Page 98 of Haunt Me

But I have been to every single one of his concerts so far. I can’t stay away. His pull is too strong. I only hope his fame doesn’t get any bigger—if it does, I know it will swallow me whole. There will be no chance for me to ‘heal’ as the stupid doctors say, with his eyes following me from every single screen in the country.

Yours in complicated trauma,

En.

P.S. Whenyourour dad decides to let you meetthe psychome—or rather, when he can’t contain himself any longer—I think I would love it if you called me ‘En’. You know, abbreviate my name like sisters do. Isn’t that what sisters do? Make names smaller, because they use them all the time? Even if you have never used mine, I think that would be cool.

Eden’s Email

Hi, sisters,

Still a coward—still haven’t met you. Well, I have been in a rehab center, where they are trying to treat the effects of long-term malnutrition on my body, and my severe panic attacks at the same time. Turns out, I can’t sleep, I can barely eat, plus I nearly die every couple of months due to nightmares and panic attacks while I’m asleep. My heart is irreparably damaged, they say.

Fun, right?

At this point, I don’t know when I will get out of here, so I think it might take a bit longer to meet you. Dad is very disappointed about that. But he comes to visit me every weekend, and that is the best therapy.

Shall I bless you with more of updated weirdness since my last email (which I never sent)? I shall.

I have been to more of Issy Woo’s concerts. No, his fame did not stop. Ha. I was suchan idiot, seeing as the guy won a Grammy a few nights ago. What a naïve fool I was, thinking it would blow over. I mean, I know his talent is enormous—I saw it, I heard it. I was there. But he was planning to go to Yale. What the hell happened? (Yes, I can say that word now, and not worry I’ll end up in it. Well, I still worry, it’s ingrained in me. Whatever.)

One of the biggest changes I am still getting used to is my hair. It used to be black for years, but now it’s reddish brown. I am not a ginger per se, even though I do get freckles in the sun. Dad says I haveyourour mom’s hair. He called it red, and I was so happy. My natural hair color is red, but Solomon had been dyeing it black since I was a baby. It makes me shudder to think about him dyeing the hair of a baby black, but I was a baby. Then, I was a child, and I thought I had to endure. By the time I was a teen, I had gotten used to it. I thought it was normal. The smell of the dye still makes me sick though. Growing up, I lovedAnne of Green Gablesbecause she has my real hair color. And she hates it, the idiot. I have wanted to wear my real hair, undyed and naturally curly, for so long. And finally, I can. I LOVE IT.

I am now going to nerd out about Issy Woo’s style of music. Feel free to skip the next bit. I have been listening non-stop to his songs. Some songs are like operettas, then some are indie pop or rock ballads. No one can pin down his style, they say his songs are a new genre by themselves. ‘He is the Elvis of our time, if Verdi had been a member of his band’. That’s a direct quote. A bit too cheesy, but where is the lie?

Now that he’s grownup,IsaiIssy looks different, and also the same. It’s strange to see him wearing all black clothes, but even so, his build stands out. It’s like he is sculpted out of pure muscle—and bitterness. There is something sharp, sour and sad about him that wasn’t there before. As if the grief that tormented him when I first met him has crystallized into this unsmiling, stone-like expression on his gorgeous face. It is the same, yetcompletely unrecognizable. The kindness is gone. The softness, the vulnerability. The humor. There is no emotion there. Just concentrated pain.

I wonder what caused him to change. Me leaving him can’t have had that much of an impact, surely. I don’t flatter myself that I was that important to him—especially given that he has not reached out. No, it must be something else. But he is so private; he doesn’t give interviews, doesn’t say anything about his private life or himself. No one knows anything personal about him. How will I ever find out what’s been hurting him so much?

I first found his songs online (btw, WOW, have youbeenonline? How cool—so many books are onlin—ok, I need to stop) by pure chance, well, theywereeverywhere. My heart just stopped. I recognized his voice from the first syllable, and I stopped the video. But then, I put it back on. And, there he was. I couldn’t believe I had found him. I could have him again, even like this. It felt like the first good thing that had happened after the night of blood and bullets.

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