Page 128 of Haunt Me

It doesn’t matter if I can do this or not. I am doing it. I am going to be here for her, and I just hope I don’t hurt her worse than I already have.

I reach her and grab her just as she is about to blindly cross the street. She is crying so hard she is not breathing. I press her face to my chest and fold her in my arms. I tuck her into me; keep her there until she can breathe again. Her hair tickles my jaw. She is in her socks; she was in too much of a hurry to put on shoes. I pick her up and she curls her legs around my waist.

I just hold her like that, wrapped around me, as her body is wrecked by sobs.

“Baby, baby, what is it?”

She just cries, soaking my shirt; she can’t reply. I think I might be losing my mind.Did I do something?I probably did. From now on, I should always be assuming that I did something.

“What is it, Eden? Talk to me. What’s wrong, baby, what can I do?”

“The way you were all sitting together, in that tiny living room, like a family, I…” she can’t go on.

“It’s not tiny,” I murmur, because I don’t know what to say. Also, it’s really not. It’s a huge room, cozy, but big, filled with windows and books and comfy sitting areas.

“There were so many of you, you made it look tiny,” she replies. “I’ve never… I’ve never seen so many people gathered in that room before. Of course I haven’t. I didn’t grow up in this house.”

I tighten my grip on her and she presses her legs to my hips.

My heart is breaking. Our bodies are melded to each other, crushed together as one. There isn’t an atom of air between our limbs. I don’t know where she ends and I begin—but I still want more. I want to take her face in my hands and wipe those tears away from her cheeks. I want her breath on my lips, and I want it to be shaking because I’m about to kiss the sense out of her, not because she is in so much pain that breathing is pure torture.

“Did you know that?” she asks me.

Of course I know—she knows I know. I am the only person who knows exactly where she grew up. I clear my throat.

“I do, Eden,” I just say, and her sobs subside enough so that she can talk to me.

“He stole this from me, Isaiah. He stole this life from me.” She is suddenly furious, trying to cry and shout at the same time, and it’s stealing her breath. I let her down, and she stands on her own, staring up at me with those wide, tortured eyes. “He stole it, Isaiah,” her voice breaks.

She is lightly beating my chest with her fists, and I don’t stop her, because I’m afraid if I do, she’ll start beating her own.

“I know,” I repeat helplessly, thinking back to how I thought the exact same thing while standing on this very spot, just a few hours ago. “I know, baby, I know.”

I take her face between my hands, just as I wanted to. She cries into my fingers, and I hold her. I let her cry here, where she is safe. She needs to mourn all that was taken from her. There is no way around this, only through. There is no way to avoid the pain. It would catch up with her sooner or later.

I’m just glad it did now that I am here to catchher.

“I can’t drive,” she hiccups.

“What?”What does that even matter?

“I never learned to drive. Everyone in that room can drive, I counted. And I… I missed my chance.”

“My brother can’t,” I say quickly. “He thinks he can, but he is a menace behind the wheel.” Eden laughs in the middle of crying, so I go on. “And Mom hasn’t driven in years. Her hands, you know. Also, I’m pretty sure Pooh can’t drive, but I wouldn’t put it past him—” Her laughter turns into a sob that leaves her weak and trembling. I brace an arm around her back, steady her against my body. “You can learn to drive,” I tell her. “You can learn, if you want to, it’s not a big deal.”

She is shaking her head. “It’s too much, Isaiah. So many things… I have so much catching up to do, and there’s not enough time. I am already in my twenties and I haven’t…”

She lets her phrase trail into nothing and I tighten my grip on her.

“How will I ever be normal?” she murmurs, and I scoff. I am so not the person to ask this. I haven’t been normal for years now. Or maybe all my life. “Can you imagine me wearing mascara and buying… I don’t know, stamps, or going to the carwash or handling a vacuum cleaner or… all those things fully functional people do that Idon’t even know what they are?”

Did she just saystamps?

I see red. So many words are springing to my lips that I sputter. I don’t know where to start.Fully functional people?Is that even a thing? There are fully functional hypocrites, yes. Fully functional fakers. But I don’t think the kind of ‘normal people’ she has in her mind is remotely related to reality.

Kiss me, I think at her.Let me take away the pain. You’ll forget everything else once my lips are on your skin. Once the fire starts running through our veins. Kiss me.I’ll never act on it, of course. Now is not the time. But my stupid brain is going:Kiss me. Kiss me.Constantly.

“How do I learn how to live?” she asks, despair making her voice sink.

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