Page 51 of Haunt Me

F: What new thing are you ‘trying’ this time?

Eden: You’ll laugh.

F: I will. You still have to tell me.

Eden: Poetry.

F:‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep…’

Eden: I love this poem.

Eden: I want to write things like that.

F: So, write them.

Eden: That’s stupid, I’m not a poet.

F: Neither was Robert Frost before he wrote his first poem. Try writing one.

Eden: I don’t know the first thing about writing.

F: Yet you have been writing all this time. To me.

thirteen

The winter goes on agonizingly slow, and I split my time between school and the woods. School is torture. But the woods are where I find her: the woods are where I can breathe. And that’s how I survive.

On a random Tuesday, my phone pings in the middle of class, which never happens. I’m technically not allowed to have my phone in class, but I of course have it on me at all times. It’s never happened and I doubt it ever will, but if Mom or James suddenly need me the way I need them, I don’t want to miss it.

Of course, whenever I need them, I never call or text them.

But they might be braver than me. I glance at my phone, eyebrows meeting, and the minute I see who it is, I go full-on panic mode.

“Eden,” I murmur.

The phone’s screen goes black. It goes to voicemail after ringing only once. My stomach sinks to my shoes. Something is horribly wrong, or she wouldn’t have dialed my number, let alone let it ring.

I run out of the classroom and call her back, not caring about the consequences. Steps sound behind me—a teacher or a friend coming after me; I just keep running.

“Eden! Eden, what’s wrong?” I ask, breathing in deeply when she answers.

“I… I don’t know where I am.”

My blood runs cold. She sounds so scared.

“You…Are you hurt?”

“Not yet.”

Jesus.What does that mean?

“What’s wrong?”

I’m already out the door, running down the hallway, before she starts explaining in this small, trembling voice. When I begin to understand what she is saying to me, I stumble and fall with a thud to my knees, hearing bone cracking as I land in a heap.

But there is literally no time to fall apart. Every single second counts.

I pick myself up and run blindly to the parking lot.

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