Page 248 of Haunt Me

Is it too late to believe?

It’s not. It’s not. It’s not.

“He has survived and he has become a song.” A sound like a sob comes out of my lips. She is repeating my own words from Paris back to me. She was paying attention—of course she was. It’s Eden.

“I’m sorry,” I say again. I don’t think I have said it enough.

Eden is shaking her head.

“Ok,” she says, “for this to happen,” she gestures between us, “we need to let go of guilt. Guilt will drag us to the bottom, every time. We need to let go of it. Both of us.”

I keep nodding. Yes.Yes. “I don’t know how to do that,” I say.

“I need you, Zay,” Eden says, and my skin breaks out in goose bumps, “but you are not me. I need you to fight with me, but you can’t fightforme. And if you let my darkness burden you, drag you under, then who will save me?”

“I will,” I say without hesitation. “Every time. I will save you, Eden.”

“I know you will. You have already done it so many times. But promise me you’ll stay above water in order to be able to do that. Promise me you won’t let my darkness drown you.”

“I am trying. I will learn. I will be stronger,thatI can promise you. I will be better. I won’t buckle under the weight, I won’t.”

“It’s not your weight to carry.” She hides her face from me, and I can’t stand it. “All this time, you have been feeling guilty and responsible and for what? For me? For Solomon? I can’t handle you carrying all this weight, it’s not your weight to carry.” The fact that she is repeating it over and over tells me how often she has thought about it. How much it’s been torturing her.

She’s facing the ground as she speaks, her breath coming short.

“Hey, look at me,” I say. “Look at me, please, Eden.” She raises her eyes to mine, and there is so much pain in them that my heart constricts. But there is hope in them too. Saint Hope. Our guardian angel, whom we first met in these woods. “Like hell it’s not. Itismy weight to carry, and that is my privilege and my honor. If you’ll let me. If you think I’m strong enough.”

“Of course you are,” she replies.

Without even having to think about ordering my tired body to move, I’m on my knees, towering over her. And then my lips find hers. No words. Just us, as we used to be. Just as, as we never used to be. Us, now.

“Is this ok?” I ask her after we have kissed for a century. “Is it too fast?”

“It’s almost too late,” she replies, her lips moving against my mouth. I have her tiny waist circled in my palms, and she turns her chin to fit my lips better. “’Almost’ being the key word here.”

“You’re killing me, Eden,” I murmur with my mouth full of her. “I’m dying.”

“You’rekillingme,” she says, “Isaiah.”

The way she says my name completely ruins me.

I’m the first one to die.

In her lips.

…

“Can I try this again?” I ask a few minutes later.

“Try what again?”

“The love declaration. It’s the same place. Same trees, same girl. Different year.”

“I’m not the same girl, Isaiah,” Eden says. She is in my arms. “I’ll never be.”

“And thank God for that,” I say, and I mean it. She smiles. “Tell me when you’re ready for me to start talking about Wentworth and Heathcliff again.”

“Now is as good a time as any.”

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