Page 99 of The Way I Am Now
He pulls me closer, kisses my hair, and whispers, “I love you.”
And for nine blissful minutes, things feel okay.
But then the alarm blares again.
He sighs. “I gotta get up, baby.”
I watch him as he gets out of bed and turns my lamp on. He reaches into his bag for clothes, and even as he takes his shirt off, I notice he’s keeping his back to me. “Josh?”
“Yeah?” he answers, still turned away.
I get out of bed and step around to the front of him. He quickly picks up a pair of joggers and sort of holds them in front of his body like he’s trying to cover himself.
“What are you doing?” I ask, reaching for the pants.
“Eden, don’t—” he says, but then lets go of them.
And then I see what he’s hiding.
“Oh my God,” I mumble, my hand over my mouth. “Did I—” I swallow hard. I feel the tears already swelling up under my eyes as they take in the dark purple bruises all over his arms, chest, stomach, even his legs. “Did I do this to you?”
“Come here come here come here,” he says, pulling me in and holding me tight. “Shh, it’s not your fault, okay? I’m fine.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head back and forth. Because this looks too familiar, the bruises up and down his body, just like my own bruises the next morning. I reach for my chair and have to sit down because my legs feel weak.
“Please look at me.” He kneels on the floor in front of me. “You had no idea what was happening, okay? You weren’t here; you were there.”
I slide down to the floor too, touch the bruises. “What did I do?”
“You were just trying to get away from me—from him, I mean,” he explains, but I still can’t believe it.
“How could I have done all this?” I say out loud. But the other part of the sentence that I don’t say out loud is: How could I have done all this to him, my love, the one person I feel safe with, when I couldn’t do anything to defend myself against Kevin that night? And then I realize the difference, as he watches me with those soft, dark eyes. Josh wasn’t fighting me off. He was just taking it.
“I grabbed you. I was trying to help, but I didn’t know what to do, Eden. So, I grabbed you because I . . .” He let his hands float down my arms, to these reddish-purple rings around the forearm on my right side and my wrist on the left. “Eden, I swear I didn’t mean to hurt you. You were falling, and I was afraid you were gonna hurt yourself, and I know I made it worse.” He looks at me, his eyes filling with tears now. “I’m so sorry,” he belts out quickly as he hunches forward and covers his face with his hands.
“No, I’m sorry, Josh. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry,” I tell him over and over. I pull him toward me, and I know I will never forgive myself for this. We collapse onto the floor in each other’s arms, both of us crying now. “I’m trying, I swear,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says. “I am too.”
JOSH
It was just a week ago we were in my room dancing to no music, celebrating, and now I’m here on the floor, afraid that I’m losing her all over again.
We stay like this, tangled up in each other, for so long the sun comes up.
“Josh?” she finally says, repositioning herself so she’s sitting with her back against the side of the bed.
I sit up straighter too, and she starts touching my face so gently, the only thing I want to do is crawl back into bed with her and sleep this all off.
“I want you to know,” she begins. “I’m going to tell Parker about the trial and everything. I can’t stand her thinking even for one second that you would do something to hurt me. I’ll explain it all to her, okay?”
“You don’t have to do that,” I tell her. “Not on my account. Really.”
“No, I’ve wanted to tell her for a while, anyway. I just couldn’t find the right time—but this is the right time, I know.”
“Only if it’s what you want to do.”
“It is.”
