Chapter 3
“I’m gonna find you!”
Footsteps thud on the linoleum floor while cupboard doors slam open and shut, every rattle of fake wood shaking the pantry Eden’s crouched in.
There’s nothing that can save him now. He’s going to get found any second. He’s—
“Gotcha!” Ella screeches, yanking the pantry door open. The jingle of her hair beads echoes in the otherwise quiet kitchen as she drops to her knees. “How did you fit in there?”
“You’d be surprised where I can fit, Ella Bella.”
Ella giggles, scooting backwards and spreading her small legs wide as she lowers her stuffed pig onto the peeling floor in front of her, watching as Eden slowly extracts himself from the pantry.
The only reason he was able to fit inside is because he’s running low on the cases of cup-o-soup he usually stores there.
“You found him,” Addy announces, walking into the kitchen with a warm smile. “That means it’s time to get ready for bed, Ella.”
“I don’t wanna go to bed,” Ella whines, crawling into Eden’s lap. “I want my Eden.”
“Your Eden has to go to work,” Addy reminds her.
Eden wraps his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. “How about I read you your bedtime story before I leave?”
“Don’t you need to do your makeup?” Addy asks. “I can do her bedtime story.”
“I don’t want you, Momma. I want my Eden.”
“I see who the favorite is,” Addy laughs.
Something tightens in Eden’s chest, making him want to hide back in that pantry. He’s lived with Addy since Ella was born, yet not a day goes by where he doesn’t remember what it was like before.
Before he knew some people didn’t leave. Before he was ever anyone’s favorite. Before he had anyone to love. Before anyone loved him.
“Come on, Ella. Let’s brush your teeth and put on your bonnet, and then Eden can read you a book. If he has time.”
“I have time,” Eden lies, knowing he needs at least thirty minutes to do his makeup the way he likes but also willing to forgo it for a few extra minutes with Ella.
She might not be his by blood, but she’s his family—her and Addy both—and he would sacrifice anything for them.
Including his much needed pre-work makeup routine.
“Promise to read to me?” Ella asks, tipping her head back on Eden’s chest.
Her big brown eyes are so wide, so trusting, that Eden would promise her the entire goddamn world if he had it. As it is, the most he can do is take on extra shifts to help Addy cover the bills, including Ella’s private preschool, and story time.
“I promise.”
She nods, her tiny face screwed up in an expression far too serious for a four-year-old. “I get to pick the book.”
“Sure thing, jelly bean.”
“I’m not a jelly bean,” she huffs, her indignance turning to laughter when Addy scoops her up off the floor.
“Let’s give Eden some time to get ready for work tonight while we do your bedtime routine, then you can have your Eden.”
“But it’s too early,” Ella whines.
“You go to bed at seven, love,” Addy says.
Despite knowing what a good mom she is, sometimes it catches Eden off guard when Ella is whining or being, well, a normal little kid, and doesn’t get in trouble for it the way he would have.
Sure, Eden had been a difficult kid, but it wasn’t until he watched Addy be a mom that he learned it was still the responsibility of the adults in his life to love him regardless.
“We don’t want you to miss out on Eden reading to you, do we? ”
“No, Momma. I’ll go,” she says, chattering excitedly about story time while she’s carried to the bathroom. She does more to energize Eden than the energy drink he chugs or last of his cup-o-soup he all but inhales, choking on the generous amount of hot sauce he added.
“That is not a meal,” Addy says, eying the trash from Eden’s dinner on the kitchen island where he stood and ate.
There is a perfectly good table in the dining nook, but Eden can only manage that when Ella is around, his desire to create stable memories around food the only thing that can trump his own messy history with meal times and family meals. Or lack thereof.
“Seriously, this is your third energy drink today,” Addy says, smashing the can then tossing it in the plastic shopping bag under the sink where they collect their recycling.
Once a month they walk it over the recycling center and use the money to get Ella an ice cream cone. “Those are going to kill you one day.”
“Not soon enough,” he replies with a grin.
“Some of us would like you around for a very long time, including the little girl waiting in her bed for ‘her Eden’ to read to her. I swear to shit, you might as well have hung the moon.”
“I am pretty awesome,” Eden smirks.
“If only you believed all the things you say,” Addy says, smoothing Eden’s hair back. “This is the longest I’ve ever seen it on you. It looks good.”
I thought you said we were getting a boy. Look at his hair, he looks like a girl. Make sure to cut it shorter, he looks too feminine.
Stop crying Eden, and let me brush your hair, or I’ll cut it all off.
Swallowing down a rush of nausea, Eden takes a step back. Addy’s dark eyes shutter, but her smile never falters as if she knows one ounce of sympathy might break him.
“Fair warning,” Addy starts, offering him a distraction.
“Ella has a second book hidden under her pillow. Don’t cave.
You don’t have time to read two, unless you want to be late to work, and newsflash you don’t because they’re already pissed that I had to call out last minute since the babysitter is sick. ”
Eden makes a derisive noise. He kind of hates the serving job, and he hates their supervisor. However, despite the grumbling they give, they have so far been mostly accommodating when Eden or Addy can’t make a shift because someone needs to watch Ella, so he does his best to behave.
“Are you kidding me, I never cave.”
“You caved when she begged you to play hide-and-seek with her when you were supposed to be doing laundry and getting ready for work.”
“Listen, if the choice is between Ella and laundry, only one of those is going to win, and it’s not my fucking underwear and socks.”
“You can tell her no sometimes, Eden. Ella isn’t going anywhere, and she won’t stop loving you if you have to tell her no sometimes,” Addy reminds him, kissing his forehead as she passes him. “Neither of us are.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eden lies.
His heart beats too hard and too fast.
Sometimes he feels like that same lost, hungry teenager he was the day Addy brought him home the way you might bring a stray cat home.
She’d only been a few years older than him and heavily pregnant when she found him that second time, rocking a black eye and a split lip from fighting with the guys who’d been harassing her on the bus.
Her hands were as soft as her voice when she’d taken Eden to the twenty-four hour diner on the corner.
She proceeded to fill his belly with warm food and shared the kind of conversation that people didn’t spare for an angry, feral kid living on the streets.
He knew how he looked, half-starved and dirty, the kind of person you didn’t want to be near.
It meant people left him alone, which was how he wanted it.
He was easy to overlook lying on the sidewalks and hiding in the corners, easy to ignore.
With a single word and a gentle touch, Addy had taken his hand and walked him home to sleep on her couch.
He can still remember the way he ranted at her that she was putting herself in danger bringing a stranger like him home.
She’d pointed out his worrying about her safety was all she needed to know about his character, and Eden, too worn down to argue, had gone home with her.
He never intended to stay more than one night, but one night turned to three to four, and Eden never left.
Two months after first going home with Addy, Ella was born, and though it was a tight fit to have a new baby and stray teenager in her home, Addy never kicked him out.
Eventually, after months of reliable meals and having a physical mailing address, Eden was finally able to get a job and save up enough that when Ella was six months old they were able to get a two bedroom apartment.
The same one they live in now. If only his brain didn’t perceive things like love and kindness as some kind of bomb waiting to explode.
Sometimes he still feels like that terrified runaway Addy brought home.
Addy isn’t going to leave you. She loves you. Ella loves you. You’re safe.
Sometimes the words don’t feel real, but he repeats them anyway.
He read online that was a thing people do in therapy or some shit.
Not that Eden has ever had therapy willingly.
They forced it on him in foster care, or tried, but he never complied.
You couldn’t pay him to sit and tell a stranger all the fucking things that are wrong with him.
He settles for some self-help tips he read online and white-knuckling it through life.
He’s made it this far, so he must be doing fucking fine.
Besides, he trusts Addy. He trusts her more than he’s ever trusted another living soul. She promised it was her and Eden and Ella forever, and Eden trusts her even when it sometimes feels like walking into oncoming traffic would be easier than how vulnerable it makes him feel to rely on anyone.
Letting people in is a recipe for disaster and rejection, and Eden’s had enough of that to last him a lifetime.
Addy had found him at the lowest point in his life, which is the only reason he’d let her in.
At the time, he’d been so sure she’d abandon him that it felt welcome to let the cycle of rejection and abandonment continue.
Only, all these years later she’s still here, and for reasons entirely unknown to Eden, she seems to fucking love his brand of hot mess.
“Eyes on me.”