Page 29 of Haunt Me

Under the fluorescent lights of the dorm halls, Eden looks really bad. I’m wondering if I’m making a mistake not calling her dad or taking her to a hospital, but she doesn’t have a phone on her, and as for the hospital… I’ll wait for about ten minutes, and if she keeps looking this white, I’m driving her there myself. I don’t care how late it is, or what my professors will say.

“Is this your room?” Eden asks in a small, dazed voice, and I exhale in relief.

The minute we’re inside, I crank up the heat. I put her on the bed and pile blankets on her like a demented person. I grab the first thing I find in the fridge—a juice box.

“This,” I tell her, as I keep wrapping blankets around her body, “is the place where you are going to have some juice.”

She obediently takes the juice from my hands and gulps it down thirstily. Or maybe hungrily? So I give her the two sandwiches I had stored away in case of an emergency, and she eats them too.

The color returns to her cheeks pretty quickly after that. I just sit at my desk, trying not to be obvious as I stare at her eating as if my life depends on it. Trying to pretend that there are less than twofeet between us in this little dorm room. Being this close to her does strange things to my body.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

She is breathing normally now, but she doesn’t answer me right away. She is looking at me with a strange expression on her face.

“What?”

“This is so embarrassing,” she whispers.

I don’t know when I move, but suddenly I’m sitting on the bed next to her, reaching for her hand underneath the mountain of blankets. I find it and close it in mine; it’s not icy cold anymore.

“It’s not embarrassing,” I tell her. “It’s not.” I untuck a leaf out of her braid, and fight the impulse to loosen the elastic band and run that thick, luscious hair between my fingers. I swallow.Now is not the time, Pan. Get a hold of yourself. “Hey, look at me.”

She does not.

I want to take her chin in my fingers and turn her face to me, but I don’t touch her. I don’t think she wants me to anyway, and also... I can’t. I literally can’t. If I touch her right now, I won’t be responsible for my actions. I won’t stop until my lips are on hers and then—

Stop it, right now. Shut. It. Down.

Yeah, tell that to my body, which happens to be on fire right now.

“Do you want to eat something else?” I say, because, as expected, my brain has officially left the building.

But Eden does not scoff or say ‘no’. She says nothing, just keeps looking at me. I think that’s as close to a ‘yes’ as she’s going to get. I swear, if I don’t have any food in this room, I will go to every single room on my floor and beg for their snacks. Thankfully, I find a snacks hidden randomly in my dorm, most of them unhealthy and embarrassing like candy, but I don’t care.

I give them to her. She eats everything.

“You…” I want to ask her why she is so hungry, but I can’t. That’s not a thing you ask a girl, not to mention a girl who seems actually embarrassed to be eating right now. But I have to know. Something is going on here, and I’m not letting her out of my sight until I know what it is. And how to help her. How to keep her safe from it.

“You might need some water with that,” I end up saying, like a coward, as I motion to all the salty snacks.

“Thank you,” she says very politely. Very un-Eden like.

I am freaking out. What is going on with this girl? She is pretty much back to normal, except for that hungry, desperate look in her eyes. Empty, they look empty. I would tear entire armies apart (not to be too dramatic or anything) to chase that look off her face, and instead I am sitting here, powerless.

“I’m sorry for being so hungry,” she says when she’s done.

I silently hand her the water, clenching my jaw hard to keep from swearing for three minutes straight. When I kind of have myself under control again (and kind of not), I say calmly:

“If you apologize for being human again, I swear I’m going to lose it.”

It turns out I didn’t have myself under control after all. She freezes, the water bottle suspended midair in her hand, her eyes going wide.

I take a deep breath and try to get a grip.

“You… why were you so hungry?” I ask her.

She looks away. I have to fight to stay quiet while I wait for her to answer me.

---