Page 251 of Haunt Me

“If there are any ghosts,” I tell her, “I will scare them away. And if they refuse to leave, I’ll kiss you while they watch.”

She tips her head up to me, and I seal my lips with hers.

Heat immediately grabs me by the throat, need suffocating me. Hunger. For her. I let it devour us as I kiss her, opening her mouth wider with my tongue, teasing her lips, turning her head to the side with a hand at the back of her neck, stroking her back, her waist, her hips. I hook a leg around her thigh, filling the air with our hot, desperate breaths of just pureneed.

We need to fill the air with them. This dead, haunted air, should be filled with hot gasps of want, of desire, of love, oflife. Nothing else should exist but this new thing between us, this thing that we’re now starting—and I’ll probably die if we don’t finish it once we’re back in the hotel.

But for now, I kiss her. I’m kissing her in front of the place that took everything from her. That’s how we will fight what’s left of the monster inside her head. That’s how we will win.

“You are never coming back here,” I murmur in her ear. “Never, do you hear me?” I’m crying too at this point, but I don’t care. She nods slightly. “It’s not happening again, do you understand? I’m here this time. I am not going anywhere.”

“You were here before,” Eden says.

“Not like this. Now I’m here and I know. I’mherehere.”

“I’m so sorry,” she cries, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

The words nearly split me open. I close my eyes, frantically searching for the right words. The therapists told all of us that she will feel guilty about Solomon’s death. It’s why he did it in such a dramatic way, in front of her. So that it will haunt her forever. He wanted power over her even after he’d be dead and gone. One last, final triumph.

But he hadn’t met me.

There will be no one haunting my girl. No one will haunt her apart from me. And I am never leaving her again.

“Don’t apologize,” I murmur, and it sounds small. Stupid. “No, I said that all wrong. I shouldn’t have told you not to apologize. What I mean to say, and what I should have said, is this: Thank you for telling me your thoughts. It’s amazing that you did.”

“I was taught not to be a burden,” she says and I smile.This, I can handle.

“Baby,” I laugh, “a burden? You arewings. You are Saint Hope.”

“That’s just a song.”

“A song I wrote. For you. Actually, we started it together, in this place. Sometimes I think we wrote it for each other.”

“Yeah.” She’s stopped shaking. Stopped crying. She’s just looking at me with those eyes that melt my soul, every single time.

“You are my wings, Eden. You are my paradise. If there is anything going on in your heart, anything hurting you, I need to be the first one to know, baby. It is my privilege, and I’m… well, I’m straight up jealous if anyone knows you’re hurting before me. Is that… is that too much?”

“I don’t know what too much is.” Her voice is hers again. She sounds tired and sad, but she’s been tired and sad before. She can handle it, and so can I. “I know what too little is.”

I rub my hands up and down her arms to warm her. I have put her in the driver’s seat, and I’m crouching on the street, by her knees. I blast on the heat, even though it’s little use to us with the door hanging open. But we’re not driving away until she is ok.

“Well, I’d love to say that from now on you will only ever have too much,” I smirk, “but that’s not right either, is it? You will have just what you need. That’s what I can promise you. You will have what you need, when you need it, as long as I am alive. Your every need met, even if I have to move heaven and earth.”

“Oh, jeez, you’re trying to be one of your Greek poets again, aren’t you?” I laugh out loud. That’s her. She’s come back to me.

“I’m what?”

“You’re being dramatic.Toodramatic.” She’s trying to smile.

“Yeah, I know. I seem to remember a girl telling me so. Repeatedly.”

A tiny laugh escapes her. “Well, she was right. You are. And yet, I still love you.”

“You do?” I bury my head against her legs.

“Of course I do, you buffoon.”

“I called you my paradise, and you are calling me a buffoon,” I laugh. “Sounds about right.”

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