You Know Why Eden
You Know Why
Eden
Beep . . . beep hiss . . .
Beep . . .
The nurse moves around my hospital bed, straightening the sheets, adjusting the pillow, opening the blinds. Sunlight floods into the room and, with it, the doctors on their rounds.
“Good morning, Dr. Lui.”
“How is she today?”
Beep . . . beep hiss . . .
Beep . . .
“Her vitals are stable. The EEG last night showed even more activity. I think she’s starting to wake up. Perhaps we can consider taking her off the thiopental.”
“Agreed. We’ll move her to dexmedetomidine, see if the improvement continues.”
I feel his hand on my leg and want to jerk it away.
The nurse’s voice floats to my ears. “Wow, look at that. She’s reactive.”
“This is a good sign. Make the change and keep me apprised. If she continues responding, we can consider shifting the level of life support.”
Beep . . . beep hiss . . .
Beep . . .
The nurse hums as she moves around my room, and then she leaves. It is quiet. Lonely. So lonely. Only my dreams keep me company.
My memories.
My nightmares.
Beep . . . beep hiss . . .
Beep . . .
Beep . . . beep hiss . . .
Beep . . .
When the man with the curly blond hair came to my door with a proposition, I almost didn’t let him in.
But I did, and when he told me the story of how he found me, and how he found Andrew, then asked, “Would you like to see him dead for what he’s done to you?
What he’s taken from you?” I could hardly believe my luck.
How could I say no? Alex had a plan, and together, we executed it.
Call it revenge, if you will. I call it justice.
Beep . . . beep hiss . . .
Beep . . .
Beep . . . beep hiss . . .
Beep . . .
There is a song that plays in my head on a loop every time I go to the parties, every time I look at him, every time I think of him.
It’s one of my parents’ old favorites, a boppy song from the sixties by a band called the Crystals.
I walk through the crowded basement, and each word punctuates a step: Then he kissed me, then he kissed me, then he kissed me.
In the before, the sublime moments when he was mine and I was his, I fantasized about the moment Andrew would touch me, kiss me. Love me.
Andrew is kissing Chloe that way now.
There is no way I can make my little sister understand what a mistake she’s making.
There is no way I can explain what happened.
Admit what happened.
The dumb games we all used to play. Truth or dare. Spin the bottle. Seven minutes in heaven. Light as a feather, stiff as a board. “I’m stiff as a board.” “You know it—ha!”
They are all too cool for it now. They have real alcohol, real drugs. Real consequences.
There is no room for dark closets and fumbled hugs. No room for promises, for those sweet moments to return.
He remembers. I know he does. That’s why he hates me so much. He may want to forget, but he can’t. I won’t let him. I will haunt him forever with my love.
I memorized everything.
How softly our lips touched. His surprised gasp when our tongues moved together.
Tensing up when his palm touched my shoulder and slid down to my breast. His little laugh, the one that he only gave in private, that intimate sound that told me the truth about how he really felt.
The silken feel of him, soft and hard together, when he shoved my hand down the front of his jeans.
His tensing, then wet warmth, and a guttural moan, a sound that sparked a fire in places I was only vaguely aware of until that moment. The gentle, searching kiss that followed, our tongues swirling, his hands twined in my hair, our breath coming short, and his whispered “You are so beautiful.”
Then the knock at the door, and the startled look that moved into a smirk on his face when he stood up.
I remember him saying, “Guess time’s up.
Thanks.” And my desperate plea of a reply: “This means we’re together now, right?
” Remember him laughing. Remember him saying, “You and me? Are you joking? That was a dare.”
Remember him flinging open the closet door.
Remember all his friends, tumbling backward, laughing.
Remember my clothes askew, pants down, shirt unbuttoned, one breast spilling from my bra.
Remember the heat, flooding me with shame and fury and tears.
Oh, that shame, like a viper’s fangs in my throat, choking off my air.
The embarrassment.
The hollers and hoots and jeers.
The way he looked at me the next day in school, with a half-cocked eyebrow and a shake of his head. The way he does now, disdainfully pulling Chloe to his side with a possessive leer.
And then he kissed me then he kissed me then he kissed me.
He killed me dead in that moment of mockery. To tell me I was beautiful while my hands worked their magic on his young body, and to then expose me, laugh at me?
He deserves every bad thing that’s happened.
So did she.
So do they all.
Beep . . . beep hiss . . .
Beep . . .
And then he kissed me then he kissed me then he kissed me holly jolly holly jolly holly jolly.
It was Christmas Eve. A night of remembrances. A night for family.
I just wanted to talk.
That’s all. Just to remind her that he’d been mine first.
And then she started crowing about being pregnant, and how excited she was to tell Andrew, and I don’t know, something in me snapped.
I said things I don’t even recall, and she said things back.
About me being a sociopath, that she hated me, that we were no longer sisters.
She accused me of terrible things. And then she told me that I needed to leave.
She ordered me out of her house and told me to never come back.
It wasn’t my fault the scissors were there. It wasn’t my fault that she tripped and they jammed into her stomach. She asked for it. She’d been a thorn in my side since she was born, but especially since that night when he chose her over me. And then, in a heartbeat, she was gone.
I knew what I had to do.
I left. I cleaned myself up. And when I saw Andrew go into the house, I came back. I saw him standing over my sister, the scissors in his hand. And screamed.
Oh, the screams.
I impressed even myself.
Beep . . . beep hiss . . .
Beep . . .
Beep . . . beep hiss . . .
Beep . . .