Page 104 of The Way I Am Now
I see it in her face—she turns pale, and her eyes sort of get this faraway stare for only a moment. I’ve come to recognize this look. It means she must’ve left after what happened, because of what happened. It passes quickly, and she nods and smiles but reaches for my hand under the table.
Thankfully Dominic joins in just then.
“Wait a second,” he says. “I thought flute and clarinet were the same thing?”
Eden and Luke exchange a look, as if that’s the craziest thing they’ve ever heard, and start laughing hysterically.
Luke shakes his head, leans over, and kisses Dominic’s cheek. Then says, “No, honey. They’re not the same thing.”
I bring her hand up onto the tabletop now and squeeze once before letting go. As she opens her hand, I can see that the pink scars from her burn are almost invisible now.
We’re the first to leave. On the walk home, I look over to see her smiling. Not at me, just smiling.
“It seemed like you had a good time tonight.”
“I actually did,” she says. “I like Luke. Do you know I literally never once spoke to him in school; isn’t it weird how things can change?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Um, so listen, I wanted to float something by you,” I begin.
“Okay, this sounds serious,” she says, slowing her pace as she glances up at me.
“Serious? I don’t know.” I shrug. “Not really. My parents wanted me to invite you for Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, wow,” she says. “Meeting the parents. That is serious.”
“Is it?” I ask—I thought it was too, but I didn’t want to make a big deal of it. “It seems like it’s the right time, doesn’t it?”
She looks down and smiles.
“So, is that a yes?”
“Yes,” she answers, nodding. But then she lets out this small laugh.
“What?”
“You do know that you once told me that you’d never let me meet your parents, don’t you?”
“Isaid that?”
“Yeah. It was during that same conversation when I was beingso honestand told you I didn’t want to be your cheerleader or your girlfriend or anything like that.”
I think back and do sort of remember saying that now. But I was particularly furious at my parents then; they were trying to hide my dad’s latest relapse from me. I felt like I couldn’t trust them, and I was so done with their shit by the time I met Eden, I didn’t want them involved in anything that could potentially become important to me.
“Like you said, things change.”
Back in her room, the towel is still lying twisted on the bed from earlier. We don’t even talk about it; we just start taking our clothes off. We don’t need to talk about it. It feels so right, like all the distance and sadness and fear of the past month was never even real.
She doesn’t stop kissing me the whole time. We’re so close, all harmony and rhythm and connection like it was all the time before that one horrible, terrifying night. Breathless, she says my name at one point. I think she’s just saying it at first, but then a few seconds later she says it again. “Josh, I . . . ,” she starts, and she holds my face, looks so deep into my eyes but doesn’t say anything else.
“Yeah?” I ask her, pausing to listen.
But she shakes her head and smiles, whispers, “I love you.”
I say it back. Over and over, I say it back.
I fall asleep so easily, with my head resting on her stomach, my hand on her hip, her arms wrapped around me. I can’t remember a time when I ever felt more at peace, more okay with my life than I do right now, my body rising and falling with her breath.
I wake up in the early hours of the morning and stretch, rolling out of her arms. She’s lying next to me, staring straight up at the ceiling. “Hey,” I whisper. But she doesn’t move or respond. I prop myself up and look at her more closely. Her eyes are wide open, unblinking. I have this intense flush of adrenaline punch through my whole body. Because there’s no life behind her eyes. She looks . . .dead. I grasp her arm now and say her name, louder. She blinks a few times, then turns to look at me. She’s back to life.
