Page 253 of Haunt Me

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We take a break when night falls.

“This is me,” Eden tells me. She’s done writing for the day. “Anger, rage, questions. Outbursts out of nowhere. Running away. This is what it’s going to look like for a long time. Maybe forever. I don’t know if…”

“Are you going to ask me if I can handle it?” I raise an eyebrow.

She shrugs. “How can I ask you that? Sometimes even I can’t handle it.”

“I can,” I reply with confidence.

“How do you know that?’

“I have handled much harder, that’s how. I have been to rehab, I have been through grief. I have been through losing you, I have been through an explosion of fame.” I’m holding her fingers firmly in mine, warming the backs of her hands with my thumbs. “I’ve been through it too, Eden. And I’m still here. As are you. This is nothing for us. We got this.”

“Isaiah, this is serious. What you just saw is...”

“…worth staying for,” I finish her sentence for her. “That’s what I saw. And I saw all of it, I was there, so now you can tell that voice in your head to shut up. ‘He saw, and he is staying’. Tell the voice that.”

The Heartbreakers Forum

IssyGirl_23:I can’t believe the tour is almost over. Only Wembley left. What are we going to do with our lives after that?

forty-eight

“They’re here!” Faith’s voice calls.

It’s six in the afternoon, and we’re still in their hotel, in Boston.

Eden and I climb the stairs down to the lobby, where I have arranged for us to have complete privacy. I have invited two people to the hotel, but I wasn’t sure they’d come.

My guests didn’t know if they would get off their shift at work in time.

The girls and I can’t delay our flight to Europe any longer, so it would be impossible to meet them tomorrow, but it all worked out perfectly: they are here. I see them from afar as we enter the lobby. A man and a woman, waiting for us.

“Eden,” I say, “I would like you to meet, erm…” I’ve forgotten their names.

“I am Captain Sawyer,” the tall man with the beard says.

“And I am Kim Han,” adds the willowy lady with the low bun. “And we are first responders.”

“Nice to meet you,” Eden says, looking lost. “What are you—?”

“We arethefirst responders,” Kim says helpfully. “I am a firefighter and the captain is a paramedic.”

“We are the ones who found you,” Captain Sawyer adds, his voice surprisingly gentle for that mountain of a man. “The ones who answered your 911 call. Four years ago.”

Eden takes in a sharp breath, and my arm goes around her waist on instinct. But her breathing is normal, and she does not look pale.

“You remember me?” she asks.

“We sure do, miss Elliot,” Kim replies.

“C-call me Eden,” Eden says, and then she needs to sit down. We all sit around her, and wait for her to catch her breath. “Thank you,” she says finally.

“Thank yourself,” Kim tells her, admiration shining in her eyes. “You had the presence of mind to call 911 after… All that.”

“I don’t even remember doing it,” Eden says, looking like she is about to get dragged under the memories, but she’s safe here. We are all here. We have her. “Someone broke me in that house. I am broken.”

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