Page 145 of Haunt Me

Walter doesn’t have any more sick days to take off work—not that he seems to care about his career as much as he cares about making sure that Eden is ok and cared for. He doesn’t care about anything as much as that.

But today, he goes to work, and Eden and I are left alone for the first time.

We wander around the house, until we end up in her room.

“So this is your childhood bedroom,” I say awkwardly as I walk inside, looking around. It does look girly, but there is something off with it: everything is new. It has got no posters or photos covering the walls, no memorabilia, no kids’ toys left over from a childhood that never happened.

This is not her childhood bedroom. And I am a moron.Her eyes grow horrified. I’m sure mine mirror her expression in a millisecond—that’s how long it takes me to realize what I’ve just said.

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry, Eden, I didn’t think, I shouldn’t have said—” I fumble for words.

“It’s ok,” she smiles. “It should have been my childhood bedroom, right? Sometimes, I pretend it is.”

I take her hand and bring her palm to my lips. “You are the bravest person I’ve ever met. And I am the stupidest person I’ve ever met,” I add more quietly.

“That’s can’t be right,” she replies. “I’m sure you’ve met at least one person stupider than you.” This girl, I swear.

“I doubt it.”

I sit on the bed. Nope. Doesn’t feel right somehow.

I stand up. The ceiling feels too low for my head; I’m so tall I dwarf the whole room. I sit back down. Eden lets out a giggle. At least I’m amusing her. I lower myself on the floor, cross-legged, trying not to let all the angles of my body stick out too much. Eden settles down next to me, gathering her body in a little ball. I remember how we sat on the floor like that, Pooh pressed between our bodies, that night she was having a panic attack back in Greece.

“Thank you for coming all the way to Chicago just for this,” she says.

My whole body jerks. “‘Just for this?’ You’re joking, right?”

“I don’t…”

“I didn’t only come here for you. I exist for you.” She goes pale—I’ve scared her. But I thought she knew.

“I don’t know what to do with that,” she says, and takes a deep breath. “Isaiah, I can’t—I can’t pick up where we left off,” she says finally. “It doesn’t work that way.”

I feel like closing my eyes and indulging in the fantasy. How easy would it be to just ‘pick up where we left off’. How simple, how amazing it would be. But no, it would not be simple or amazing. We left off at heartbreak and trauma. Looking back will never be healthy. The only way to go is forward and through.

She’s right. It just doesn’t work that way.

“Where we left off,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “was not necessarily a place I would like us to be again.” She sags in relief next to me, and I know I said the right thing. A rare occurrence. “It was a horrible place for me, and I know it was even worse for you. It was hell.”

“It was what brought me to where I am today,” she replies. “For example, these past few years, whenever I felt so sad that I wanted to scream, and it was often, I did two things. Do you want to hear?”

“I have never wanted anything more,” I say.

“Weirdo,” she laughs. “Ok, so the first thing I tried would be to escape inside my head. To go to a memory of us, one of my favorite memories of us, and hide in there. Just reliving it over and over, until I forgot what I was upset about. It usually worked.”

“Did it?” I’m suddenly so choked up I can barely speak. “And you… That means you had favorite memories of us, right? What were they?”

“Every minute we spent together,” she replies, watching me.

I try to swallow; I fail. “Even when we just sat together silently?” I ask her.

“Especially that. Those hours are at the top of the list.” She smiles. I forget how breathing works.

“Yeah, mine too.” I smile back at her, even though the effort kind of hurts my face. It’s worth it just to see how happy it makes her. “What was the second thing?”

“Your voice.” She just undoes me with those two words. “I would put on one of your songs, and scream along with you. I did that rarely, because it wasn’t easy to listen to you sing—it hurt. But once I managed to face it, it always worked, without fail. Always. Your voice is just… magic.”

“It’s not,” I say, frowning. Yet again, I come face to face with the fact that she was fighting for her life while I was rising to fame. And the fact that she was listening to my songs that were dripping pain… Pain about her… It does a number on me. “It’s really not.”

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