Page 95 of The Way I Am Now
I glance down. There’s a whole screen full of notifications she’s missed. Texts from me, her brother, Mara, someone named Lane, two missed calls from her mom. And a text from “DA Silverman.” This is the one she opens.
“Sorry.” I kiss her head, close my eyes. “I’m not looking, okay?” I tell her.
“You can.” She tilts the screen toward me. “It’s happening.”
I have news and wanted to make sure
you’re the first to know: we’re going to
trial. Congratulations, you girls did it!
I’ll be in touch when I know more, but
plan for sometime in December, possibly
January. Talk soon.
“Eden, this is really good,” I start, but she clicks the phone off, reaches over me and tosses it onto her desk. She shakes her head and pulls herself against me tighter, tucking her head down so I can’t see her face.
“Eden?” I try to get her to look at me. “Baby?”
She’s clutching my shirt, breathing heavy, sniffling. And then I feel her body start shaking. She’s crying. “I can’t,” she gasps, finally looking up at me, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t do it again.”
I kiss her forehead, try to wipe her tears away. “Yes, you can.”
“No,” she breathes. “I can’t. I really can’t.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, even though I don’t know that for sure. I don’t know if it’s okay or if she’s okay or if it will be okay. But I say it anyway.
She keeps repeating it:I can’t. She says it over and over until it doesn’t even sound like words anymore, just breathing. And then, after what feels like forever, she finally stills, falls silent. I think she’s asleep, but then she says, her voice clear, calm now. “His lawyer asked me if I ever said no.”
I raise my head. “What do you mean?”
“Like he assumed I was given a choice. Like I could choose to say yes or no. And I couldn’t explain that there was nothing to say yes or no to—there wasn’t a chance to say it—but he just kept interrupting me.”
“Fuck,” I say.
“But just because I couldn’t say no doesn’t mean I said yes, either.”
“I know that.”
She kisses me, then touches my face, just looks at me.
“I love you,” I tell her, and I start to worry I’m saying it so much she’s going to stop believing that I mean it.
She smiles and closes her eyes for a moment. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Josh.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Back atcha.”
“It’s sort of scary,” she whispers, like it’s a secret, “how much I need you.”
“Don’t be scared,” I tell her, even though it scares me, too, how much I need her. “You won’t ever have to be without me. I mean, unless you wanted that.”
She looks me in the eye now, holding my face steady in her hands. “I would never want that.”
I wake up to her moaning in her sleep. She’s thrashing. Having a nightmare. “Eden?” I whisper.
“No,” she moans, kicking my leg under the blanket. “No.”
