Chapter 21 Eden
“Are you sure you don’t want to come to the park with us?” Addy asks. “You haven’t been out of the apartment all week.”
“Not true,” Eden challenges. “Yesterday I walked downstairs to get the mail.”
Addy arches an eyebrow, hands on her hips. “How long were you outside?”
“Long enough to know I don’t want to be out there again with the stupid fucking sunshine and birds and happy people.”
“Eden said a bad word,” Ella yells, running back into the living room clutching her stuffed pig she’d gone to retrieve from her room.
“Eden says a lot of bad words,” Addy says with a straight face.
Since Ella is looking at her mom and not him, he flips Addy off.
“How come Eden can say them and I can’t?” Ella asks.
“Because you’re too little,” Addy answers.
“That’s no fair,” Ella pouts, turning her big brown eyes on Eden.
“I know, life is not fair kiddo.” Eden opens his arms, pleased when she throws herself on top of him on the couch where he wraps her up in a bear hug.
The beads in her hair clink together in a familiar chime as she presses her small face into Eden’s neck and hugs him with all the ferocity of a child who has yet to realize Eden isn’t the hero she seems to think he is.
Swallowing against the lump in his throat, he can only pray she will still love him when she’s old enough to understand how flawed he really is.
“How old do I gotta be to say them without getting in trouble?” Ella asks, pulling back to stare very intently at Eden.
“Why do you wanna say them?” Eden counters, hoping to detract from having to answer in case.
“Because you say them.”
Addy laughs, leaning over the couch to kiss Ella’s head. “You can’t copy everything Eden does.”
“But I like Eden.”
“I like Eden too,” Addy grins.
“I wanna be like Eden when I grow up.”
A rock settles in Eden’s stomach. He doesn’t deserve that, doesn’t deserve her.
Undeterred, Ella presses further. “But how old?”
“When you’re eighteen,” Addy answers.
Ella sighs dramatically, sprawling herself across Eden’s legs. “I’ll be almost dead.”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but me and Eden aren’t almost dead yet,” Addy tells her, moving around the couch so she can pick Ella up. “Time to go.”
“Will you come to the park with us, Eden?” Ella asks, peering at Eden over Addy’s shoulder.
“Eden’s going to stay home and rest,” Addy answers, sparing Eden having to deny Ella.
It doesn’t spare the guilt though. He’s not working, hasn't been all week since he left a note on the door quitting the day after he ran out on Charlie. With all those extra hours, he should be spending more quality time with Addy and Ella, but all he’s done is hide in his room and cry, or cocoon himself into the corner of the couch and disassociate.
Today’s the first day he’s managed to feel halfway like himself, but that’s still not enough to get him out the door and face all that sunshine and noise.
“Will you have a tea party with me later?” Ella yells once Addy’s gotten them to the door.
“Consider it a date.”
Ella cheers, her happiness bolstering Eden’s mood.
At least, until the door is locked behind them, and he’s left alone with the crippling silence from their empty apartment.
He lays back on the couch, staring at the ceiling for who knows how long, mind buzzing with thoughts he doesn’t have the energy to avoid.
At the forefront of them all is Charlie.
Charlie fucking King with his handsome face and big brown eyes. Charlie and his endless confidence and chatter. Charlie with his eyesore of a wardrobe that somehow looks good on him.
Charlie and his stupidly kind heart.
Charlie and the way he smiled at Eden, like him existing is something special.
It was him or you, his brain reminds him.
The thought should soothe, but instead, it’s like pouring lemon juice on an open wound.
Since Eden was old enough to understand his place in this stupid fucking world, he’s made sure no one could hurt him.
Being shuffled around and taken, rejected, and used, left Eden with an acute awareness of how powerless he is in life.
The moment he was old enough to reclaim that power, he did, and he made damn sure no one else could get close enough to hurt him ever again.
The only person who came close was Addy, and the awful truth is, if Eden hadn’t been so desperate and broken at the time, he probably would’ve rejected her too.
She’d found her way into the cracks in Eden’s walls at his lowest, but with her and Ella at his side he built those walls back up, and he swore—fucking swore—no one would get through them again.
Until fucking Charlie.
Thinking about him makes Eden want to cry, or punch something.
He settles for petulantly kicking at the pillows on the end of the couch, rolling himself against the back of the couch and burying his face into the cushions where he lets out a scream that leaves his throat raw, and his heart even rawer.
He did the right thing. He protected himself. It’s what he’s always done, what he’s always had to do, so why does it feel so fucking wrong?
Maybe everyone who left Eden was right about him. He’s not the kind of person someone would keep, and he proved it by walking out on the one person who he wishes might have.
Startled out of his thoughts by a knock at the door, Eden frowns. No one ever knocks on their door. Neither of them order shit online, they can’t afford it, and they don’t have friends that come over. Hell, even the landlord leaves notices in their mailbox rather than speak to them personally.
Whoever is outside knocks a second time, making Eden’s frown deepen. Their apartment is on the second floor in the far corner, so they don’t usually get solicitors either.
“Go away,” Eden screams from the couch when the person outside knocks a third time. The last thing Eden wants to deal with is a stranger.
“No thanks.”
The words are muffled by the door, but Eden knows that voice.
Rolling off the couch and onto the floor, Eden grunts in pain when he lands on a doll, the hard plastic digging into his knee. Fuck.
“Open the door, Eden.”
Tears prickle at the corner of Eden’s eyes, and it has nothing to do with the sharp pain in his knee. Charlie shouldn’t fucking be here. It took everything Eden had to walk away, he’s not sure he can do it again. He doesn’t know how to protect himself from this, from Charlie.
“Please, Eden. We need to talk.”
No, they don’t need to talk. Eden needs to run. He needs to hide. He needs to get the fuck out of here and away from the one person who has the power to break what’s left of Eden’s mangled, pieced together heart.
What Eden needs to do is get as far away from the door as possible, but that doesn’t explain why his feet are moving towards the front door. It doesn’t explain why he turns the deadbolt and opens it when every part of Eden is poised to break.
Swinging the front door open, he’s met with the sight of Charlie King in all his colorful glory.
He’s wearing a pair of pants Eden has never seen—something loose and flowy with weird geometric blocks in various colors and little black dots.
His shirt, a floral tie dye piece with paint stains on the left sleeve, clashes as horribly as the shiny purple Crocs he’s wearing.
The outfit is hideous, shouldn’t work on anyone, yet it works on Charlie with his bright smile and stupidly nice face.
Eden’s fragile heart with all of its bent, broken parts shatters into a million fucking pieces.
“Hi,” Charlie whispers, pushing his sunglasses off his face and into his hair. It sends his thick waves in all directions, and it’s all Eden can do to resist smoothing them down.
“Why are you here?” Eden chokes, unsure why it comes out sounding so small.
“I miss you.” Charlie answers, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“No, you don’t.”
“The hole in my bed from where I moped for the last week suggests otherwise.”
You hurt him, Eden’s brain screams. Proof that Eden doesn’t deserve to be loved, not by someone like Charlie.
“You should go.”
“I don’t want to go.”
There’s nothing left of Eden’s heart but the messy pieces of a puzzle that never quite fit together. Pieces other people tried to reshape and mold, pieces people took and never gave back. So many pieces, too many yet not enough.
“Go away, Charlie.”
“You don’t mean that, Eden.”
“Fuck you,” Eden grits out, unsure why his eyes are watering. “Fuck off.”
“No.” Charlie steps through the open doorway, shutting it behind him before pulling Eden into his arms.
“Fuck you,” Eden says again, embarrassed by the way his arms curl around Charlie’s waist and his face finds its way into Charlie’s shoulder.
Goddamn fucking Charlie. He’s being weak and pathetic and needy, and he can’t stop it because Charlie is exactly the kind of man Eden wants, the kind he needs.
“Last week sucked.” Charlie’s voice is quiet, almost sad, and it twists the knife in Eden’s chest. He hates himself, and he wishes Charlie would, too. It’s what he deserves.
“Yeah,” Eden agrees, his own voice cracked and broken like the rest of him.
“I missed you, baby.”
There he goes again, destroying Eden with a few simple words. As if Eden has any place with him still. As if Eden deserves kindness and affection. How fucking dare he.
“I bet you missed me.” Charlie murmurs, rubbing his nose against the top of Eden’s head while his hands slip beneath Eden’s sweatshirt to rest against the warm skin at his back.
He touches Eden freely as if the last week never happened, as if Eden didn’t run and ruin everything the way he always does.
“Come on, admit it,” Charlie grins. “Tell me how much you missed me. It was a lot, right?”