Page 126 of The Way I Am Now
“Um, I guess,” I answer. “Want some?”
She nods, and I scoop a ladleful into one of the mismatched mugs sitting out on the table. “Thank you,” she tells me as she cradles the mug between her hands and brings it to her face to smell.
“I can leave if you want,” I offer.
“No, don’t,” she says. “We can’t keep avoiding each other forever.”
She drifts a few steps away and then looks over at me like I should be following, so I do.
I’m quick to tell her, “I was never avoiding you.”
“Right.” She nods. “Okay, thenIcan’t keep avoiding you.”
She leads us over to the wicker love seat with the flattened cushions, where we’ve sat so many other times together. Except this time it’s not with her on my lap or me leaning on her shoulder. We just sit side by side like two normal people and look at each other.
“I like the beard,” she tells me, adding, “It’s not stubble this time, by the way.”
I laugh—God, it feels good to laugh in her presence.
“So what else is new with you?” she asks. “Besides the beard, not stubble.”
“I quit the team,” I tell her.
“Oh my God, Josh. Okay, that’s big.” She smiles at me like she really does know just how big this is for me. “I knew you could do it.”
“What, be a quitter?” I joke.
She pushes my arm a little, and it’s the best feeling in the world. Then she looks off into the distance for a moment and smiles again, softer now, and says, “I seem to remember a wise young man once told me that just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean it makes you happy.”
I look down at my mug—that was one of the secrets I told her that night at my house, lying on my couch, while we talked all night. “I can’t believe you remember that.”
“Why not? I remember everything you say to me.”
My heart, flying high, suddenly drops to the ground with a splat.
“I am so sorry about what I said to you, Eden.”
“Oh,” she breathes. “No, I didn’t mean—fuck, sorry—I wasn’t talking about that. Really, I was just saying . . . I know basketball has been a huge drain on you for a long time. I wasn’t trying to—we don’t have to get into all that now.”
“Okay. We can, though, if you want. Whenever you want, we can.”
She looks at me in that way she does, that super-serious way that makes my heart pound in my throat. “I mean, I guess we can. If you want?” she asks uncertainly as she looks around us.
“Yeah, I would like to,” I tell her. “A lot.”
She inhales deeply and looks me in the eye. “Well, I finally realized why you were so mad at me,” she begins.
“We don’t have to do this here,” I tell her. “You could come downstairs.”
She laughs, my favorite of her laughs: the quick, semi-loud spontaneous one that she always means. “Let’s just stay right here, okay? I somehow don’t think going to your place is the best idea.”
“Wait, you know that’s not what I meant, right?”
“I know, but come on, Josh. It’sus, after all.”
Now I laugh, but in my head I’m replaying that word—us— over and over. Us. There’s still an us to her. “Okay. Point taken. You were saying . . . ?”
She inhales deeply and starts again. “I just want you to know that I get it now. Why you were so mad. I know that sometimes I don’t respect myself very much, and somehow, that night, it turned into me not respecting you, too, and I never meant for that to happen. I never wanted to hurt you—I never want to hurt you ever again.” She pauses and reaches out to run her hand along my face. “I really am so sorry.”
