Page 40 of Haunt Me

“Yeah, something happened, Eden. I found Dad’s winter hat among my things.”

“Oh.” She waits for me to take my time.

“A thread has come lose and it’s unsalvageable. Useless. No one can ever wear it again. I can’t wear it. He can’t either, well, of course he can’t. I just… it broke me to see it like that. Stupid, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Discovering it like that, destroyed… it was as if my dad died all over again. If I had just found it, and it was in perfect condition, it would feel, I don’t know, it would feel as if he wasn’t really gone. As if he could come back to wear it any day now. But suddenly his hat is gone, and it made it even more real that he is gone too. He’s not coming back for his hat, Eden. He’s not coming back. He’s not coming back.”

I’m crying.

I don’t realize how it happened, but suddenly Eden is taking my hands in hers, warming my frozen fingers, prying my dad’s ruined hat out of them. She is crying too.

“He’s not coming back for his hat, is he?” I ask her.

“No, he’s not,” she says, “he’s not, Isaiah. But you are here. And I am here with you.”

I hold onto her hands so hard her knuckles turn white, but she doesn’t let go.

“Don’t let go,” I whisper, closing my eyes.

“Ok.”

“I love you,” I whisper. I don’t think she hears me—I barely have enough breath left in me to make a sound. She doesn’t reply, which is just as well. Then, I remember something. “Did I tell you that I am addicted to saving you?”

“You did.”

“Sorry. But I am, it’s true.”

“Erm… All right?”

“It’s strange, you saving me,” I try to explain.

“Don’t get addicted to that too,” she says dryly, making me laugh. It hurts. “You took five years off my life today.”

“Too late. I already am addicted.”

“Drama queen.”

“Always.” I try to catch my breath some more. “It’s your fault,” I tell her when I’m—mostly—back to normal.

She just raises an eyebrow.

“When I’m with you, I feel ok,” I explain. “So ok that I forgot he was gone for a second. And then it hit me all over.”

“I’m not sorry I made you forget,” she says in that calm, intense way of hers. “I have been trying to since the day we met.”

“You have? But you didn’t know I had,” I gesture, “all this crap going on.”

“I knew you were sad,” she shrugs. “I wanted to chase it away.”

I hug her then. I pull her to me with my arm around her shoulders, and she lets me fold her to my chest. I press her face into my neck and breathe into her hair.

We stay like that for an entire minute. An eternity.

That is the first time I don’t kiss her. I fight myself, and I win. For now. I don’t know how long I will last, but this time, I don’t kiss her.

She’ll never know what it took out of me.

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