Page 25 of Haunt Me

Eden: Do you think I should stop? Going to the woods, I mean.

F: You know you will have to stop eventually.

Eden: But…

F: But not yet.

Eden: No, not yet.

nine

She is reading a book again the next day.

“It’s a different book every day, isn’t it?” I ask, feeling like an idiot that it took me this long to realize.

My phone sits beside me, a Mozart violin concerto drifting quietly from the speaker. I’m trying to figure out the exact note the second violin is hitting in the seventh minute, by ear. Finding the notes without looking at the music sheet fascinates me.

Well, it used to fascinate me before I met Eden. Now, it’s her.

“Are you impressed?” Eden asks.

“Very. What book are you reading today?”

She quickly hides the cover against her chest. “I’m too embarrassed to tell you.”

“Now youhaveto tell me.”

“It’s just a romance novel,” she says and that smile comes out on her face. It’s like the sun. “One of the few ones I was able to get my hands on. My dad won’t let me read anything with a man or a couple on the cover, only flowers. And the classics, of course. I have read them all ten times over.”

I look at her, mouth gaping.All the classics?I bet she’s not kidding either.

“But this one’s racy, huh?” I try to reach for it.

“Hey, don’t make fun,” she swats my hand away. “They help me escape.”

“What would you need to escape from?” She winces at the hoarseness in my voice.

Something breaks inside of me every time she mentions her dad. It reminds me I don’t have one, and I just… I instantly go to a dark place.

“Sometimes things can get tough at home,” she replies. “My dad, he…” I inhale sharply, a piercing pain hitting me in the abdomen at the word ‘dad’, but she doesn’t notice. “He can be really strict at times. Too strict.”

“Well,” I say, my throat working. I can hear the bitterness seeping out of my shattered heart, still raw and bleeding. I can feel it about to spill out of my tongue, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. “Well, as long as you aren’t an ungrateful, spoiled little girl.”

She looks up sharply as if I’ve slapped her. “What did you just say?”

I look her straight in the eyes, mine holding a storm, hers blank with fear.

“I said that some people would take a strict dad over a dead one in a second. Just think about someone other than yourself once in a while?”

That’s what I say. And then, instant regret. Shame.

I regret the words the minute I speak them; Iloathethe words the minute I speak them. I loathe myself. ‘I’m sorry’ nearly falls out of my lips, but Eden is already on her feet, legs shaky, running away from me, stumbling over fallen branches and crunchy leaves in her haste.

I don’t think: I run after her.

“I’m sorry!” I call out as my long legs overtake her in three strides. I block her path, hardly knowing what I’m doing. I don’t think I’ve ever been terrified so much in my life. I can’t lose her.I can’t lose her.“I’m sorry, I… I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Eden says. She has stopped running, and is just looking me up and down calmly.

---