Page 177 of Haunt Me

Fee doesn’t answer, she is crying again. I can almost feel her nodding. I swipe my finger on my phone and turn this into a video call. I don’t care how dark the circles under my eyes are. I need to see her.

Faith doesn’t open her camera that second, but she does turn it on soon enough. Too soon for her to have changed her clothes or put on makeup. I smile as soon as I see her. Her familiar face fills the screen, and she kind of feels like home. She looks a mess. Red hair in a sloppy bun, a random sweater thrown on in haste. She looks like Eden a bit.

She’s crying her eyes out.

“Hey, Faith, look at me,” I tell her. She turns her eyes towards her phone, and I can see nothing but pain in them. “Ok, good.” I clear my throat. “Now, when is Eden’s birthday? You know, her real birthday?”

“In two days,” Faith says. “We… we always had a ‘remembering day’ for her, my mom, my dad, Manuela and me, on her birthday. And when Mom passed away, we kept doing it. Just sat there, thinking about Eden, praying and crying. It was painful but also comforting; not doing anything on her birthday seemed even worse. So we kept it up. Does that make sense?”

Much more than I’d like to admit.

“It does,” I nod.

She wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I haven’t gotten the day wrong, in case you were wondering. It’s just… It never crossed my mind to tell her. We didn’t have the heart to. She never wants to celebrate her birthday anyway, because she was raised that way, but I’ve had enough of it. She is turning twenty-one this year, and she… She still thinks her birthday is on that other day. You know, the fake birth date. Whatever day that monster told her. And now I have to tell her, only I don’t know how. It just… It feels wrong, you know?”

“What does?”

“For the day to pass by with us doing nothing. No birthday celebrations, because Eden doesn’t know it’s her real birthday, and no ‘remembering day’ either because, thank God, she’s safe and sound, but…”

“What did you do last year?” I ask, and I shouldn’t have, because a torrent of fresh tears comes.

“We didn’t tell her,” Faith says between sobs. “The therapist advised against it. And the year before that, she was in the clinic. And Dad wanted…” I wait for her to catch her breath. “He wanted a few normal days with her, as many as he could get, so we celebrated her fake birthday.”

“I’m guessing Eden didn’t even think to ask you for her real one,” I say. It’s a statement, not a question. I’m only just getting to know Faith and Manuela, but Eden… Eden I know. I know her better than myself. I know she wouldn’t even think to ask.

“She didn’t,” Faith confirms. “We celebrated it on the fake day, and she went along, out of habit, I guess. Well, when I say habit… She’d never had a birthday celebration before, ever in her life, Isaiah.”

That’s not true. She had two. With me. But I don’t tell Faith that.

“April fourteenth,” I say.

Her eyes go wide as saucers. “Oh. You know the date of her fake birthday.”

“Of course I do.”

“Of course, you do,” she realizes.

She sounds impressed, but why would she be? I was with Eden for nearly two years. She was closer to me than my family. I might have been too much of an idiot to know what was really happening to her, but I’ll be damned if I don’t remember her birthday. Well, her fake birthday.

“I want her to know, Isaiah,” Faith says after a bit, “but I can’t do it… Manu can’t either. It’s too big. It’s…” She’s about to fall apart on me all over again.

“Ok, hey, don’t cry. It’s going to be fine,” I tell her. “I need you to stop crying right now, ok? Can you do that for me?” She shakes her head.Dammit. “Look, these may be happy tears or trauma tears, or whatever you need them to be tears, and you are welcome to cry your heart out as much as you want. It might be healing, what the hell do I know? But I don’t want you to be alone over there, crying by yourself. Where is your sister, can you call her?”

“She’s out,” Faith sobs.

“Right. But she’ll be back soon, right? You guys live next door, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Great, ok, I’ll stay with you until she gets back. Is that ok with you?” She nods, hiccupping. “I won’t go anywhere, and we’ll get through this together.” She nods again, but she’s still crying. I just sit there, looking at her. “At some point, we have to collectively decide to stop crying,” I muse.

“Today is not that day,” Faith blows her nose loudly. I almost laugh.

It sure isn’t.

“As for Eden,” I say, “I’ll take care of it. Do you trust me?”

“Do I trust you?” She snorts, but she is also crying at the same time, and there are tears and snot involved. It’s not pretty. A laugh escapes me. “Yeah, I trust you. I called you crying my head off in the middle of the night, didn’t I?”

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