Page 68 of Words We Didn't Say

I laughed nervously, rubbing the back of my neck. “H-Hi.” I cringed even as I said it. I wasdefinitelyat risk of screwing up again if that greeting was the best I had to offer.

“At ease, soldier.” Eden’s huge smile eased my nerves…just a bit.

I pulled out her chair and hesitated, stuck on what to do next. Usually, I’d kiss her cheek, but I pulled myself back. We weren’t up to kisses yet. This was our first official date—no,re-date. We weren’t at the beginning. There was even more pressure now—I knew what I was risking if I screwed up.

I settled on saying, “You look crazy beautiful tonight.”

Eden waved away my compliment. “Oh, this old thing.” The edge to her laugh seemed nervous. She sat across from me, smoothing her palms down her thighs to erase the wrinkles in her pink wool dress. I tried to smile at her, but she stared back, not even blinking.

“Should I not have said that?” I touched my hand to her knee under the table.

Eden almost jumped out of her seat. “N-No. It’s, um,nice.” Her eyes lingered on my shirt, her tongue darting out over her lips as her gaze dropped lower.

I touched the spot on the buttons she seemed stuck on and glanced down. Was there a stain, or…?

She grabbed the menu and flicked through the pages. “Did you come from work?”

“Straight out of a settlement and into a taxi,” I said. “What about you?”

She shook her head. “I helped out at the youth centre tonight.”

“The one in Belmore?”

“Yeah, you know it?”

“Sure. I grew up around there. I’m from Campsie, remember? My parents still live there.” I skimmed the menu. French. I couldn’t read a damn word. “I didn’t know you volunteered at the centre until a couple of weeks ago when Mum saw some pics of you. You, um…never mentioned it.”

Eden’s eyes only flitted off the menu for a second. “It’s not something I do to brag about. It’s incredibly personal to me.”

What the hell? We’dlivedtogether. “Obviously.” My tone was sharper than it needed to be. I flipped through the menu, not even reading it, just needing the distraction.

“I—” Eden cleared her throat. “I help there because I feel it’s important to give back to the community that helped me. I didn’t grow up like you, Zach.”

“Poor?” That was how I grew up.

“It doesn’t matter what suburb you live in. No one’s poor when they have a family and a proper home.”

“You didn’t have that?”

“I lived in a house with a man who called himself my father. He didn’t act like one, except when he got the belt out to teach me a lesson or two in manners.” She spoke without any emotion and kept her eyes trained on the menu. “I needed a lot of lessons.”

My heart broke. My family was my haven. They were the people I could count on when I couldn’t rely on anyone else. The people who’d never hurt me. I couldn’t imagine what Eden went through growing up if she didn’t have the same safe space to call home. The way she talked about the abuse was so matter-of-fact. Pain barrelled into my lungs and knocked the breath out of me, but I couldn’t just sit there and say—or do—nothing.

The wooden chair scraped on the floor when I jostled it to sit closer to her. I wanted to hold her. Was I allowed to do that yet? Probably not. Instead, I put my hand back on her knee.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you.” My words seemed meaningless years later. “You…left?”

She nodded. Her fingers curled over my hand, and she squeezed until I thought they might snap off. “I ran away. Andie came too. She’s always right behind.” Eden forced a sad smile. “We lived rough for a couple of years, jumping between different share houses and hostels. It was hard to scrape money together during our apprenticeships, but at least we were living on our own terms. No belts for me. No bigotry for Andie.” She squeezed my hand even tighter. “Anywhere was better than where we came from.”

There had been moments in my life when I’d wanted to lash out, punch a wall, yell, but this was the first time the swirl of so many emotions had paralysed me. That man. Some father. Why hadn’t Eden told me? Another emotion crammed in the fractured gaps.Shame.She hadn’t told me because I’d never listened to the small stuff. A truth like this needed to be heard, never ignored. She hadn’t trusted me…until now.

I dropped my voice to a low whisper. “Is that why you didn’t unpack your boxes? You thought I’d be like your father?”

Tortured eyes lifted to meet mine.

“Is he why you’re too scared to turn all the lights off?”

Eden’s head bobbed up and down, and her chin wobbled.

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