Page 31 of The Way I Am Now
He sighs and squeezes my shoulder, holding the space for those words to exist for a minute. “Well, it sounds like you’re going to have to find a way to really move on, bud. A different way than this,” he says, gesturing all around us—this, meaning hungover and half-dead on the bathroom floor.
“Yeah,” I agree.
“Grab a shower. Drink some water. Take a nap.” Dad pats my back again as he stands. “You’re gonna be okay, I promise.” And he leaves me in the bathroom, closing the door gently behind him. “I’ll find your phone,” he calls to me from the hall.
EDEN
I wait until I’m out of the shower, in clean clothes, sitting at my desk in my bedroom, calm and collected, before I finally look at his texts.
It was nice to run into you tonight. I’ve
missed talking to you.
I’m sorry if I made things weird with your
boyfriend. He seemed pretty pissed. I
hope he understood . . . the way things
are between us. Do you want me to tell
him there’s nothing going on? I will if you
need me to. I just want you to be happy
Can I see you again before I head back to
school?
I’ve missed talking with you too
You didn’t make things weird, they just . . .
were
Tell me when/where. I’ll be there.
I wait an hour. I even call. I wait another thirty minutes. As I’m walking up to his house, I’m going over all the times I’ve done this before. In the dark. In the cold. Their house never changes. His cat darts off the porch as I approach, prancing down the steps like she was expecting me. When I reach down to pet her, I see something in the crack between the steps and the shrubbery. And as I get closer, I can tell it’s a phone. I pick it up and turn it over in my hands. Josh’s phone. The screen is cracked; the power is off.
The door swings open before I have the chance to knock.
“Oh!” I yelp, jumping back, nearly dropping Josh’s phone.
“I’m sorry,” the man who is basically an older version of Josh says. I’m momentarily muted as I take in the similarities. Same stature, same build, same facial structure, same eyes. If not for his weathered features or his salt-and-pepper hair, slightly different nose, thisisJosh. “Can I help you?”
“Oh, um, I found this,” I tell him, holding the phone out. “It was lying in the walkway. I texted him, but I guess he didn’t get it. I called, too. Obviously this is why he didn’t answer.” I’m rambling now, and I can’t seem to stop myself. “But I thought maybe I should just come to see him instead. I wasn’t sure how long he’ll be staying in town and didn’t want to miss him.”
“Eden?” he asks, squinting at me as he takes the phone.
“Oh, right. Sorry, yes. I’m Eden.” I fidget as I stand there, getting so nervous—I hadn’t thought about his parents being here on a Saturday morning. Parents tend to hate me. Like they can smell trouble on me, fear that I’ll rub off on their kids.
“Matt,” he offers, pointing at himself, and I immediately think of the time Josh told me his middle name.Joshua Matthew Miller, he’d said, and I thought that sounded like the best name in the world. “The dad,” he adds when I don’t respond.
“Right, of course. Hi,” I say stupidly. “Is, um, is Josh home?”
The door opens wider, and his mom steps forward. I saw her only once before, when she was picking Josh up from school one day, but I immediately see Josh in her too. The same nose, same pretty mouth. But there’s a tightness in her features, a sharpness in her jaw as she meets my eyes.
“This isn’t a good time,” she tells me.
