Page 168 of Haunt Me

“No, we do need. Ineedyou to know—Please don’t be in pain because I kissed other girls. They were far fewer than the tabloids said, and you—” My throat is dry again, making it hard to speak. “You have to know that whoever I was with, I was always looking for you. Everywhere I went, everything I did, every stupid decision I made with every girl who couldn’t even begin to compare to you… I was looking for your lips, your eyes, your hands, your fingers. The way you made me feel. The way you always make me feel. I never found it, not once. I was yours, even then.”

“I didn’t mean to sound bitter, writing about these things,” she says wistfully.

I don’t think she believes what I just told her. I don’t even think she heard me properly, and it’s so frustrating, but I know Eden’s mind is winning right now. At least, the abused part. It won’t always win; its days are numbered. But right now it’s winning, and it’s destroying me.

“You didn’t,” I reply. “You sounded real. I don’t know how people are reading these words and aren’t completely wrecked afterwards. So many must have read them and felt seen.”

“Olivia of Asteria read them,” she says suddenly.

She is still avoiding my eyes, which is making me crazy.‘She is not over you.’But maybe she is, though? I mean, Spencer is a known idiot.

“You know, the Crown Princess?” Eden asks.

“I know who Olivia of Asteria is,” I reply distractedly.

“Yeah. She has asked me to go to Asteria and recite my poems,” she says, still keeping those eyes of hers down. They are the one part of her that is exactly like it used to be.They look like those two autumns we spent together. “I don’t know if I should go. Or if I can do it. What do you think?”

I snap out of my trance. Is she asking my opinion?

“Of course you can do it,” I say. “Of course.” Genuine doubt wrinkles her brow, and I can’t hold myself back any longer. I place my hands on her shoulders and turn her gently.Look at me.My skin is on fire, that familiar white-hot jolt running through me, the one I only feel when I’m touching her. “But do you want to?”

“If it ends up helping someone, even one person, then I want to,” she replies, and I smile.

“That was an Eden reply if there ever was one.”

“What does that mean?” she asks.

“You always want to help everyone,” I shrug. “You always want to save others—even when they don’t deserve it.”

“Everyone deserves help,” she says, sliding down her hand to clasp my fingers. Mine latch on to her hand as if it’s a lifeline. “Everyone needs help, whether they realize it or not.”

“Why are you not looking at me while you’re saying this?” I whisper.

“I can barely look at anything else,” she whispers back and my heart stutters. “But I keep thinking about how Solomon broke your family, your future, and your heart. How he… Because of me.”

Ok, now I really need her to look at me. I tip up her chin with my finger. Her eyes are pools of grief and regret.

“Listen to me, please.” There is so much authority in my voice that she does. “No one broke my heart but me.Ibroke my own heart, Eden. I am the heartbreaker.”

I see the familiar paleness spreading down her cheeks and neck, and I know she’s about to have a panic attack again. I quickly wrap my arm around her waist and bring her body close to my chest. Warming her suddenly cold skin between my hands. Her eyes look into mine, huge, terrified. I will not allow this to happen.

So, I add:

“Until I read your poems, of course. Thentheybroke me.”

The hint of a smile touches her lips. She takes a breath, then another.

“That’s what everyone says,” she says, then her tone changes, goes quiet and serious. “I don’t know the kind of grief you felt at losing your dad and grandfather,” she adds in an emotional voice that literally breaks me in half. “But I did lose someone too. Someone I thought was my dad. I mean… He was all I knew, then. He was…” She can’t continue, and I don’t care who is watching.

I pull her to me fully, bodily, and hide her face in my chest. I hold her against me until she stops crying.

…

We watch the rest of the shoot together, along with everyone else, and after it’s done, Wes and Ari have to go change into dry—not to mention contemporary—clothes.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Wes tells us, “we’ll have dinner together, ok?”

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” I murmur under my breath, and Wes chuckles, winking at me.

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