Page 99 of The Way I Used to Be
He has the word. It’s out there. He has it—my secret. The truth. I can’t ever take it back now. Can’t lie it away. I close my eyes, wait for him to say it, to say the word, to say something. But he doesn’t. I force my eyes open and I look at him, looking at me. I can’t read his face.
“You—you were—did you—did you tell somebody, did you go to a doctor, I mean—are you okay?” His eyes dart all around me, in a clinical manner, scanning for injuries that aren’t visible.
“No, I never told anybody, and I didn’t go to a doctor, either. And no, I don’t think I’m okay”—my voice falters—“I really don’t.” But no, I can’t cry, not here.
“Eden, I’ll take you. Come on. We can go right now.” He picks up his keys and pushes out his chair like he’s about to get up.
“No, no.” I reach across the table and grab his arm. “It’s—it’s not like it just happened,” I whisper. “It was a long time ago.”
“What?” He pulls his chair back in. “When?”
“Three years ago—almost exactly.”
“Eden, what do you mean?” He’s doing the math in his head, I can tell. “That was before we ever—how did I not know this, Eden? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
I just shake my head. There always seemed to be so many good reasons—excellent reasons, in fact—but sitting here across from him, I can’t think of a single one.
I look around. The Earth is still intact. I’m still alive. The floor didn’t open up and swallow me whole. I haven’t spontaneously combusted. I don’t know what I thought would happen if I told, if I let that that one word exist, but I didn’t expect nothing to happen. Everything is just as it was. No giant meteors collided with the planet and completely wiped out the entire human race. Dishes still clang in the kitchen, the radio still softly hums the oldies station it’s set to, the people around us continue their conversations. My heart, it’s still beating, and my lungs, I test them, in and out, yes, still breathing. And Josh, he’s still sitting here in front of me.
“Eden, who—” he starts.
“Everything still okay?” our waitress asks, suddenly appearing at our table.
“Fine, fine, um, can we just have the check, please?” he asks her.
“Sure. Do you need some boxes?” she asks, looking back and forth between us.
“No, thanks. I’m finished,” Josh says, pushing his nearly untouched plate away from him. The waitress looks confused by his disgusted expression, and then turns to me, her eyes begging us not to give her a hard time about the food.
“No, I’m done too, thanks.” I try to smile at her—we’re not those kinds of customers, I tell her silently. She looks relieved.
“All right, well, thank you.” She fishes around in her apron pocket for a few seconds before she finally sets the slip of paper down on the table. “You two have a great day.”
“Do you wanna leave?” he asks me.
I nod. “Um, yeah, I just—I don’t have any money with me, I’m sorry.”
“Please”—he bats at the air between us—“it’s fine.” His hands are trembling as he pulls two twenties from his wallet and lays them out on the table. I don’t even know if he’s aware of what he’s doing. The waitress is getting an eighteen dollar tip. He’s shaken. As we make our way through the tables, his hand hovers over my shoulder, never quite connecting, like he’s afraid to touch me.
He walks around to the passenger side door to let me in first. He unlocks it but then stands there, staring at nothing.
“Are you okay?” I ask him.
“Eden, I’m so sorry. I should’ve—”
“There’s nothing you could have done, I swear.” But that might be a lie too. He stands there, close to me, and he looks like he doesn’t know what to do. I certainly don’t know what the protocol is either, but I step forward and put my arms around him. He hugs me back. We stay like that for a long time, not saying anything, and I feel like we could stay like this forever and it would still never be long enough.
“Let’s get inside,” he says, finally letting go. He opens the door for me, closes it too. I watch him jog around the front of the car, and I think about how nice it must be to be his girlfriend. His real girlfriend. They’re probably perfect together. She’s probably smart and funny and pretty in this wholesome, natural way. And he probably loves her and gives her thoughtful gifts on her birthdays, and he’s probably met her parents and they probably love him because, well, how could they not, and they’ll probably get married when they graduate and I’m sure they don’t play games or lie to each other. She’s probably the complete antithesis of me.
He turns the car on and cranks the heat. It takes a long time to warm up.
“Eden, have you really never told anyone?” he asks.
I nod.
“Who did it? I mean, do you know who it was?”
“Yeah, I know who it was.”
