Haunt Me (Heartbreaker Duet #2)

New York

thirty-nine

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Eden’s voice sounds weird over the phone, but I don’t comment on it. I wait for her to tell me what’s bothering her.

“Excited for tonight?” I ask her.

“Yeah,” she says. Doesn’t offer anything more.

“Me too.”

I wait. This is ridiculous .

It’s the first week of January, and we are about to go on our first date. We didn’t get to have it in Chicago, not properly. It was a security nightmare, but I was too happy to care. Now, however, I am impatient.

I need to get to asap.

Currently, I am in Vienna with Mom and James. We rang in the new year here, the three of us, and we’ve been spending a few days together since. Mom’s hands are getting worse.

She is in so much pain that she has started taking rather serious medication, which knocks her out for hours at times. And she is still in pain. She has been performing in pain for years now, but finally it’s getting so bad that she might have only a few months left before she has to stop playing the cello completely.

A few months, tops.

To me, it looks like she should have stopped already, but it’s up to her, so I keep my mouth shut.

“Eden, you know I could spend all day talking to you like this, but I have this feeling that you… Is there something you want to ask me?”

“I don’t know what to wear,” Eden says and I bite my lip. She is so adorable. She is in taking a writing masterclass before Harvard starts again. I don’t think I’ve ever admired a person more.

The date can’t wait anymore. I start touring again soon, and she starts classes, so it will have to be. If I can catch my plane in exactly thirty minutes, according to my pilot.

“You always look so cool,” I tell her, and I wonder if she knows how deeply I mean it. “So beautiful. Always have. I don’t think you even own anything that’s not amazing on you.”

She laughs awkwardly. “My Tigger PJs,” she says.

“They are incredibly cute,” I say.

“They are not.”

“If you knew the battles I had to fight in my mind after seeing you in them, just to stop myself from ripping—”

“Ok, ok,” she laughs. “Let’s steer away from the Hundred Acre Wood with that kind of conversation.” I can just see her cheeks turning pink on the screen of my phone, and, in response, my breath begins to come short and heavy. I need to calm myself down. I won’t ruin this for her. For us.

“I am too embarrassed to ask anyone else,” Eden says. “Seriously, can’t you give me any clues as to where we’re going?”

“Nope. It’s a surprise.”

“Well, then, what do people wear on first dates? ”

“We,” I say firmly, “are not two people on a first date.”

…

Twelve hours later, I’m sitting at the table I have booked for us.

I stand when I see Eden enter. I watch her progress through the room, my eyes following every step, every small movement, magnetized. Then she takes off her coat and I gasp.

She’s wearing a green satin dress with straps. The sleek material hugs her body perfectly, accentuating every delicate curve. Her slight waist, the swell of her breasts. Her—best not go there. Her hair is flowing in loose curls down her back, complimenting the dress’ color, and she keeps her head high as she looks around, searching for my face. I instinctively know that she is fighting the urge to run and hide. To curl into herself; to make herself invisible. But she doesn’t. She holds her ground and stands tall.

The minute her eyes meet mine, she is transformed.

“You looked gorgeous before,” I say into her hair once she reaches me, “but you are transcendent now.”

She laughs and the whole room sparkles. “And you said you weren’t a poet.”

“Not a poet.” I can’t get enough air in my lungs. “Just honest.” My hand drops to her wrist and I lift our joined arms to twirl her around gently. To admire her. “Seeing you in heels for the first time,” I whisper, “in public… Are you trying to kill me?”

She laughs even more. I don’t think I have ever seen her smile or laugh for so long. This is going to be one hell of a night.

We sit down and I raise my glass to her.

“Here is to getting out of this date alive,” I say, and swallow the contents in one gulp.

Eden is staring at me, glass midair. At first, she looks confused, but then that brilliant smile comes back on her face.

“Scared?” she asks.

I chuckle, and for once, I am the one who feels awkward.

I’ve never seen her like this, so free and playful. So powerful in her own beauty. So herself . I am left speechless at woman she is becoming. She has this air about her, as the French would say. Being in town on her own, independent, investing in her writing… She is more confident than I have never seen her. is working all sorts of magic on her.

As if I could fall any more in love with her.

“Terrified,” I reply .

We eat and talk, and we lose track of the time. On the way home, I pull her onto my lap, and my lips just find their way to her neck on their own.

I trail kisses all the way up her cheek, savoring her taste, her smell, the sound of her sighs. Her tongue meets mine, and I can taste the sweetness of her mouth mingled with the saltiness of her skin. I don’t even stop kissing her to breathe; she matches me sigh for sigh, moan for moan, and I just want to climb out of my skin.

“You’re making me crazy, baby,” I gasp.

My hands dance all over her skin, exploring every curve and dip, leaving goosebumps in their wave. Her fingers tangle in my hair as she pushes herself up to me, our bodies intertwined, her skin soft and warm against mine.

“It hurts, Isaiah,” she murmurs into my lips, and I almost fall apart into her hands right there and then. I shudder from head to toe, fighting for control. “It hurts so much.”

“What does, baby?” I moan, feeling like I’m losing my mind. Our mouths open and close in desperate kisses, hungry for more. More. More. “Tell me what hurts. Let me make it feel good for you.”

“It’s already good,” she sighs, her voice fading as she melts under my touch.

I, on the other hand, am burning. My skin is scorching hot, my brain on fire. My body is wired so tightly I feel like I’m going to burst with need.

My arms grab her waist tightly, bringing her body up to me, so I can taste her better. I pull off her coat, and my fingers find the neckline of that delicious dress. The small, contained space inside the limo feels too tight, too small to contain our frantic sighs, our breaths coming short and desperate.

“If you think it’s good now, just wait,” I pant. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

She nods against me, and for a second, I almost freeze, my hand at her zipper.

She trusts me.

Our bodies are pressed so close together I don’t know where I end and she begins. Every touch sends electrifying sensations through both of us. I can’t get enough of her soft skin, and her hands are eagerly roaming over my body. I have hoped, waited and wished for this moment for literal years.

I have hoped against hope that she would want me, and that we would be in a place where she could trust me again. And now, here it is .

She can feel my hand hotly slipping beneath the dress to cup her knee, and she lets me. She trembles sunder my touch, pleasure sending ripples of shivers all over her slender body as I’m holding her tightly, but she doesn’t stop me.

She wants me to continue.

“Isaiah…” she whispers, her voice a breathy prayer. Just that. My name.

It completely undoes me. With a moan that comes all the way from my chest, I pull myself away from her. I am this close to ripping her dress down to its seams and devouring her. I mean it. I don’t know how I am able to stop myself from doing this, but I know the zipper just won’t do it anymore.

Not after she said my name.

Not after she trembled as she said it.

Not after I trailed my fingers up her leg and she let me.

The minute I touch her dress again, I’m tearing it to a thousand pieces, and I’m exploring her bare skin. I want nothing between us, not even cloth. And then… I won’t be able to stop. Then, it will be over.

And it can’t be over. It’s our first date in . I can’t afford to lose control with her, I can’t afford to follow my urges. I can’t lose her—and I just might if I do this before she’s ready. Before I’m ready.

“Eden, I…”

I pull away slightly, just to meet her eyes for a second. They tell me all I need to know. They look unsure. Wide with pleasure, full of trust, but just a tiny bit unsure.

This is it. I just stop. I stop moving, I stop kissing her. I stop breathing.

I let things go too far. Please don’t let me have ruined this already. Please let me be able to pull myself together. I can’t. I have to. I can’t.

Am I past the point of no return? I don’t care if I am, I will pull. Myself. Back.

“I need to go, baby,” I say, turning my head to the side.

“Do you not want to—?”

I have to interrupt her this second, because her voice is starting to get scared and small again. And it hasn’t been like that for the entire evening. Definitely not while she was saying my name a moment ago.

“Oh, I want to,” I tell her, heat still sizzling in my voice. My brain has ordered me to stop, but my body hasn’t gotten the memo. “ You know how much I want to. You saw me almost fall apart several times tonight, in this car. I want you , Eden, I want you. Is there any question about that?”

She looks down. Smiles.

I pull her face up to me with a finger under her chin.

“But I can wait until you are ready,” I tell her. “Right now, you aren’t, but you will be. And when you are: I. Will. Have. Waited.”

She just looks at me, her cheeks on fire, her lips ruined by mine. The neckline of her dress pulled askew. I reach out to fix it, and I go all hot and melting again. A moan escapes me—I try to swallow it.

I need to get out of here, right now.

“Understood?” I ask her in a strangled voice.

“Yes,” she replies.

“Good.”

I step out into the biting cold wind and close the car’s door softly behind me.

You did the right thing , I tell myself. I do not trust myself around her, so this was the right thing. Let’s give it time. Let’s not destroy it.

This, right now, might feel like dying, but it was the right thing. It was the right thing, even if it killed you.

The one thing worse than leaving her right now would be to lose her.

And I can’t risk that.

…

A few days later, I fly out most of my crew out to .

It’s time to announce my new album, if I’m to release it in February, so there are a few days of intense work ahead of us: We are preparing the announcement. It will coincide with the drop of the Pierce Me single, so for the next few days, it’s meetings back to back for me. But every night, I take Eden out.

I keep asking her where she wants to go, and she is ok with everything. It’s beginning to bothers me, honestly, how she never asks for what she desires. Or, maybe she just doesn’t want anything—which is even worse. The gnawing fear that Eden, who has such a brilliant mind, and opinions on everything under the sun, can’t ask for the date she wants takes a hold of me.

I don’t believe what the specialists say, that her ‘free will’ was beaten out of her as a child. Besides, even if that has a hint of truth in it, she is working with her therapists and doctors constantly, so I have to trust that she is in good hands—as long as I don’t mess her up more. As long as I don’t hurt her.

I had this grand, romantic plan of ‘dating her back to health’, but I didn’t take into consideration just how much of an unstoppable moron I am. I seem to be completely unsuitable to her needs. Completely helpless. But she agreed to date me—the one thing she has solidly refused to do for about half a year now—so that must count for something.

“What are we doing tonight, Isaiah?” she asks me every day when I call her to say ‘good morning’.

“Can’t tell you,” I always reply and she squeals.

Honestly, I could get used to starting my day like that. I think I already have. The one thing she’s told me she loves is surprises. So our dates are different every night.

I don’t think I have put this much thought and effort behind anything else so far in my life: Not school, definitely not music lessons; not even songs, my one passion—other than her.

But I plan our dates meticulously, obsessing over every little detail for days in advance. We spend a lot of quality time together, walking around , being goofy in the park, sitting at cafes or libraries, watching the snow fall as we talk and talk for hours. I make good on my promise to cook for her. I take her to watch movies, and we don’t watch anything because we make out the whole time like a couple of teenagers. Well, we didn’t do that when we were actual teenagers, so now we have to. I take her to exclusive clubs and bars, but the noise is too much for her, so I choose quieter spots.

I quickly discover her favorite kind of night: staying in.

Which just happens to be my favorite as well.

We spend our nights just chilling in my penthouse, reading, writing, making music together in front of the crackling fireplace. The rest of the world fades away, along with the distant traffic noises of a snowy Fifth Avenue, bustling with screaming taxi drivers twenty-four floors below us.

…

Tonight, the snow hasn’t stopped falling all night. Eden snuggles by my side on the couch, nestling her head in the crook of my neck .

“Paradise,” I murmur, as her hair brushes my chin. “This is paradise.”

“A little more wintery than one would imagine,” she says, but she’s smiling.

“Maybe a poet could imagine paradise like a winter’s night,” I say.

“That was too cheesy, even for you,” she laughs.

“Well, I know one poet who isn’t cheesy,” I say, climbing to my feet. I don’t remember where I’ve abandoned my phone. “Give me a second.”

“Nooo! You’re not going to read one of mine, are you?” Eden runs after me with a cushion in her hands, her socks padding on the carpet.

“I definitely am!” I yell. I’m not looking for my phone, but for my coat.

I always carry one of her poems in my pocket, like any normal boyfriend. Meanwhile, Eden is trying to whack me over the head with her cushion, but I slide an arm around her waist and hold her my prisoner.

“Aha!” I find what I was looking for.

It’s her poem What If .

I have it printed on a piece of paper, which has been folded a million times over. It’s on my phone as well, but I prefer it on its own like that. It’s stained with tears, the paper warped and frayed. I like it like that. It reminds me of the days when everything was warped and broken. Maybe that’s the way things have to be before they get better.

“Shall I start?” I ask.

“Don’t you dare!” Eden replies.

We walk back to the couch and sit down. Eden curls her body around mine. I straighten the paper out and she doesn’t stop me. I start reading, and she listens.

What if I had grown up safe?

What if I had grown up with a real father?

Would I be careless?

Would I be kind?

My voice breaks. She shivers against me, and I pull her tighter against me to warm her. But I go on reading, until I have read the entirety of her own poem to her.

Until we have both been destroyed .

After I’ve finished reading it, we just sit there in complete silence.

“Can I have it?” I ask her. I have wanted this poem since I first read it. The hold it has on me is surreal. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. “May I put music to it? The boys are here, we can record it tomorrow, or the day after. I want to make it a single.”

Eden sits up and turns to face me. Her eyes are red from crying. I screwed up.

“Your new album is finished,” she replies.

I shrug. “I don’t care. Can I have it?”

“Yes, you can.” Eden nods, once. Then she adds: “Yes, please.”

I smile. “It’s almost as if you trust me or something.”

“I’d love it if someone gave it life,” she says. “No, not someone. You .”

Suddenly, my mind is so clear and sharp, it’s bright as day in there. Lyrics start coming to me. The music, I already had—but now, there are words there.

I kneel on the carpet by her feet.

“Can I add a verse to it?” I ask her.

She looks a bit confused, but I think it’s because of the expression on my face, not my question. The sudden intensity that’s gripped me.

“What do you want to add?” she asks.

“I want to add an ‘As If’ verse,” I reply. “I have been calling it ‘As If’ in my head. I didn’t know I had it already formed, but it seems that I have been thinking in lyrics since I met you again. It would say something like…”

I grab my guitar and sing:

I get the applause and they think

I like the applause as if

As if it could ever replace seeing your face

Somewhere in the crowd

As if the applause will ever make up

For the fact that you’re not here.

“Can you repeat it?” Eden asks after thinking about the words for a bit.

I sing it again. She looks at me, her eyes getting wet with tears.

“No, don’t…” I start, then I discover I am already crying too.

“It’s for your dad,” she says. “How fitting with my poem. ”

I swallow. I’ve never written a song about my dad. Couldn’t. Until now. She released me from my prison of silence.

“It’s my dad, and it’s for you too,” I reply, swallowing my silent tears. “I was thinking of you as well when the words came to me. Of him and you. Is that ok?”

Eden looks at me for a second, and then she is smiling and crying at the same time, and I don’t think I have ever seen anything more heartbreaking in my entire life.

“Yeah,” she says finally. “It’s good. It should… it should exist in the world.”

Every thought flies out of my head as I raise myself on my knees and fit my lips to hers. I rub my thumb over her mouth, smoothing the surface I’m going to devour in a second, and her breath catches, undoing me completely.

“Let’s pretend we’re snowed in,” she says against my lips. “Let’s not go anywhere ever again.”

I smile as I run my index finger down the delicate line of her collarbone. The familiar fire begins to burn in my veins again. I lap it up, pulling her closer.

“Do you want to order in?” I ask her.

“I don’t want to move from this spot right here.”

“Then don’t,” I agree. “I’ll cook.” I get up and immediately miss holding her.

“I’ll help you,” she says, and we head to the kitchen together.

“This is who you would become, Eden,” I point to her. I’m walking backwards, in order to keep looking into her eyes the whole time. “This, right now. Kind, and amazing, brave and gorgeous. That is what you would become. That is the answer to the ‘what if’ of your poem. In spite of everything, you would bloom. You would thrive. This is what you would become, in any scenario.”

She pauses.

“I want you to know something,” she says. She has my full attention, but I am not prepared for what she says next: “I wrote this poem before I was free. I wrote it while I was still living under his roof.”

…

The day I film the announcement video for my new album, she is there with me, sitting by the director’s chair. I keep glancing at her and I can’t stop smiling. We have to do more than five takes—but, finally, it’s done. It will be out there in the world in a few days .

And all hell will break loose, but we’ll deal that when it’s time.

“Still don’t wanna do interviews?” Skye asks me.

I shake my head. I won’t give any interviews or show my face any more than I absolutely have to. The album comes out in less than two months. We are still in talks about what exactly I will do to celebrate it with the fans, but I am too wrapped up in this new happiness to care.

…

I take Eden to the premiere of Spencer’s Regency series. He has sent us both VIP tickets, because he ‘took’—and I quote—one of our new songs for the soundtrack.

I sent him the whole album as soon as I had the demos, months ago, and I never expected him to pick Enough Love , the song Eden wrote the gut-wrenching lyrics to. I don’t think the people watching his Regency series are going to be ready for what hits them, if this song is any indication.

I am kind of scared to watch it, now that I think of that song and all it means.

Why would Spencer pick that one? What emotional horrors are about to unfold on that screen—?

“So we get to be the first people in the world to watch this? In private ?” Eden asks for the millionth time, her eyes huge with excitement. “The most highly-awaited romance series of the year?”

I just look at her. I look and look and I can’t stop looking. When I called to ask her if she wanted to go, a week ago, she went all quiet on me.

“Eden?”

“That’s… wow,” was all she said.

“Well, you are dating Issy Woo,” I said. “Do you want to go? We don’t have to.”

“Oh, we have to,” Eden replied. Then she started giggling.

“Do we need a dress?” I asked her, but before she could reply, I said: “We need a dress.”

So we went shopping together, and I insisted she try on every single thing she saw and liked. She had so much fun, she didn’t stop smiling once. Then she picked a light blue chiffon slip dress that makes her look like a goddess.

Absolutely breathtaking.

I can’t take my eyes off her, and neither can anyone else.

I did not think this through .

As we walk into the premiere, we manage not to get photographed, but for once I am not in a panic. Ren will handle anything that comes up. I manage to stay calm, riding the high of making her so happy.

The first episode is titled Ruined . After we’ve watched it, I know why: that’s how I feel. Ruined. I am completely emotionally destroyed. Freaking Wes Spencer and his ideas. I mean, it is absolutely heartbreaking. The idea that Eden has been reading these books for years now fills me with dread.

“Now I get why it’s called Ruined ,” she sniffles next to me.

“I’m sorry, baby, I thought it would be a romance… you know, with dresses.”

There were dresses, of course. Lots of them, exquisite dresses and costumes. The period detail was amazing. But there was so much more than beauty. There was pain and grief. And the characters came to life on that screen. They were not actors, they were not people from a show: they were so real, I feel as if I know them to my core.

“It was a romance,” Eden says. “And so much more. I knew it would be dark, I have read the book, remember? And this was almost as good as the book.” High praise indeed. “There is just something magnetic about historical films, isn’t there?”

“Like how?” I suddenly need to focus all my attention on pretending not to be extremely jealous of my best friend who is in a happy relationship. It’s not his fault he stars in the most beautiful and heartbreaking thing I have ever seen on a screen. While looking like a Greek god.

“I don’t know,” Eden sighs. “The shirtsleeves. The way they speak properly, and enunciate. The chivalry, the…”

“Ok, stop!” It bursts out of me.

She starts laughing. “What, are you jealous or something?”

“I am insanely jealous.” Oh, great, I said that out loud. “And not just of Spencer, who is empirically considered gorgeous. Of every single person who looks at you. I’m obsessed with you.”

“Oh.”

We are both quiet for a bit. I think both of us lost a little bit of respect for me.

“Did I freak you out?” I murmur eventually.

“No,” Eden says, “it’s nice.”

Nice ?

…

“Want to walk with me, Eden?”

“Yeah.”

“You free now?”

“ Now now? I just need ten minutes to get dressed.”

“Great. I’m sending a car.”

Eden and I meet up every single day, but this is the first time since we’ve been in that we see each other during the day. The sky is clear, no snow in sight. We almost forgot what the sun looked like. The cold is piercing, but I love the sunshine on my skin, even though it provides little warmth.

We walk by the water, its smooth surface sparkling in the sunlight. Eden looks adorable in her ear muffs and her burgundy coat. She’s leaving for Boston in three days.

“You’ve given me so much time, Isaiah,” she tells me, “all of your time, really. And you’ve been working so hard, not to mention preparing for the tour.”

I shake my head. “I have so much to make up for.”

“You do not!” She stops in her tracks, looking shocked, and I take her hand in mine. We are both wearing gloves, and that just won’t do. I take off mine, then hers, and thread our fingers together.

She stands on tiptoe to kiss me. I kiss her back until she droops against my body, and I pick her up in my arms and twirl her around.

“Want to grab a bite to eat?” I ask afterwards.

That kiss was so hot, we are no longer in danger of freezing.

“Always,” she replies, and I laugh.

I take her to a French restaurant in Midtown, and we sit down, our cheeks turning red from the sudden blasting of heat.

On the car ride home, we are quiet. Content. Our time in is ending tomorrow, and I am very happy with how we spent it. We made so much progress; I didn’t ruin it too much—at least I don’t think I did. Eden seems calmer than I have ever seen her, genuinely happy, comfortable with me.

But it would be a mistake to forget what is bubbling underneath the surface of our easy, fun-filled days here. When we go back to our real lives, the unresolved issues will raise their ugly heads. We should be ready for them when they do.

These days have been a dream, but being with Eden, fighting for her, will not always be easy. So a few hours later, when night falls and we’re safely tucked in front of the fire in my penthouse, I gently ask her if she wants to talk about the past.

She nods. “We haven’t done any of that, have we?”

“We don’t have to,” I tell her, even though that’s not strictly true. Eventually, we will have to, or the past will poison any chance we have at future. But it doesn’t have to be now.

“Tomorrow,” she says. “I’ll be ready for it tomorrow.”

I wince. “I’ll never be ready for it, baby. But tomorrow it is.”

Somehow, I’m relieved that we are going to be doing this before we leave . Our time here did not feel complete without confronting the ugliness of the past.

It felt like hiding from reality.

But now, it feels like these quiet, happy days we had were preparing us for battle. A battle I am determined to win. We’ll see how I do tomorrow.

…

We go over everything.

It’s painful, but I am here. Holding her. We take a break to eat, then we continue talking. Well, she talks and I listen.

She tells me what was going on behind the scenes of our every meeting. She tells me about summer break, how she fought for every single text she sent me.

How she kept herself safe, and us. How she kept our secret as long as she could.

Then, we come to the hard part.

“He found your number in my phone.” Eden’s voice drops to a whisper, as if she is still hiding from him. I tighten my arm around her waist. “I had deleted every single conversation we had had, but just discovering your number was all it took, in the end. He exploded on me, he raged, but I wouldn’t give you up. So when screaming and threatening me didn’t work, he started employing his other tactics.”

I shudder all over, feeling sick. By now, she has explained to me what his ‘tactics’ were: Pure emotional abuse and manipulation of the highest order. He even faked his own death once, to guilt her into something he wanted. She had been six years old back then, and terrified out of her mind.

Who does that to a little kid?

I have to suppress my murderous rage over and over again .

“He cried,” she says, and gets that faraway look in her eyes. She is back there, re-living it.

A curse flies out of my lips. I am shutting this down. Now. I open my mouth to stop her, but her eyes snap out of the memory, searching mine.

“I’m ok,” she tells me. “I want to go on.”

“Go on then,” I tell her. Don’t go on. I can’t stand it.

I have bitten my lips to shreds.

“I had never seen him cry; it was more shocking than him threatening to die, which he had done a few times in the past. It was more shocking than threatening me that I would die if I committed the sin of lying. He had done that a lot. All my life. But it no longer worked, even though I believed it and was terrified of it. But I still kept you, even though I was scared. Even though I went to bed every single night thinking that I wouldn’t wake up in the morning—that I’d get struck down in my sleep.”

I breathe slowly, through my nose. Trying to keep it together.

“But that day he cried, and said that it had all been for nothing. That he hadn’t protected me after all. That he had let me slip into the hands of the devil—that was you, by the way. I broke down. Seeing him like this… I cried too, and begged him to forgive me. He destroyed all my flimsy defenses within seconds. The guilt… Gosh, I thought I would drown in it. I couldn’t see a single source of light in the middle of that darkness.”

Her voice trails off, and I bring my face down to hers and kiss her until she comes back to me.

“I want to continue,” she says, “I’m fine.”

She’s not fine, but I nod.

“He knew I was repentant, but he wasn’t sure I would give you up,” she says. “He needed to make sure. So, he threatened you , this time. It wasn’t death or eternal damnation for you. None of the usual threats he used on me would do. Yours was practical, real. He said he would have you expelled from your school, and accuse you of attacking me. He had the board of the school in the palm of his hand. He donated huge amounts of money to that school—I knew in an instant that he would do it.”

“He did,” I agree and her eyes fly to my face.

“He did it anyway,” she says slowly, “but back then he promised me he wouldn’t. If I said exactly what he wanted me to say to you. He taught me the words one by one, he schooled me. I memorized every word.”

“And you came into the woods and broke me. ”

“I nearly told you the truth when I saw you like that, your face bloodless, your eyes empty. Shattered, Isaiah, you looked shattered. If hell exists, it was seeing you like that.” She shudders. “But the fear of you going to prison was greater: I didn’t know how the world worked at all, and Solomon’s brainwashing won.”

I pull her tightly into me. “He never won,” I swear. “Never. Not that day, not ever.” I need her to agree with me, but she doesn’t. I guess we will have to prove it together, then: that he did not win. “You left me then,” I say, my voice thick with the memory of that despair. “I fought for you with everything I had, but it wasn’t enough. I… I lost you. I thought my life was over.”

“Oh, there was still a lot to come,” she says, smiling sadly. Her eyes are red. “Everything was just starting.” Tears are silently dripping down her cheeks as she looks at me. “I am so sorry you got expelled. I thought I had stopped it—I was so na?ve. You got accused and you had to go through all that… I didn’t imagine he would still do it, even though I obeyed him.”

I shiver so violently at the word ‘obeyed’, that she looks scared for a second.

“The school dropped the accusations, and I didn’t care enough to find out why,” I tell her. “That’s why my name never popped up in your trial. But the damage had been done.”

I now know why they dropped them: Solomon was dead, and they had no witness, no proof of anything he’d said. He also proved to be a criminal himself soon after they’d expelled me, so that might have made them think they’d made a slight mistake in treating me this way.

I never got an apology, of course. They just buried me with all of Solomon’s sordid secrets and crimes. And that’s not even his fault. He was gone. It’s all down to cowardly, rich people who don’t care if a single life is destroyed, as long as their school stays above water.

They didn’t care about all the other lives that were destroyed along with mine, like a domino effect.

“I am sorry,” Eden sniffles.

“Don’t you dare apologize right now, Eden. I will lose it.”

“Right,” she says, gathering her legs against her chest. She is making herself smaller again. Instinctively going back to that girl in the woods. I hate this . “This next part is going to be hard, Isaiah. I need you to stay calm—well, as calm as you can stay.”

“I read about it on the news,” I say, a muscle ticking in my jaw. “I am not completely unprepared. ”

Eden sighs. “You are,” she tells me gently. “I will give you the facts calmly, because I have gone over it in my head and with my doctors so many times it’s stripped of emotion—mostly,” she laughs, a wet, ugly sound, “but it is going to sound a bit brutal to you.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“After Solomon got back home from your school board, where he had made his accusations against you and demanded you get expelled, he locked me up in my room for a full day. I had already hidden my phone, so he couldn’t find it, but that meant that I didn’t have access to it either, while I was in my room. The day before, he had installed a camera outside my window, so that I could no longer sneak out. As soon as he got the call from the school that they were going forth with your expulsion, he let me out of my room. We had a meal together, a rarity, and he looked calm, even though he spoke little. I started to apologize again, hoping we could soon go back to normal, well, ‘normal’ for us, back to ignoring me really. Then he suddenly stood and took me in his arms.”

I inhale sharply.

“I remember it as if it was yesterday. We were in the kitchen. I remember the color of the carpet before it was drenched with blood.” Her gaze zones out for a second, but she snaps herself out of it. “He hugged me for the longest time, tightly, which was strange, because he wasn’t affectionate with me, not like that. He barely even touched me, really. The doctors said I was ‘touch-deprived’ or something. Well, not for the last two years, because I had you. But that day, he hugged me as if he was saying goodbye. Then, he grabbed his gun from the spoon drawer.”

I get dizzy.

“I remember just standing there, in shock. I had never seen a gun before, and that one wasn’t small either. I remember wondering what it was going among the spoons, why he had put it there, why… Then he put it to my temple.”

I flinch. If the news stories mentioned that, I must have blocked it out; or maybe it was too horrific for them to write. At any rate, this is the first time I’m hearing of it. I sputter.

“He said, this is the only way I can ever keep you safe, Pet, and his voice had dropped to a whisper. I heard the click of the safety going off, and it was so loud, because the gun was right there, next to my ear. I wanted to ask him what he was doing, but I was too frozen to speak. He said, I told you you’d die if you disobey me, and now it’s time to make my promise good. He said, I wanted to keep you clean from the world, to keep you pure and safe, the one good thing in this sinful planet, and you have gone and soiled your soul with a boy , of all things. He said, you have broken my heart and the heart of God. He said that was what he had to do, or I would sin again and again and again, and he had done everything in his power to stop me, but I insisted on disobeying. He said he would have to die too, but he would ‘take care’ of me first.”

She pauses to take a sip of water.

I can’t breathe.

“Then he pulled the trigger,” she says. “Except, at the last minute, I remember his eyes going huge with some kind of sudden, sharp realization. Something that took place inside his mind within a split second. At the last minute, he turned the gun towards his own face. It was over within the span of a breath. One minute he was standing there, in front of me, gun pointed at my temple, and the next, he was on the ground, the carpet going red with his blood. The house was completely silent. And I was completely alone, with a corpse in the kitchen.”

I run to the bathroom and throw up violently.

I almost lost her , I keep thinking. Whenever I look at her from now all, all I can think about will be: ‘I almost lost you’ .

We stop talking about it for a while, watch one more episode of Wes’ wet-shirt series and go to sleep tangled up in each other.

“Are you still jealous of Wes?” Eden asks me sleepily, her head on my chest.

How can she talk about Spencer right now? I didn’t see one single thing on that screen; all I can see in my head is Eden, with that monster holding a gun to her head, while I was a mile away, drowning in my own tragedy. I should have run to her house, I should have saved her.

“Insanely,” I reply to her.

“You look good too,” Eden murmurs and falls asleep.

I don’t.

The next morning, we go for a walk by the river again, and she keeps going on with the story. She tells me how she called 911. She doesn’t remember how much time had passed. She remembers hearing screaming, and not realizing it was her. She remembers little after that, except for vague images of hospitals and people in uniform.

Her next clear memory is of Walter arriving at the hospital. Officers telling her that this strange man was related to her—they didn’t dare tell her he was her real father yet. She was too fragile mentally. She was still frozen, un-responding.

“When I was better, we spent some months here, in , just me and Dad. I kept writing emails to my sisters I could never send. I’d never even known what an email was, can you imagine that?” I shut my eyes so tightly I see stars. “I kept trying to think of Solomon as not my father. This city screams of pain to me, pain and love. It’s amazing how well they go together.”

“I th-think we should stop here,” I choke.

“I think we are strong enough to go on,” she says.

“You are,” I reply. “I’m not.”

“Of course you are,” she says, with a confidence I don’t feel.

But she stops the story. I am torn between wanting to go back in time and murder that monster before he could ever lay eyes on her, or murder myself before I could be such an oblivious idiot.

“I don’t think you are thinking anything useful right now,” Eden is watching me with that knowing look on her face.

“I disagree.” Then again, she might be right. “How are you feeling?” I ask her. “I can’t fathom any universe where you would be ok after having to tell me all this.”

“Surprisingly, I am ok,” Eden replies. “I feel like a weight has been lifted.” She looks at me. “By you, I mean. Not generally, because I ‘shared my story’ or whatever crap they say on the news. The weight is now going to be carried by you as well. That’s what makes it more bearable. I think I can breathe more easily. But can you bear the weight?”

“I can,” I reply. “I do not say this lightly. Pun not intended. I can.”

“You look a bit green,” she observes.

I wince. It will pass. But her past won’t.

“And you look a bit sad,” I reply. “I haven’t seen you look sad in . Actually, come to think of it, I haven’t seen you look sad since your birthday.”

“Someone has been doing a good job of keeping me happy,” she replies and I just want to die.

She’s wrong; I don’t know what I’m doing, really. She is the one making strides towards recovery and life. I am just stumbling along, trying to keep myself out of bathrooms.

“Please,” I say, “all the credit goes to you. This damsel in distress saved herself. And me,” I add after a small pause, and she squeezes my hand.

“Talk to me about her,” she says .

“What her, baby?”

“That girl.”

I stop short in the middle of the street.

“Eden,” she says. “Talk to me about Eden. That Eden. I need to see me, back then, through your eyes. I need to get to know who I was then, while all this was going on. I need to know about her, keep the memory for the days when I don’t know who I am.”

I take a step closer to her, the world falling away from us.

“Ok,” I say, bracing myself. This is it. You’re up . Don’t screw this up. “Ok. I am going to ask you to do something as I’m talking. Can you do that for me, Eden?”

She nods, already smiling.

She is smiling . After what she just shared with me. This girl, I swear. She looks like an angel, but she is made of steel inside.

“Count them,” I say, bringing her to me, and closing my eyes over the top of her head. “Count with me, all right? One: she is the girl who saved my life. Two: she is the girl whose family missed her. She is the girl who rescued herself. She is the girl who taught herself how to love—even to love the unlovable, and that love will never die. She is the girl who just told me the most horrific story that has rocked the planet, but she said it calmly, with dry eyes, because she is stronger than her story.”

She is counting on her fingers.

I bring them to my lips and wet them with my tears.

“She is the girl who has a phone filled with texts she created alone, by herself. But that phone also has texts from a sad boy who adored the ground she walked on. It also has texts from her sisters who are admittedly a little scary, but they worship her. Texts from a queen, I imagine. Friends. Theo Vanderau, possibly, although he never texts anyone. But he’d text this girl. He’d do anything for her.”

She laughs brokenly.

“She is the girl who has songs written about her screamed by entire stadiums. She is the girl whose dad calls her ‘Paradise’.” I take her by the shoulders and put a breath of distance between us, just so I can look her in the eye while I tell her the last part: “She is the girl the biggest pop star on the planet loves.”

Her face breaks into a huge smile. She’s stopped counting, I think.

She was too busy listening to every word. Drinking it in. Wait, did I just call myself ‘the biggest pop star on the planet’? Biggest moron on the planet would be more accurate .

“Even though no one but her knows he’s an actual idiot,” I murmur.

“I love you too,” Eden says quickly, before I descend further into self-hatred, and I let my head fall back in utter surrender. ‘Is this real?’ I remember her asking. Now it’s me who’s asking it. Is this real? “I don’t know if I’ve said it before, and I’m sorry it took me so long to say it. You’ve said it so many times to me…”

I’m blinking back tears. They have frozen on my lashes, and my eyes sting.

“I love you,” Eden says. “I love you, Isaiah.”

I close my eyes, letting the words wash over me.

And then, as if she hasn’t shattered me completely, she adds:

“Zay.”