Page 82 of Haunt Me

It was not my most intelligent moment there, it’s true. But it shocks me, how much weight she has lost. Was no one feeding her while I was away? I try to push the sudden fury down.

She shrugs.

“Don’t you shrug at me. I lost my mind over you all summer, I lost—” I gasp and crush her against my chest.That is over now.“I can’t lose you again. I won’t survive.”

“Yes, you said that already,” she observes. Gosh, I missed her abrupt way to putting things. It’s just not the same over text.

“You’ve lost weight.” I repeat.

“So have you.”

She is probably right. “I have lost my damn mind,” I murmur. “Wait, why are you smiling?”

“Because it’s not as if your mind was worth anything to begin with.”

I throw my head back laughing, and then, suddenly, quickly, I bend down and kiss her. I’ve grown a head taller and I have to bend down lower than before. She has grown too. Everything is new. Herbody has curves that weren’t there before, and her shape is new and…

And I need to control myself. I promise myself that I am going to cut my own hand off before it does things it’s not allowed to do.

“I won’t be apart from you ever again, do you hear?” I say. “No matter what happens this year. I need to take you home to meet my mom, and I need to meet your dad too.” She shivers at this, but I am determined. “I’m not living through that hell again, I mean it, Eden. This needs to be out in the open. I’ll be eighteen soon. I need to be able to drive back here from Harvard as often as possible.”

“I thought you promised your grandpa you’d go to Yale.”

“I am not leaving you,” I shake my head. “That was… it was before I met you. Now I’ll just take the early acceptance at Harvard, and I’ll be four hours away from you.”

She pulls away. “I won’t—I’m not worth making your decisions for, Isaiah. No girl should be. It’s not…”

I interrupt her.

“Whatever you’re about to say, stop saying it right now.” She looks up at me, her eyes wide, and I don’t care how scary I look right now. I am scary. Scary and desperate. “I’m sorry. Let’s just sit here for a while, ok?” I try to calm down. “I haven’t nearly kissed you enough yet.”

So we continue doing what we have been doing for the past hour. Melting in each other’s arms.

…

In the months that follow, I fall completely behind in my lessons, but I don’t even notice. My teenage hormone-riddled body is single-minded. All I want is to be with her, and once I am with her, she has my full attention.

When I am in class, I think about her, and when I am in my room, about to fall asleep, I text her. Nothing else holds my interest. My professors try to tell me that the race is not over just because I got in early, that I can still apply to Yale to have options, and that I have to keep my grades up if I actually want to get in anywhere, but I can’t bring myself to care.

Then one day, Eden asks me how on earth I am able to spend so much time with her and still be on top of my homework. I go all red and give her some stupid excuse that she effortlessly sees through. She insists that I bring my lessons to the woods, so I do.

And, what’s more, I start studying again. She makes me.

It takes me less than a week to catch up with the other students, but she doesn’t let me off the hook.

“If it’s so easy for you to get A’s,” she says, “I don’t see why you can’t keep it up.”

I sigh deeply, but I see what she means. I can’t get lazy just because I’m happy.

I’m happy.

Look at that.

…

By the time the next spring comes around, Eden is almost seventeen and I am well on my way to graduate with honors, and, thanks to her, I haven’t given up on my music either. If anything, I have been composing little melodies, which, to be honest, fulfills me more than studying ever will.

I wake up every day and I don’t have to fight for survival. Instead, I am beginning to get used to this light, happy feeling that’s fluttering inside my heart. It still hasn’t settled. It’s still struggling to win against the darkness, but for the very first time in months, I am acquainted with something new: Hope.

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