Page 127 of The Way I Am Now
I take her hand in mine now. “Thank you for understanding. You always understand. It’s your superpower,” I tell her, and she looks down at our hands, that shy smile. “I think I understand, too, a little better anyway, about why it all happened the way it did. And I never meant to hurt you with what I said to you that night.”
“This is you,” she says, looking up at me.
“What?”
“That’s what you said.This is you. This—the whole messed-up situation—isme.”
God, it sounds even worse when she says it like that. “That’s what I said, but you have to know that’s not true. I mean, I didn’t even believe it when I was saying it, and I don’t believe it now, either. I swear to you, I never thought that. I would never think that about you. Not ever. I need you to know this.”
She looks down at our hands again, and I can see her starting to breathe heavily, sniffing through her nose. Then she sets her mug on the ground, and I start to get afraid that she’s going to leave, but then she takes my mug too and sets it down next to hers. She puts her arms around me, and I can feel her body shuddering, her head tucked under my chin. And I just hold her like that, everyone else around us disappearing.
“Thank you,” she finally says as she pulls away from me. Her hair gets stuck on my beard-not-stubble, and I tuck it back behind her ear. “I guess I didn’t even know how badly I needed to hear that.”
She brings her hands up to her face to wipe her eyes, and I see something there on her arm, poking out from under her jacket. She brings her hand up again to run her fingers through her hair, and I know for sure I see something.
“What is this?” I ask her as I take her hand again and turn it over.
“Oh.” She pulls her sleeve up. “Yeah, I got a tattoo,” she says with a sniffle and a laugh.
“A dandelion?” My heart starts racing. Because. Dandelions. That wasourthing. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
“Does it mean something?” I dare myself to ask.
She breathes in through her nose, gazes out, beyond all the people that are gathered here on the roof, and says, “Well, I guess it’s about being free. And strong.”
“I like that—it’s perfect.”
“And you too,” she adds, quieter.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s sort of about you, too,” she says, making my pulse quicken again. “Just a reminder to”—she breathes in deeply again and exhales before continuing—“to try to be the kind of person you think I am.”
“What kind of person is that?”
“I don’t know, someone who’s resilient instead of destructive. Hopeful instead of . . . you know, feeling doomed or powerless or whatever. Brave,” she adds.
“That’s not the kind of person Ithinkyou are. That’s the way you really are, Eden.”
“I’m trying to be.”
I bring her wrist to my mouth and kiss that spot where the dandelion is. She touches my face again. And I can’t resist the urge; I turn my head to kiss her palm now, that spot where she burned herself. Her fingers go to my lips.
“I really want to kiss you,” she says, “but I’m not going to, okay?”
“Oh, okay,” I answer.
“I want us to keep talking.” She takes hold of both my hands. “I want us to be friends again.”
I nod. “I want that too.”
“But just friends for now. Because I’m still not ready to—”
“No, I understand. Really, I do.”
“So, you’d be all right with that?” she asks. “You can do that?”
