Haunt Me (Heartbreaker Duet #2)

forty

Europe/Massachusetts

January comes to an end, and Eden is back at school, an ocean away.

I’m in Europe, busy with rehearsals and an intense gym program in preparation for my grueling tour schedule—three shows and three days off on repeat for the next five months.

The goodbye is hard, but nothing changes between Eden and me because of the distance. We still spend all our time talking to each other, I still sing her to sleep every night, and we still write together. We just keep each other company via video calls.

According to Skye, the anticipation for my new album has surpassed all expectations. People are rabid for it, and apparently the fact that I am not giving any interviews or appearing anywhere to promote it feed the curiosity even more.

My stomach drops at the thought of all these people clamoring to get a piece of me, but I try to stay grounded and focused on Eden. She is my safe place. She is my sanity. We will get through this, together.

Every time I return to my hotel, shattered after a show, Eden is waiting for me in the screen of my phone, her sweet face making up for all the exhaustion and emptiness.

“You are my rest,” I croak to her with what’s left of my voice and energy.

“You were amazing, Zay,” she says. Usually she’s crying. “You were so cool, so tireless, so… so you. I am in awe.”

“Just don’t fall too hard for me,” I rasp, “now that you’ve seen me all sexy.”

“Too late,” she laughs.

“I couldn’t wait to get back to you, Eden. I couldn’t wait.”

I pass out holding my phone next to my face, and I don’t care who sees me like that while I’m asleep.

…

The preorders for the new album are skyrocketing, which is so weird to me. Why are people buying this stuff without having heard it? What if it’s crap?

I mean, I know it isn’t. It’s the best thing I’ve ever created. Every song on that album is a piece of my soul and Eden’s intertwined. But people don’t know this—and I hope they never find out. The idea of Eden being stalked and hunted by crazy fans just fills me with a panic so great it immobilizes me.

Skye assures me time and time again that it won’t happen.

He’s taken every precaution. We have credited her under a pseudonym in the songs; it won’t happen.

My new ‘Isaiah’ site keeps crashing once or twice every single day because of the millions of people entering it every minute.

“I’m scared, Skye,” I tell him for the thousandth time.

“Nothing will happen, Zay,” he reassures me, also for the thousandth time. “I’m on it. You have the best people in the industry on your team.”

I close my eyes. Please let him be right.

Please don’t let me destroy us.

…

Eden’s nightmares come less often, but they still come. And I’m not there to chase them away. She’s all alone.

“You worry too much for me, Zay,” Eden tells me the day after the second Milan night. We are well into February now.

“There are dark circles under your eyes,” I reply, but no sound comes out.

“What?” Eden leans so close to her phone I can see nothing but a pair of pink lips—the image is clear enough to make a lesser man lose his mind.

It’s me, I’m the lesser man.

I open my mouth, but I can’t speak; I’ve completely lost my voice after the last show.

Dark circles , I type.

“Why thank you,” she replies, laughing, but there’s something off with her smile. “I have been pulling all-nighters, so that’s the look of the day.”

You are beautiful , I type. Are you ok?

“I miss you,” she says and the look on her face makes my heart ache .

Can I come over?

“What do you mean? What’s ‘come over’?”

I want to be with you. I’m on break, I can stay for a couple of days.

“You just said that as if I’m not a literal ocean away,” she laughs awkwardly, and that laugh tells me everything I need to know.

I’m already texting my assistant.

In less than fourteen hours, my plane lands in Cambridge. Boston is exactly as I left it: cold, gray, and absolutely beautiful. And speaking of absolutely beautiful, I head straight for Eden’s dorm room.

“Baby,” I croak when she opens her door, hair in a messy bun, glasses on, sweats hanging off her slim frame. I don’t think I have ever seen anything more beautiful in my life.

Still, this is a different girl than the one I said goodbye to in New York. The radiant joy is gone from her face. Eden doesn’t say anything; she looks like she’s about to cry. Sudden fear grips me and I fold her in my arms, crushing her against me. I can feel the bones poking out her back. She’s lost weight. Dammit.

“Are you ok?” I ask her, before I can help myself.

“You… you came all this way?” she asks. “This isn’t right. You shouldn’t have to do this. You shouldn’t be so worried about me that you’re flying to the States in the middle of a strenuous sold-out stadium tour.”

“Hey hey, baby, no, what are you talking about?” I bet she’s been thinking about this for hours. Probably during my entire flight. “Let me look at your face, Eden.” I search for her eyes, but she is hiding in my chest. “Nothing is more important than you. I need you in order to live.”

“You fainted on stage again,” she says against my ribcage and I sigh. “In Vienna.”

“I told you, this happens sometimes,” I tell her gently. “It’s nothing to be worried about, I have a team of doctors with me always. I’m taken care of, baby.”

“Fainting is not ok,” she says.

“It happened back stage,” I tell her. “I was dehydrated, it was no big deal. Did you read about it? Please don’t read this stuff, they are going to be saying so many inaccurate things, making everything seem huge and so much worse…” I close my eyes. The last thing she needs right now is to worry about me. “Promise me you won’t read anything else.”

“I’m not reading them,” she says. “Lou told me. We’ve been texting a lot and she was worried about you.”

Freaking Louisa. Just wait until I get my hands on you.

“Let’s get you inside,” I tell Eden. “You’re freezing.”

“I used to be the one to sneak into your dorm room,” she says, her voice wistful and a little sad. I don’t like how she sounds. I wonder if it’s good for her, being back here. “Now you’re coming to mine.”

An echo of the giddiness she used to have in New York is back in her voice, and I breathe more easily.

“Have you had anything to eat?” I ask her. “I’m starving.”

“Will you stay the night with me?” That’s all she says.

“Yeah, yeah, I will.”

I couldn’t refuse her right now if my life depended on it. And it just might.

…

A few minutes later, I’m sitting in front of an empty plate, my stomach full. Eden is still struggling to get her piece of pizza down, and I frown at her when she can’t see me.

“Are you eating, sleeping?” I ask her.

“It’s not your job to worry about this,” she replies and I flinch.

“Yes, it is.”

I want to ask more. Are we talking enough? Am I what you need? Are you doing ok? Am I what you need? What can I do to help you?

What can I do to keep you?

Wait, did I think ‘am I what you need?’ twice? Ok, that’s weird. Maybe she has a point. Maybe I have been worrying a lot, but why shouldn’t I? There is a lot to worry about. And Eden doesn’t know it, but I did faint once more. And I had a few too many panic attacks. But I don’t care—it’s nothing compared to what she is going through.

“Don’t be in pain because of me, Zay,” she says, watching me.

“I’m not in pain, baby.”

“You are suffering. And I know I’m the reason.”

Ok, we are veering into dangerous ground now. I can’t let this continue. I get up and go crouch by her side .

“I am nothing but incandescently happy,” I tell her. “And you know you are the reason for that .”

“You’re anxious about me.” It sounds like an accusation.

“Can’t a man have his small joys?” I try to joke, but she’s not laughing.

“This man can’t, not on my watch. Not for me.” She looks at me, sees me trying to laugh. “I’m serious, Isaiah.”

I know she is. My stomach drops.

“I should let you go,” she says, unblinking.

“I’m not going anywhere.” My voice breaks.

…

The next morning, she goes to her classes and afterwards I take her for a walk around Beacon Hill. We kiss on the bridge above the half-frozen river. It’s so cold that we seem to be the only two people out until suddenly, as we’re crossing the street, two dudes see me and do a double take. They rush over, staring at me.

I’m wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap, not to mention the biggest coat I own, but they somehow recognize me.

“Aren’t you Issy Woo?” one of them says, wide-eyed. The other is quickly whipping out his phone to snap photos of me and Eden.

“Omg, is this your girlfriend?”

I have instinctively put my body between the boys and Eden, hiding her behind me, but they are trying to look around me and get a good pic of her face.

I glance behind me, but I don’t even need to. My security guards have surrounded the boys within seconds, taking their phones and politely asking them to delete any footage they have of me. They get autographs in exchange, and then they beat it. I quickly get Eden back in the car. She is looks dazed.

“I’m so sorry,” I mumble, tying her seat belt, because she doesn’t seem able to move. “I’m so sorry. Are you ok? Eden, are you ok?”

She doesn’t answer me. The driver gets the car moving, and I peek at Eden’s face.

“Your lips are blue.”

“I’m fine, I’ll be—” she can’t catch her breath.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” Is she about to faint on me?

My heart beats in my throat. She fumbles in the pocket of her coat, but her hands are frozen.

“Let me do it,” I say .

“My pills, I need to take one.”

Understanding floods me. It’s the medicine for her heart.

“I got it,” I say.

I fumble with her coat, find the pill, help her swallow it. She looks calm and quiet, not moving much, even though her skin has turned completely white and bluish around the eyes and lips. My stomach rolls; I think I’m going to be sick.

“Eden?”

She doesn’t talk to me, just closes her eyes and concentrates on breathing. A lone tear drops down her cheek.

“Hey hey…” I wipe her skin with my finger. “Can I hug you?” She nods. I carefully wrap an arm around her waist and lift her onto my lap. She lays her head on my chest, and she looks so small, like wounded bird. I’m sure she can feel my heart beat like an out-of-whack drum against her ear.

It can’t be helping.

“It hurts,” she says, pressing a hand to her chest.

I can’t stand it any longer. I wrap my arm her around her hips and lift her away from me slightly, to search her face. It’s still deathly pale.

“Eden? Is this serious?”

“I just got scared,” she says, sounding out of breath. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m panicking here. Do I get you to a hospital? What do I do?”

“Well, you know, panicking always helps,” she gasps, trying to laugh. “It’s the first thing you’re supposed to do in such cases.”

I don’t find it remotely funny.

Once we’re back in her room, I help her lie down, and then there’s nothing to do except wait for the medicine to take effect. Her color returns in time, and her pulse goes back to normal. Which is more than I can say for mine.

“You look scared,” she observes half an hour later. She looks normal now, except that her eyes are dark and tired, as if she could sleep for a few days. She probably should.

“I was scared.” All the blood has left my head and I sway on my feet. “But you were so calm, you… You knew what to do.”

“I did know what to do. It happens to me often, so I’ve learned to deal with it,” she shrugs. “I’m just sad that you had to see it.”

“That I had to…” I sputter, and she lifts her eyes to me, looking upset at my sudden outburst. Not the time . You need to calm down. “Let’s get you to sleep, baby,” I say, lifting the covers, but her eyes are still on my face. “What? ”

“Nothing.”

But I know what it is. I flinched when she said ‘often’. I couldn’t help it—but I’m sure that her brain found a way to misinterpret my flinch. She’s asleep within seconds, and I have no time to explain my reaction to her before her eyes drift closed. I will try to, later, but the thought is inside her head now.

It’s going to be doubly hard to get it out of there; to convince her that I am not scared of anything she might need. I’m just scared of how much I need her .

…

“Have you been crying this whole time?” Eden says as soon as she wakes up and takes one look at my face.

“No!” I protest. She raises her eyebrows. “Just… most of it.”

“This is not good, Isaiah,” she says, and the fact that she doesn’t call me ‘Zay’ feels ominous. “It’s not good for us. You… This is not a good balance. I don’t want you to be in pain because of me.”

“No, it’s the other way. I don’t want you to be in pain because of me, my fame, my life…” I close my eyes and remember the day she almost died at my show. Back before I knew it was her. “I was supposed to be making up for what I did back then, not…”

“Wait wait wait.” She sits up so fast I’m worried she will get whiplash. “Whoa. What did you just say? ‘Making up for what you did?’ All you did was save me, again and again. Every single day.”

I swallow. It hurts.

“I didn’t see you,” I whisper. “You were drowning in front of me, and I didn’t see you.”

As I’m saying it, my stomach sinks all over again. It feels like I’m never going to get over it. Eden half rises and my arm shoots out instinctively to stop her.

“Whatever you are about to say right now,” I choke out, “don’t.”

“I am going to say it,” she says, calmly. Isn’t that always the way? Me panicking while Eden is calm in the middle of the storm. “I’ve wanted to say it for a while now. Isaiah, I’m not sure that there is anything but fear and guilt between us right now.”

“How can you say that?” I nearly shout. “How can you not count in all the love, all the—”

“I can’t count it,” Eden replies, “because it’s buried under all the survival we had to do. All the pain we had to deal with, and still do. I don’t know… I don’t know that we can ever find it again. ”

“Don’t even try to say that to me,” I burst out, desperate. “New York was real, it happened.”

“And it ended,” she says. “Now you’re on tour, and fainting backstage because you are so stressed and exhausted by all this. And I…” she hesitates for the first time.

“You what? You what, Eden?”

“I’m failing two of my classes,” she admits. Her head is down, and I can’t stand it. I tip her chin up. “I know you’re going to say that it doesn’t matter, and maybe it doesn’t,” she says. Tears roll quietly down her cheeks. “But it matters to me. It matters to me, dammit. I need to be good enough for something. I need to be good enough for something once .”

“Stop it, Eden,” I yell, standing up. I can’t take this anymore. My heart is breaking and there isn’t a damn thing I can do to stop it from happening, because my heart is outside of my body. In her chest. “Stop it.” I’m crying so hard I can barely talk. “It’s over now. That… that…” I want to say ‘monster’, but I remember our conversation from Christmas, when she told me that she still misses him sometimes and she feels like the world forbids her to. “That person who made you think you are not good enough is gone. I’d love for him to not be gone, so that I could murder him right now for making you feel like this. But he is gone. And what he said, and what he made you feel was never true.”

She is listening to me intently, tears pouring freely down her face.

“How did I make you feel, Eden? Tell me, do you remember that? Back then, how did I make you feel?”

She thinks a little. Then she says:

“Sinful.”

I close my eyes.

“Ashamed,” she adds.

“No, Eden, please, no.”

“Wrong.”

I think that is the moment the real fear sets in. The fear that we are not going to make it.