Page 213 of Haunt Me

She stands on tiptoe to kiss me. I kiss her back until she droops against my body, and I pick her up in my arms and twirl her around.

“Want to grab a bite to eat?” I ask afterwards.

That kiss was so hot, we are no longer in danger of freezing.

“Always,” she replies, and I laugh.

I take her to a French restaurant in Midtown, and we sit down, our cheeks turning red from the sudden blasting of heat.

On the car ride home, we are quiet. Content. Our time in New York is ending tomorrow, and I am very happy with how we spent it. We made so much progress; I didn’t ruin it too much—at least I don’t think I did. Eden seems calmer than I have ever seen her, genuinely happy, comfortable with me.

But it would be a mistake to forget what is bubbling underneath the surface of our easy, fun-filled days here. When we go back to our real lives, the unresolved issues will raise their ugly heads. We should be ready for them when they do.

These days have been a dream, but being with Eden, fighting for her, will not always be easy. So a few hours later, when nightfalls and we’re safely tucked in front of the fire in my penthouse, I gently ask her if she wants to talk about the past.

She nods. “We haven’t done any of that, have we?”

“We don’t have to,” I tell her, even though that’s not strictly true. Eventually, we will have to, or the past will poison any chance we have at future. But it doesn’t have to be now.

“Tomorrow,” she says. “I’ll be ready for it tomorrow.”

I wince. “I’ll never be ready for it, baby. But tomorrow it is.”

Somehow, I’m relieved that we are going to be doing this before we leave New York. Our time here did not feel complete without confronting the ugliness of the past.

It felt like hiding from reality.

But now, it feels like these quiet, happy days we had were preparing us for battle. A battle I am determined to win. We’ll see how I do tomorrow.

…

We go over everything.

It’s painful, but I am here. Holding her. We take a break to eat, then we continue talking. Well, she talks and I listen.

She tells me what was going on behind the scenes of our every meeting. She tells me about summer break, how she fought for every single text she sent me.

How she kept herself safe, and us. How she kept our secret as long as she could.

Then, we come to the hard part.

“He found your number in my phone.” Eden’s voice drops to a whisper, as if she is still hiding from him. I tighten my arm around her waist. “I had deleted every single conversation we had had, but just discovering your number was all it took, in the end. He exploded on me, he raged, but I wouldn’t give you up. So when screaming and threatening me didn’t work, he started employing his other tactics.”

I shudder all over, feeling sick. By now, she has explained to me what his ‘tactics’ were: Pure emotional abuse and manipulation of the highest order. He even faked his own death once, to guilt her into something he wanted. She had been six years old back then, and terrified out of her mind.

Who does that to a little kid?

I have to suppress my murderous rage over and over again.

“He cried,” she says, and gets that faraway look in her eyes. She is back there, re-living it.

A curse flies out of my lips.I am shutting this down. Now.I open my mouth to stop her, but her eyes snap out of the memory, searching mine.

“I’m ok,” she tells me. “I want to go on.”

“Go on then,” I tell her.Don’t go on. I can’t stand it.

I have bitten my lips to shreds.

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