. Eden’s head grows heavy with sleep, and she leans against my shoulder. I sing to her more quietly, softly, the songs I wrote for her desperately, screamingly.
I sing her to sleep, and when we reach her home, I don’t stop singing, even though by now she can only hear the echo of my songs in her dreams. Her head is on my shoulder, her hair trailing down my arm. I can smell her shampoo. I can feel her warmth. I lean down to rest my nose on her head. I inhale, my eyes drifting shut.
Then suddenly I am taking out my phone, my fingers burning, shaking, barely able to dial Faith’s number .
“Zay?” she asks when I don’t say anything.
I wipe my eyes furiously, and try to get my voice under control. I don’t know when it started, but I’m crying quietly, barely able to speak.
“I’m parked outside the house. If you…” I can’t form words, my lips are shaking so badly. “If you don’t get here right now to take Eden inside,” I say quietly enough so that I don’t wake her, but fiercely enough that spit comes out, “I am going to carry her myself into your dad’s house. And I swear, I am never leaving it again.”
Shocked silence meets my ear, but only for a split second.
“I’m on it,” Faith says.
She seems to realize how close I am to my breaking point, because she hangs up on me, and a minute later, she and Justin are tapping on my window. I unlock Eden’s door, but I don’t even get out of the car as Justin takes her, still asleep, in his arms and carries her into the house. Faith waves goodbye to me from outside the car’s window, and I wave back, but I don’t get out to hug her.
I hope she understands.
If I step foot out of this car, I am not leaving Chicago ever again. I am not leaving this street. I am not leaving Eden’s side. But I have to leave.
I can’t stay.
I watch through the car’s foggy window as Justin climbs the stairs with her sleeping form in his arms, then closes the door behind him quietly. Light briefly spills onto the street from the downstairs window—he is climbing up to her bedroom. I wait for the light to turn off. It does. Justin comes out a few moments later, heads for his own apartment.
I just sit in the car, my guards’ cars parked behind and in front of me, and cry. I can’t move.
In my head, I am writing a song.
It’s called ‘I’m Counting This As A Date’.