Page 21 of Eden's Joker

He picks up one of the illustrated versions and flips it open to the picture of Alice standing on amushroom. “I heard the guy was high on magic mushrooms when he wrote it.”

“Yeah, I heard that too. Doesn’t take away from the magic of the story, though.”

I take the book from him and put it back on the shelf.

“What about you? What was your favorite book growing up?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. A tie between Batman and Superman… the comic book versions.”

“Are there other versions?”

He shrugs and looks at the rest of the books on the shelf more closely.

We’ve had conversations about books before. It’s pretty much all we’ve talked and texted about while we were getting to know each other. But it was never on such a deeply personal level.

“But that’s all kids’ stuff,” he says. “What’s your favorite adult book?”

I don’t think he meant a book with sex, which is where my mind went at hearingadult book. I’m blushing so hard I must be tomato red in the face, so it’s a good thing he’s looking at the books and not me.

I pull one off the shelves and hand it to him. “This one. Wuthering Heights. It’s dark and twisted, but I loved it the first time I read it and I still reread it about once a year.”

He looks at the cover with the main character Catherine in a pink dress running across a field ofthorny branches, while Heathcliff pursues her. “Dark, huh? What’s dark for you?”

He’s looking at me like he thinks I couldn’t possibly know the first thing about dark love. Nor be able to handle it if I came in contact with it. So I take the book from his hands and put it back on the shelf.

“It’s about obsessions and the nasty things people are capable of doing to each other in the name of love,” I say and walk back to the armchairs. I’ve been misunderstood my whole life, viewed as peculiar at best, and I very much do not like it that he’s now joining that club.

He joins me by the window, standing next to the chair I’m sitting in. It’s our reflection I’m looking at, not him. My translucent face in the window and his translucent body. And I can’t help thinking that’s the truth of the two of us. We’re just a wispy figment of my imagination and not something solid, not something that can ever become a real thing.

He touches my chin softly and tilts my head so I have to look up at him. His touch is as light as a butterfly’s, but it strikes a chord deep inside me, one I didn’t know could be played, leaving me gasping for air.

“I didn’t mean to offend you… sometimes I don’t think before I speak. I can see that book means a lot to you.”

“All these books mean a lot to me,” I say. “But books aren’t all I’m about.”

He nods, a weird light passing over his eyes. It’sneither sunny nor dark, but something in between. Like twilight.

“So what are you all about, Eden?” he asks.

No one’s ever asked that before. They’ve all just assumed. He’s still just lightly touching my chin and I wish he’d do more. I wish he’d lean down and give me the kiss of my life. Because I know he could. That’s one thing of the things I’m about. Getting kissed so well I forget who I am. I didn’t think it was possible outside of fiction, but after meeting him, I’m sure it is.

“Or don’t you know?” he adds and shatters much of the illusion that was slowly building up into reality in my mind.

I’m angry again. He’s so good at making me bounce from love to anger to sweetness and everything in between.

“Maybe I should just show you, since you clearly don’t trust my words.”

I stand up and face him. He’s a head taller than me, but somehow, I feel like our eyes are level. Our lips are, that’s for sure. His are all I see. But for all my bravado I can’t close the distance and take that kiss I’ve been craving from him.

“I’m waiting,” he says, his lips curling up into a mean little grin.

“Just forget it,” I say and plop back down in the chair, crossing my arms over my chest. “You’re just toying with me.”

“I wish,” he says.

“You wish? Come on now, it’s you pumping the brakes.”

I’ve never thrown myself at a guy this hard. And he’s just standing there, rejecting me. I don’t want him to go. But I don’t want him to stay either. No one’s ever made me feel this electrified. I can’t even bring myself to look at him anymore. Not for real. Not in the reflection.

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