Page 76 of Haunt Me

“Tell me,” she insists, and I sigh.

How can I hide from her when she can read me so well?

“School term ends soon,” I say and she stiffens. “It’s kind of messing with my head, you know? I’ll have to go back home to Boston, and even though I will definitely be driving back here every few days, I’m afraid that I might not…” I close my eyes. “I might not be able to see you every day.”

“Ok, so?”

I hug her more tightly. “So,” I say, “I won’t survive without you.”

“That is still weeks away,” she replies calmly. How can she be so calm? And then I notice her fingers trembling, and I know. She is not calm. She is just strong. “Let’s not waste any of our time together worrying about the summer.” She lifts her lips up to mine.

I lower my head until our mouths meet.

She is right, I think, losing myself in her lips.She is right.

But I turn out to be right as well. Just as abruptly as it had begun, the fairytale ends. Before we know it, summer break is upon us. And I’m not even remotely ready for it.

…

The day I am supposed to drive to Boston, we say our goodbyes and I promise to return the next day, or, worst case scenario, the day after. It already hurts, as if putting that much distance between us will split me in two.

I hold on to her and kiss her until we nearly both suffocate, gulping down our rising desperation.

“I’ll be back here tomorrow,” I tell her. “Or the day after. I’ll come back to you, baby.”

But I don’t.

It turns out that neither my mom or my brother, who is back from Juilliard, can stand to stay in our Boston house. The memories strangle us. That very first night, we can’t sleep a wink. We can barely breathe. So, a few hours after arriving at the house—it is no longer anyone’s home—we’re leaving it again. Before the sun is up, we’re on a plane to Europe.

And that’s how I lose my lifeline.

I lose Eden.

Book Margin

The Book:The Family Bible

Isaiah is gone for summer break.

I am trying to reread this book, trying to find the God Isaiah spoke about.

The God who saves you.

I am trying to find Him in this book, but I can’t.

When I read it, all I can hear is my father’s voice. He’s telling me that every single word, every single verse in this book means that God is mad at me. He indoctrinated this in me since before I could speak. He drilled it in my brain as he fed me my baby formula. I think that the reason I was able to jump out that window, and keep doing it day after day without being caught, was because Father trusted the work he had done.

He trusted his own brainwashing. He trusted the fear he had instilled in me, that it would keep me inside the house. And it did, for fifteen years. What pushed me out? Writing did. On that phone I got for my birthday.

And then, after that, it was Isaiah.

I cannot read this book except through Father’s eyes. He has instilled his every belief into my head, and I can’t escape his voice.Anything I read in this book, I read it in his voice. Father is within this book as well. I won’t find any god here, but Father. He has eclipsed all hope and faith.

I can only read this book through Father’s eyes. His voice, his words, telling me I’m worthless, sinful, that I need to follow all these rules of his in order to atone for my sins. Sins I commit just by breathing. Just by existing. I try to read, but all I see is sin, sin, sin and evil.

I’ll close it now.

I’ll go back to my literature, where I’ll find comfort or at least escape, but I am guessing, little truth.

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