Page 258 of Haunt Me

Why have you forsaken me

In my hour of need?

As I keep singing, listening to the fans’ voices croon the lyrics along with me, I collide with the light. It just washes over me in waves, obliterating all the darkness of the previous years. I collide with the fire that started with just this tiny, smoking, almost burnt-out coal. But it’s not dead now—I’ve stoked it into flames, into aninferno. Its warmth floods me. I’m swimming in it: Love. Purpose. Light.

Why have you forsaken me

In my hour of need?

And then, somewhere in the crowd, I see us: teen Eden and Isaiah, as we were then. Two kids, broken and lost. No one to save us but each other. Teen Isaiah looks straight at me as I sing, and in my mind, I see his lips move.

He is saying: ‘meet me in the woods’. Next to him, teen Eden, that little frail thing with stick legs and dyed hair and empty, sad eyes, looks at teen Isaiah, and then her eyes meet mine as well. My breath catches.

The song is done. My eyes are full of tears.

I wanted to be the one to save you, I think at her.I’m sorry I didn’t. But I am here now, and I will keep saving you until I die.

“Dude, you ok?” Jude asks anxiously. He saw that faraway look in my eyes, and he’s worried I will fall apart on him again. I’m sorry to have done that to him. I regret it.

“Lost my mind a long time ago,” I reply and he smiles. He thinks I’m joking, and I kind of am and also kind of not.

Teen Isaiah turns and grabs teen Eden’s hand. Behind them, instead of screaming fans, I see our woods, swirling with mist and dead leaves. Golden evening light illuminates the two teens’ faces as they smile at each other, and then climb to their feet, to go on one of their adventures. Which day will they live now? The one where they talk about books? The one where they listen to Beethoven’s Symphony and fight not to kiss each other breathless?

Whichever day they are going to live, it will be perfect.

I am back in Massachusetts, at that prep school, breathing in the air of that day.

I blink, and a group of shrieking fans are screaming my lyrics back at me right by the stage lights. Isaian and Eden are gone, and yet they are still here.

I know they might never leave me completely, these ghosts, and I’m not sure I want them to. They won’t be something that haunts me forever; eventually, they will become the past, which is as it should be. They will become how Eden and I started and who we used to be. Who we had to be in order to be who we are now.

I glance up at the VIP tent; Eden is singing her heart out, dancing in place. Her slender body moves with the grace andfreedom of a woodland nymph—she who had been taught never to leave that house. I continue singing, only for her. In my head, I am writing a song again. Maybe I’ll call it‘This Is How It Ends’. It ends with us singing to each other about hope.

It ends with her singing the lyrics toSaint Hopewith me, me looking at her from across the stadium, pointing to her, her pointing to me.

Saint Hope, I lost you

Saint Hope I found you

You are the thing with feathers

That found my broken soul

The entire sold-out stadium is singing the lyrics with me, their voices a shapeless, echoing sound that drowns the night sky in music, but I only hear Eden’s voice. I’ll kiss the breath out of her as soon as I get off this stage.

She is not hiding from me now. Her eyes are glued to my face. Mine to hers.

I sing like that, looking at her, being looked at by her.

This is how it ends, I think.

But wait, no.

No.

It starts.

Is it too late to start believing?

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