Page 101 of The Way I Used to Be
He smiles an equally exhausted smile at me. “I think we both probably need a little rest. We could go to my house. My parents are already at work. Just to sleep, I promise,” he adds. “Then we’ll figure out what to do, okay?”
“I SEE THEY PAINTEDyour room,” I say, standing in the middle of my own personalized twilight zone. I sit down on the edge of his bed and unlace my boots.
“Oh yeah, I forgot they did that. So, you can have the bed. I’ll just go crash on the couch or something,” he says, fidgeting in the doorway.
“Oh.” I shouldn’t be disappointed. I shouldn’t be surprised. “Yeah, sure.” But I am.
“Is that not—I mean—well, is that okay?”
“I don’t know, I was kind of thinking you might stay with me, but if you’re not comfortable—I mean, I could take the couch, too, if you want.”
“No, I’ll stay,” he says, entering his room cautiously.
Awkwardly, we lie down next to each other, neither of us wanting to point out the obvious clumsiness of the situation. Side by side we stare at the ceiling. The lightning bolt crack is still there, exactly as I remembered it. I turn my head to look at him and my body moves on its own, its muscles having long ago memorized this routine. He tenses when I place my hand on his chest.
“Sorry, can I?” I ask, realizing that while in my mind we are still intact, in reality I no longer have permission to do this, to touch him. At all.
“Yeah,” he whispers. I watch his throat move as he swallows hard. He’s nervous. He’s probably worried I’m going to try something. I’m a little worried about that too.
I lay my head in its old spot.
And I fall asleep easy, so easy somehow.
I’m facing the other way when I wake up. Josh—Joshua Miller—is spooning me. I press my face into the pillow and breathe it in—it smells so clean, like him, like his sheets and clothes and skin always smelled. With his body molded to mine like this, I get the feeling that his arms are the only thing holding these broken pieces of me together. And I don’t ever want him to let go.
I feel him press his face into my hair and kiss.
I close my eyes. Want to freeze this moment, want to stay just like this, and never have to do or think or feel or be anything else at all. His hands seem to move purposefully. I shouldn’t turn my head, shouldn’t twist my body around to face him, but I do. And his mouth finds my mouth. The warmth of his body is something I could never remember properly—that is something that has to be felt, in the present.
“I miss you,” he whispers, his lips moving against mine.
“I miss you, too,” I echo.
“Eden, it could work this time,” he says softly, inching his face away so we can look at each other, brushing my hair behind my ear. “I know it could. We could make it work.”
I start to nod. Start to smile. But “this time”—“this time,” he said. I don’t want it to be this time, though; I just want it to be then. I just want to go back. I want to start over and not become who I became. “This time”—those two words like a one-two punch in the gut.
“Your girlfriend,” I remind him. And myself.
“I know, I know,” he whispers, closing his eyes like it hurts to even think about having to hurt her. “But I love you, I still love you,” he whispers, coming in to kiss me again.
I feel my hands push against him. “I can’t. You can’t either. You’d hate yourself for it and I don’t want to be the reason you hate yourself. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I can’t just keep hurting people.”
“I know, but—” He holds on tighter. I feel like I might fall apart if he lets go, if I make him let go. “All I ever wanted was for you to let me know you—and now you are....”
His hands, his arms, can hold the pieces in place temporarily, maybe even for a long time, but he can never truly put them back together. That’s not his job. He’s not the hero and he’s not the enemy and he’s not a god. He’s just a boy. And I’m just a girl, a girl who needs to pick up her own pieces and put them back together herself.
I sit up. Out of his arms, I’m still here. I didn’t crumble to dust. I let my back rest against the headboard. I stare at my hands—these steady, capable things—capableofthings. I try to figure out why everything suddenly feels different. Lighter. Why I feel like, for once in my life, I might really have some control over what happens next. That things will happen next, instead of this perpetual nightmarish loop my life seems to be cycling.
He sits up too and moves next to me, waiting for me to say something. Waiting for me to explain what the hell is going on. I look at him and it’s like the first time I’m really seeing him.
He looks puzzled. “What is it?”
“I always thought that somehow you’d be the one to save me, you know, all along, all those years ago, even. I think that’s why I called. Maybe I wanted this to happen. I wanted you to come and, you know, rescue me or whatever.”
“So let me,” he says, like it’s easy, like it’s possible.
“You can’t, though. Nobody can.”
