Page 33 of Haunt Me

I scoff. “I so do not. She is actually talented. But thank you for comparing me to her.”

“You are so talented, Isaiah,” she sighs. She still looks pale and tired, and for a second I remember how she looked when I found her last night and my heart goes concave. “Talk to me about your family a bit more. Please.”

She keeps those honey eyes on me, and I can’t refuse her anything.

So I talk to her about my brother, my mom, my grandparents, even my dad. It’s the first time I’m talking about him—I haven’t managed to do that, even to my therapist.

“I love the look on your face,” she says, “when you talk about them.”

I thought I would hate talking about Dad, that it would be traumatic. But it was healing. My dad is alive while I’m talking about him. And Eden is meeting him through my words for the first time.

So I keep talking, even though there is a lump in my throat that feels as big as the world.

“My mom was a musical prodigy from the minute she was born. Her parents were Chinese immigrants, and they were so proud of her they kind of pushed her to compete here in the US, but she lost them both in quick succession. When she met my dad, they promised each other that their kids would never feel the pressure of expectations or ambition. Then stupid James was born, and he was every bit the prodigy mom had been at his age—except more.”

“Wait, your brother is older than you?”

“No, much much younger,” I reply.

“How much much younger?”

“Two years.”

“Always with the drama, this one,” she murmurs to herself. I smile. So I’m ‘this one’ now. Nice. “Two years is not ‘much younger’, but whatever. You came along first. You’re the first son.”

“Yep. And I have been nothing but a disappointment, I assure you.”

“That doesn’t sound right. Your dad sounds like a good man.” She looks like she is about to cry, and I wonder why. I haven’t told her he is dead on purpose.

“He… he has his flaws,” I say, although I can’t remember any right now. Is it grief that makes me think of him that way? Or did I really not appreciate him while I was growing up? Took him for granted?

“What if he is really flawless?” she asks.

I laugh. “No one is flawless, Eden. He must have flaws too.”

“Like what?”

Like leaving me, I think, but I can’t say it out loud, or it will be real.

When we reach a bend in the road, where the affluent neighborhoods begin, she stops walking. There are no houses in sight yet, just a huge church property and a park.

“I’m a block down from here,” she says. “Thank you.”

“You don’t want me to see which house is yours, right? Scared you’ll find me climbing into your window at two a.m. tonight?”

She shivers, and I think I do too.

“What, you don’t think I’d do it?” I ask jokingly.

“I know you would,” she replies in the same tone.

But then she looks up, and her eyes are an ocean of pain and longing. She licks her lips, and then says only three words:

“I am terrified.”

I duck my head, smile awkwardly.

I’m guessing she is thinking of her overbearing asshat dad, but I am trembling for a completely different reason. I can’t stop thinking about me climbing into her room, finding her in bed, waking her up and—

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