Page 8 of Haunt Me

Eden: I know! I am giggling, it’s so cool.

Eden: I want to tell you so many things now that we can text each other like normal people.

F:Is that what normal people do, in your opinion?

Eden: I guess.

F:Fine. What do you want to tell me?

Eden: About my books, for one thing. I have no one to talk to about my books.

F:Oh, lord.

F:Fine, books it is. I can’t stop you, since it’s your first day on that phone. But after that, I’m picking the subject.

Eden: Deal.

Eden: So, I’m rereading Jane Eyre.

F: Ugh.

Eden: Yeah, I know. It’s the fifth time this year.

F: I don’t know if ‘fifth time’ or ‘this year’ is the most pathetic part of this sentence. Which part are you reading right now?

Eden: The beginning. About Jane not going for a walk because the rain was too heavy that day.

F: Rain, heavy, no walk. Got it. Why do you have to read it five times this year alone for that?

Eden: I don’t know, it feels comforting. Familiar.

Eden: Also, the way she says it, ‘there was no possibility of taking a walk that day’… It makes me think that she usually went for a walk. Every day. Maybe she went on a walk even in the rain sometimes, you know?

F:Do I know? Do I need to know?

Eden: What must it feel like to walk in the rain? To get soaked all the way through, and to not mind? Is it a good feeling? Is it weird? Does it make you feel alive? That’s what I’ve been wondering.

F:Super interesting.

Eden: Hey, would you stop making fun for a second?

F:Sorry, I’m listening.

F:I’m here.

Eden: Yeah, you’re here. You are the only one who is, you know. (You do know). So, for all your snide remarks, thanks for that.

five

There was once a girl who was lost.

And she met a boy who was lost, and they tried to save each other. And they did save each other, for a little while.

But then they got lost again, and even worse: they lost each other.

I was the lost boy and Eden was the lost girl—but she wasn’t lost in the same sense I was. She wasn’t just sad and bruised by life. She wasn’t just alone like me. No.

She was literally lost.

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