Haunt Me (Heartbreaker Duet #2)

thirty-eight

Spencer has everyone working on his freaking Christmas play. Meanwhile, most of us are trying to keep ourselves awake long enough to go through a round of rehearsals. Once he’s done writing it.

To no one’s surprise, the first rehearsal is a royal fail. Personally, I couldn’t care less, but Eden seems so invested in the idea that I want it to be perfect for her. After we dissolve into chaos for the fifteenth time, I look at her anxiously, bracing myself for the disappointment on her face. Instead, she is laughing so hard she can’t catch her breath.

I was wrong, I guess. Then suddenly, she gasps:

“Oh, my gosh, I know what this is! It’s a scene straight out of Mansfield Park !”

Spencer yells “yes!” and raises his arm in the air, palm up. Eden high fives him over our heads. And then they just stare at each other for a second, sort of frozen in laughter, and Ari groans:

“Can anyone else see the cogs turning inside his head? He’s planning a new Austen adaptation, isn’t he?”

Faith laughs. “And he’ll get Eden to write it, I bet.”

Eden ducks her head, going all red, and Spencer laughs and says: “Well, now that you have all figured it out, I’m not going to do it, am I, Eden? We’ll write something completely different.”

“ We ?” Eden says weakly, looking as if she is about to faint.

“ Emma ?” Walter guesses, and Spencer places a hand dramatically on his chest.

“You wound me, sir,” he says, feigning disgust. “Of all the good Austen books, Emma ?”

“ Emma is a good Austen book!” Walter exclaims, looking ready for battle. He takes a menacing step closer to Spencer. “I’ll fight anyone who disagrees. It’ll have to be pistols at dawn for you and me, young man. ”

Wes meets him in the middle of the room and they proceed to have a sword fight with spoons. It’s kind of better than the one Spencer had with Ari on the beach, if I’m honest. Less choreography, more falling on their asses. Makes for a better spectacle, that’s for sure.

Everyone laughs so hard they slide off the couch, sprawling on the carpet. Noah, not understanding what’s happening any better than a potato would, laughs so hard he freaks himself out and ends up crying. For some reason, everyone finds this even more hilarious.

Unnoticed, I quietly slip away to the bathroom. I close the door behind me, but I can still hear the laughter echoing from the living room. I brace my hands on the sink and meet my own gaze in the mirror. I look like I’m about to cry. This is my thing now, apparently: escaping to bathrooms.

“I need a pill,” I say to myself in a whisper.

‘You don’t need a pill , ’ my therapist’s voice replies in my head—the words he’s said to me so many times before in person. ‘Dig deeper. When you want a pill, you want to change the way you are currently feeling. Why? What do you really need?’

“I need this,” I say to the mirror-Isaiah, as his lips move with mine. “I need Eden in my life. I need the sunshine she brings with her wherever she goes. I need to be happy enough to be able to laugh with my friends. I need to do more than survive—I need to live.”

Absolute silence follows my words. Then another burst of laughter from the living room. The turkey’s smell is overpowering—it’s nearly done. Great. Now that I’ve discovered what I need, I can get out of here. Except that I don’t have the faintest idea how to actually get when I need.

Is it too late to have faith?

An hour later, we’re finally eating. And not that anyone is paying any attention—well, except for me—but Spencer leans over the heads of everyone that’s seated between him and Eden, and asks her:

“You are a writer, right? A writer as well as a poet? I didn’t get that wrong?”

“Erm what?” Eden says, swallowing a bite.

“Right,” Wes says, glancing over at me. “We’ll talk about it later. Some privacy, you know?” He winks at her and stuffs his idiot face with roasted potatoes .

They get their precious ‘privacy’ three hours later, when everyone is stuffed to the gills with ham, potatoes, turkey cookies and Lou’s admittedly gorgeous cupcakes. The house is filled with people half-snoring on random surfaces while Christmas music plays quietly from an old speaker downstairs.

Spencer, damn him, is wide awake, and he and Eden are talking in low voices in the kitchen. He’s washing dishes, and he’s forbidden her to touch anything.

I try to ‘help’ him clean up, but he ushers me out the door.

Then he closes it. I kneel down and press my ear to the keyhole, like a mature person. Manuela has gone home to put Noah down for his nap, so no one is here to stop me from acting my age. Which, apparently, is four years old.

“Right,” Wes says to Eden. I hear the tap turn on, then the clinking of dishes as he washes them. “What should we write and produce, d’ you think?”

“When?” Eden asks.

“Let’s talk about tomorrow for starters. The Christmas play for the community center. Once that’s done, we can talk about a long-term project, if that interests you.”

Eden says nothing, which I know means she is interested. A lot.

“Do we have to write something from scratch for the center?” she asks finally.

“Not from scratch necessarily,” he replies. “We could adapt a few scenes from a book we love. We should have a production for Christmas, right? That was a joke, the rehearsals we did before, by the way. If we actually do it, we’ll do it the right way.” His ‘actually’ was super British and annoying, and I know, just by hearing it, how invested he is.

“That was not a joke, that was an epic fail,” Eden says and they both laugh a little bit. I want to strangle Spencer a little bit.

“Still,” he says, “we should have a proper play.”

I can see right through him. I know what he’s doing. Left to our own devices, Theo, Lou and I will descend into drunken oblivion. But this way, we will have fun even though we’re stuck inside. Plus, he’s making Eden talk about herself in a way I have never quite managed to do.

They talk endlessly about books and I nearly doze off, ear pressed to the keyhole.

At first, it’s on the table to adapt a scene from Pride and Prejudice , but Eden says they did a production of that last year with the community center kids. Eden played Mrs. Bennet and her dad played Mr. Bennet; they had a blast.

Wes appears to have lost the power of speech temporarily. My ears perk up.

“Oh, and it was a musical,” Eden adds. “Did I mention that?”

“You did not.”

“Yeah.”

Ok, I need to know more about this musical, asap. The only thing keeping me from bursting inside this door is my curiosity about what they’ll say next. I have never seen this side of Eden, and I absolutely adore the way Spencer is drawing her out. He’s making her feel safe, and she’s revealing so much of herself that I am completely and utterly mesmerized.

The things they are talking about are mundane, silly even. But aren’t these the things that make up our life? What is more important than the mundane?

“So, shall we do a musical?” Spencer says hopefully.

“I don’t think so.” For once, Eden sounds more assertive than freaked out.

“Ok, a play then. You will write it?”

“Do you think I should?” Eden asks, and I hold my breath.

“I think you should,” Wes replies. “You are a writer, yeah?”

“Yeah?” she repeats uncertainly, and I stifle a laugh.

“Stop listening at the door, Zay!” Wes laughs his head off. He is enjoying this way too much. Ass . “Well?” he asks Eden.

“You want me to write it?”

“I insist you do. I’m sure you’re brimming with ideas, but if not… Hmm… Maybe you could do a Dickens adaptation, something Christmas-related?”

“Oh no,” Eden says, suddenly dead serious. “It will be a romance or nothing at all.”

“Romance?” Wes says and I can just imagine the idiot lifting that stupid blond eyebrow of his.

“Yep,” Eden says.

That’s my girl, ladies and gentlemen.

“Could I interest you in something Regency?” Spencer wastes no time in saying. I knew he wouldn’t be able to help himself. He and his Regencies.

“You could.”

“So, there is this series of books, which— ”

“The ones you have been adapting?” Eden asks. I know she has been reading them non-stop, even before the news broke out that Weston Spencer was producing a series based on them.

“The very same.” He sounds impressed, as he should.

“I’m listening,” Eden says.

“You can choose whichever story you like.”

“I like the one with the aunts,” Eden says quickly, as if she had the answer ready. I close my eyes. Even I know which one she means. It’s the Anne of Green Gables retelling one. It just came out.

Of course she would pick that one. Anne Shirley is her favorite book heroine—has been since she was a teen. The girl with the red hair, which Anne hated in the book, but Eden loved. There is even a scene in the book where Anne tries to dye her hair a different color. When I think of Eden reading that scene over and over, and looking at her own, dyed hair, which was red underneath the black dye, but she wasn’t allowed to enjoy it… I feel sick.

I didn’t know why she loved that freaking book so darn much back then.

I do now.

The orphan girl. The red hair. It was all there.

“Oh… I loved that one,” Wes replies, oblivious. Eden doesn’t sound emotional or as if she is struggling either. Good. At least I am the only one who is dying in the hallway. They mention the title, and Eden says, in her low, serious voice:

“I want Justin and Theo to play the aunts.” I imagine her leaning in.

“You know, you might be a miracle worker here,” Spencer replies. There is no sign of humor in his voice. He’s being serious . “We might actually get a smile out of Teddy. That is, if he is sober enough to understand what’s happening, of course.”

At that, they both get sad for a second, but then they start giggling again.

“I’ll write it,” Eden says. “Two scenes?”

“Two or three.”

“Anything to see you and Isaiah wearing ruffled shirts,” Eden says, and I get hot all over. I think about how much Wes must be enjoying this, knowing I’m listening in.

Eden knows, too, doesn’t she? Asses, the both of them. Well, not Eden, obviously. She is an angel. Then Weston Spencer, Hollywood’s golden boy and international stupid-head, says:

“Wanna make them wet, too? ”

I burst into the room, breathing heavily as if I’ve run a mile. Eden is rosy-cheeked, her cheeks flushed with happiness and shyness and Spencer has that wicked smile on his face. But his eyes are soft, full of concern and tenderness. How I don’t murder him where he stands is beyond me.

“I’ll let Isaiah take over now,” the idiot laughs. “I want to keep my head on my shoulders in case I’m lucky enough to be cast in your Christmas play, Eden.” He salutes me and walks his stupid ass off the room.

But just outside the door, he turns to Eden:

“I can convince Ari to play as well, if you want. A regular part, no stunts.”

“I want!” Eden practically squeals. I can see her brain going ‘don’t fangirl don’t fangirl don’t fangirl ’. She is so cute right now it makes my chest hurt.

“Good, good,” Wes says. “There’s only one way she’ll do it, of course.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You gotta have us kiss. A lot.”

“Wes, I swear to G—” I start saying, then my air is cut off as I choke on my own spit.

Spencer lifts his hands in surrender and leaves, still laughing his ass off. Eden is turning so red she’s practically glowing. I lose all control. With a hand behind her neck, I grab her throat softly and bring her lips to mine. She is smiling so hard, she can’t close her lips enough to kiss me. I close them for her, chewing on her bottom lip until she moans and almost falls apart in my hands.

“Is this real?” she asks. “Is this really happening?”

I open my lips to answer her, but I can’t, because my mind is creating a song already. It’s called ‘Real’ .

“What?” she asks. “Do you need your guitar?”

This girl, I swear. How does she know me so well?

“Yeah,” I gasp, the need to play out the melody almost overwhelming me.

I play it for her just as it comes to me. I play it again and again. By the third time, she’s humming along.

“What do you think?” I ask at the end, my breath coming short. My heart feels too big for my chest.

“I think,” she replies slowly, “that I’m even less convinced that this is real now.”

So I kiss her again.

…

Eden spends the rest of the evening writing the play, and I stay with her, in her room, writing my song. It’s started snowing again and the rest of the gang attempt to go out into the sludge of melted snow, hopeful that the darkness will hide them. The cold, of course, is too much for them, and they file back inside the house one after the other, panting and rubbing their thickly gloved hands together, while their snow boots trail chunks of ice on the carpet.

Walter, resigned to his fate, tells them to each pick a guest room or a sofa. Everyone who wants to is welcome to spend the night here. Oh, Walter, what have you done? Everyone does want to, it turns out—and they are too exhausted to take too long settling down. Within minutes, the house is filled with the sound of soft snoring. What a bunch of grannies.

Only Eden and I are left awake, still typing away in her little room upstairs.

Eden stretches in her chair, looking at the snow falling steadily outside her childhood window that wasn’t her childhood window.

“Today was a good day, wasn’t it?” she muses.

She’s wearing one of her dad’s oversized sports sweaters again, as well as an elf hat. She’s the most gorgeous girl I have ever seen.

“It was,” I agree. “Too good, one might say.”

She laughs. “What was ‘too good’ about it?”

“Well, did you notice that out of all of us, you were the only one who wasn’t fighting tears at some point or other? You are so strong, Eden, how do you do it?

“I’m happy,” she replies simply. “I haven’t been for so long. It’s easier to be strong when you’re happy. Also, I don’t think Justin or Lou were crying.”

“Oh, they were on the inside, believe me. I caught them talking about catching a plane to Greece. Theo wanted in.”

“WHAT?” she shrieks.

“What.” I laugh.

“Teddy and Justin will not avoid playing the aunts,” she says. “I am depending on them. And Lou is supposed to star.”

“Ok, ok, fine.” I lift my hands in the air. “Let’s go check if they are still here.”

“What, like peek into their rooms?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Um, because we are not five? ”

“It’s your dad’s house, Eden. We can do whatever we like,” I remind her softly. My hand reaches out to touch her face of its own volition. That strand of hair by her cheekbone is driving me crazy. “Well, you can.”

She’s blushing and her eyes shine with unshed tears for a second.

“Hey…” I lean down, trying to peer into her face, sudden worry gripping me.

“Do you or do you not want to help me keep my record of not crying?” she asks. “Because you calling this ‘my dad’s house’ casually like that… I still haven’t gotten used to this being the reality, this being my life now. It hits me all over again and I just can’t hold it together.”

I trail a finger down her throat. The feel of her silky skin against my thumb is dizzying.

“Immediate distraction is needed,” I whisper into her forehead, completely mesmerized by the feel of her skin against mine.

“Immediate,” she whispers back.

Then my lips are on hers, hungrily.

…

We spend a quiet Christmas morning, all of us crammed in Walter Elliot’s house.

Theo doesn’t leave—and neither does anybody else. I think I see it in Eden’s eyes that she is wondering if everyone is here because they feel sorry for her, and fury rises up inside me. I hope I’m wrong. The truth is that everyone wants to stay right where we are because we’re having the best damn time of our lives, but I’m not sure Eden can see it.

While the rest of us are having breakfast, Eden sits in the silence of the living room, typing away at her laptop like a person possessed. Spencer paces in front of the Christmas tree, waiting for her to finish writing, so he can start directing us.

She kicks him out, and me as well, but I come back after two seconds.

“I’ll be good, I promise,” I whisper but she doesn’t even look up from her work.

I sit cross legged on the carpet, watching her as she writes. She’s lying on her stomach, books spread everywhere around her, some of them open, some tabbed. Theo comes in and begins playing old-timey Christmas carols on a tiny, out-of-tune piano in the corner. The way he plays them makes their familiar music sound so sad it almost rips me to pieces. Theo is talented at everything he tries his hand at—he plays the piano perfectly, despite not having too much passion for it. Someone once jokingly said to me that there was nothing Theo Vanderau couldn’t do perfectly, except keep himself alive. I punched him in the face. I think it was his brother. Back before everything happened.

We sit there quietly by the fire, Eden and I, she reading and writing, finishing Spencer’s Christmas play, me watching her.

“Have you read every single book on the planet?” I ask her in a stage whisper.

“I wish,” she replies, not looking away from the book she is underlining. I shouldn’t be interrupting her, except I can’t bring myself to leave.

Does she remember having this exact same conversation with me in the woods?

We must have probably said the same words to each other.

Eons ago.

“Seriously,” I say, “you have read all these classics… You know them so well; you can find any passage within seconds. I’ve been watching you.”

“Books were the only safe world I could escape to. They were my only home,” she replies softly. I look away, my throat working. “Until you,” she adds, and completely undoes me.

I thought it would be a quiet Christmas with all of us confined in this house. Turns out I was wrong. It’s quiet until the play, and then… it’s chaos.

The ladies, including those who play ladies, aka Justin and Theo, make Georgian dresses for themselves out of sheets and curtains, which one would think might give the production a Gone-With-The-Wind aesthetic. It does not. It’s giving straightjackets and homemade Ancient Greece for Dummies. But we soldier on.

Wes and I play some sort of tortured Regency gentlemen who want to avoid marriage, and then, out of nowhere, we get splashed with water—the ‘script’ just mentions that we get drenched, and that’s it, no further explanation—and Ari and Eden break character, clutching each other and laughing. Everyone is squinting at their printed scripts, as there was practically no time for rehearsals. At this point, the performance is half improv half asking Eden where we are supposed to stand, and half giggling. Yes, three halves. That’s how bad we are, but everyone is having a blast .

During the kissing scenes, I don’t act. I kiss. But Walter is watching, so I try to keep it PG. The audience is Faith, Manuela, Noah, Walter and Pooh. Lou is the only one of us who is taking her role very seriously and does her best to act without breaking character, even though she, too, ends up laughing uncontrollably.

Walter, on the other hand, cries pretty much through the whole thing. Even though everyone around him is laughing so hard they can’t breathe. The poor man tries to hide it, but Pooh keeps licking his face—and the dog is not the only one who can tell what’s going on.

“Dad, you’re doing it right now,” Faith hisses to him. Walter mouths ‘sorry’, and tries to put on a smile, but it’s too late.

I saw Eden looking at him earlier, as we were butchering the play she wrote; she has barely looked at anyone else. The whole time, her eyes are on her dad.

As soon as the rehearsal ends, she disappears into her room. I give her two minutes, and then I’m running up the stairs. I knock on her door. She’s crying, as I thought.

“Do you want to go somewhere with me?” I ask her.

“What?” she turns away to hide her tears from me, but I won’t allow that to happen. I kneel on the bed and tip her face to mine. I wipe her cheeks with my hands. “Why?”

“Because we’ve had enough crying for one Christmas.”

She smiles. “Sorry. I can’t seem to stop.”

“Well, grab your coat,” I reply, trying to keep my voice steady. “We’ll go to a place where you won’t have to.”

She looks out the window. “Is that place outside?” she asks. It’s back to raining again, the kind of icy rain that hurts when it falls on your skin.

“Yep.”

We drive to the pier, and the rain gets louder.

“It’s pouring,” Eden almost has to yell to be heard over the water’s clamor.

She is buried underneath layers and layers of coats and sweaters, but my blood is boiling just by sitting this close to her in the car.

It’s honestly hard to breathe, just being next to her without touching her. And I can’t touch her, not now, because I won’t be able to stop, and she is crying. I need to get out. The icy conditions might cool me down. The minute I step foot outside the car, freezing wind blasts on my face. Still, even my bones are burning. I’m in way over my head .

“It’s raining and snowing at the same time!” Eden screams. It’s getting harder and harder to hear over the intensity of the rain.

“I know,” I shout back, opening her door. “I thought you’d like it. A walk in the rain sounds perfect right now. Another Persuasion moment—no, wait. Or is it a Bronte one? Ah, I have my rain heroines all mixed.”

“You do not,” she laughs, but she’s looking at me strangely.

Of course I don’t have my rain heroines mixed.

I wrote a freaking song about them.

I know exactly which one I am referring to, but I don’t want to mention reading and rereading her old phone’s messages to herself. Instead, I want her to know that I remember reading what she’d written in the margins of her Jane Eyre copy back then: that the idea of an aimless walk in the rain is romantic to her. It’s something she’d never done.

She’s wearing rain boots and I, having been raised in Massachusetts as well, have my thick snow boots on, so we walk in the rain for a while. The road is white with snow, quickly turning gray and black; it’s deserted. We are completely alone. It’s just us and the water. I pretend we are in our woods. Eden holds a transparent umbrella against the wind. I take it from her gloved hands, and lift it high above both our heads.

“So, here’s the thing,” I say—well, shout. “I know all the movies have scenes where they fight in the rain, and don’t get me wrong, it’s fun and all, but this…” I spread my arms to the sky and open my mouth to taste the rain. Icy raindrops land on my tongue and nearly slash it in two. “This is paradise.”

“It is?” Eden asks, smiling. She’s forgotten all about crying.

“It is! Eden, this is my paradise.”

At this point, we have to scream to each other to be heard over the rain.

“This is so going in a song,” she shouts after a while.

“What?”

“ Our sore throats from shouting in the rain .” She’s beginning to laugh. Oh, I like this.

“Tell me more,” I nearly yell.

“Well, you’ll write about how we used to scream at each other,” she says, “in our heads, but in the end, we laughed until our throats hurt. In the rain.”

“Did we now?”

“We did. ”

We aren’t laughing right now. We just stand in the middle of the street, rain bouncing off our clothes, and we look at each other, grinning like idiots. It’s impossible to talk any more, but we don’t have to—we’re thinking in sync. We’re thinking in lyrics.

We keep staring at each other like idiots.

…

When we get back inside the car, I ask her to date me. It’s not easy. My mouth is dry and I have no idea what I’m saying, but I do it.

“Eden, will you… Will you consider…?”

Focus, Isaiah . You can do better than Mr. Darcy. Well, not better, but more articulate. Think Rochester and Heathcliff instead.

“You have haunted me this long. I think I’ll die unless you date me.”

Nailed it. Not.

Her eyes go huge, and I fight the urge to swear out loud.

“I am making a mess of this,” I tell her sheepishly.

“You are the poet.” She crosses her hands over her chest. Oh, she is enjoying this, isn’t she?

“No, I’m a singer.” I shake my head. “ You are the poet. But you’re right. I can do better than this.” I move step closer to her, and take her gloved hand in mine. “What I need to say to you right now is that you pierce my soul, you haunt me, you bewilder me. The carelessness which has helped me overcome pretty much everything in my life so far, cannot help me get over you.”

“You started with Persuasion and veered over to Our Mutual Friend ,” she observes. “Neat.”

“Is it?” I ask, hopefully.

“Not really. Butchered the whole thing.”

Oh.

“Well, then, the truth: I like you. A lot. Would you go out with me.” Wait, I forgot to add the question mark in my voice. Too late now.

Her face breaks into a smile, and it’s a real one this time.

“You… You are asking me out?” she says.

“Yes, I am. With all I’ve got.” I lift a hand, palm up. “Don’t answer me just yet, please. I can wait. I have waited for years. I can wait. ”

I blast the heat on the way home. We don’t say a word until we’re inside again. We change into dry clothes and I make her a hot cup of tea. She curls her fingers around the steaming mug, shuddering in front of the fire. Her hair escapes her sweater’s hood in damp, curling wisps. She turns to me and says:

“Yes.”

I start shaking, and not from the cold.

“Yes?” I repeat.

“Yes.”

“You’ll date me? You’ll… you will let me date you?”

She smiles, looks down. “Let’s not make too big of a deal out of this.”

“It is the biggest deal, but yeah.” I shrug. “I don’t care either way.”

She hides her face in her hands and laughs until her forehead, the only part of her that’s visible, glows pink.

I lean in and I don’t kiss her.

Yet.

I close my eyes and breathe in this moment, this girl, this miracle. Don’t screw it up don’t screw it up don’t screw it up don’t scr—

“What are you thinking that’s making you not breathe, Isaiah?” Eden’s voice breaks through my panicked thoughts. Waking me from the daydream. She is the daydream. Did she just agree to date me? No, that can’t be right.

“I can’t control myself around you,” I murmur. “Never could.”

“But that thing where you close your eyes and don’t breathe… What is that?”

“That is me not kissing you,” I reply.

“Why?”

“Didn’t I just say? If I start, I’ll never stop. And I want to do something else first,” I reply.

“What else?”

“Date you,” I repeat, in case I dreamed up the whole thing. She looks at me blankly. Ok, so I might need to explain further. “I’m making you dinner and we’re going to watch a movie. After we get rid of the Christmas elves,” I add. “Just us two.”

Eden just keeps staring at me, her mouth forming words she doesn’t say.

“Ok?” I ask.

“Have you ever dated anyone before? ”

Ah, so that’s what she’s been thinking. I drop down to my haunches in front of her, until we’re face to face. The fire is crackling in the fireplace behind us, turning her hair into liquid gold.

“Yeah,” I reply, and something flashes in her eyes. I don’t dare hope it’s jealousy or annoyance. But it could be. It could be. “You.” She smiles, slowly. “No one else. Have you dated anyone else?”

She just laughs instead of any answer. It’s not funny to me: She could have dated anyone she wanted to during the years that separated us.

“Ok,” she replies.

“Ok,” I say.