Page 67 of Ominous: Part 1
But I don’t think it’s becauseshe’seasy. Not in the sexual way, although that’s probably true too, the way she flinches when anyone gets too close. No. She’s not easy in a more complicated way. Slipping into her head, touching her heart, those things sometimes don’t take much effort with people. At Trafalgar, as we’ve moved through our grades and gotten older, we want to be wanted.We want to be loved.
I don’t think Eden is any different, but she doesn’t believe she deserves love, and she doesn’t trust anyone who thinks otherwise. Low self-esteem doesn’t quite cover it.
It’s a self-loathing so intense, the idea that anyone could be interested in her,the real her, is unfathomable. She throws up a shield in her demeanor, her clothes, her attitude, to keep everyone away.
She is a mess, she’s decided, and no one wants a mess. Not a real one. Not an unromanticized version of one.
Flared tempers and tension-filled fights can be appealing.Dreamy. Passionate.
Haunted memories, waking up in a cold sweat because they infected your dreams, remembering you have no future because you live with a brain which hates you, imagining someone you love walking out, over and over and over…
Therapists. Medications. Psychiatrists. Studies.
Blood on your hands.
No one wants that.
No one wants the reality of mental illness.
No one wants to be the recipient of one of those disorders with no cure, no treatment, no understanding. Those are the type of things people write angry blog posts about. Self-publish books on how to avoid people just like that.
Just like me.
Five Signs of a Sociopath: Run, Don’t Walk.
I curl my fingers into a fist between us, sweeping my gaze over the bow of her lips. I want to kiss her. I want to touch her. I want tofuck her.
I want her to want every second of it.
Rolling onto my back, I exhale, reaching my hand down to run my palm over my aching dick. I shift as close to her as I can get, my shoulder bumping her elbow, we’re sharing the same pillow.
Even this feels like crossing a line, but it’s the least bad thing I could do.
15
Eden
I forcea fake smile as I listen to my dad and wonder if I’m looking into my future.
A few days ago, waking up in Eli’s bed and panicking for a moment, forgetting most of the night before—then I saw how disarming he was in his sleep, and it soothed something in me—I hadn’t been thinking aboutthisbeing in my future. The choppy, irregular visit with my dad that occurs approximately once or twice a year, more if both of us are unlucky.
My fingers are linked together between my knees as I sit on his brown leather couch, saggy from years of use, probably with other families, other bachelors, other lives.
Clave Belle is tall, as is my mom, his ex-wife, Lucy. I know I was stunted from my grandmother, on Dad’s side. Named after her too, although like Mom, I kept my maternal grandma’s maiden name, like a compromise between my two unwilling parents.
Eden Arella Rain.
Arella Belle shot herself twice in the head with a rifle before I was born. Before I was even a thought, when my dad was twelve years old.
The family consensus is she could’ve been bipolar, but mental health wasn’t really athingin this part of the state, during that time. I think of the offer for a therapist my mom extended, and I refused.
I feel a little guilty.
“Anyway, I just couldn’t support it, so I switched tickets.”
Political parties. He’s talking about political parties,I remind myself.
I nod politely. I’m not sure what he’s not supporting anymore. I tuned out of that part of the conversation. I’m dying to get out of here, but I don’t move.
