Page 106 of The Way I Am Now
But she’s with me on the roof a few minutes later. She comes and stands next to me at the railing where I’m looking out over campus, trying to process what has just happened. The wind blows, and she steps closer to me. When I look at her, I see that she’s wearing my gray T-shirt again, the one with the hole in the collar, and a pair of my boxers. She’s shivering as she places her hand on my arm.
“I’m sorry,” she says again. “It’s just that it felt like things were going back to normal. I thought it would be okay. Or, I don’t know, I guess maybe I wasn’t thinking. But it’ll be fine, Josh. I’ve taken plan B before, and everything was fine.”
I turn to face her now. “With me?”
“N-no,” she stutters, and looks down. “You’re not really mad, are you?”
“Yes, Eden. I really am mad.”
“It was an accident,” she argues.
“No, it wasn’t!”
She pauses. I can see her thinking through something. . . . God, why couldn’t she have thought it through this carefully last night? Hot anger rises to the surface now, almost matching my fear. “Well, okay, then it was a mistake. But can I point out that if anyone should be freaking out right now, shouldn’t it really be me?”
“You know what?” I begin, trying to channel some of my dad’s calmness, borrowing one of his lines. “Can you please just give me a little space?”
“Are you serious right now?” she shouts.
“Yeah, I’m serious.”
Her hair blows across her face, so I can’t tell what kind of look she’s giving me. But she turns and walks toward the door. “You’re coming back, though, right?” she calls to me.
I didn’t answer her and I didn’t come back. I went to my own bed instead. I tried to go to sleep but couldn’t. So now it’s 6:45 a.m., and I’m waiting outside the pharmacy before it even opens. What’s amazing to me is how much angrier I’m getting as each minute goes by. I’m not calming down at all; I’m just getting more amped up.
We’ve always been so careful. I’m not the guy who’s careless or has accidents or makes mistakes. I trusted her with this—thatwas my mistake. Walking up to the register, I feel so ashamed, I grab a bottle of water just to have something else in my hands.
I go directly to her apartment and knock on the door. Parker answers with an eye mask pushed up on her forehead, face all scrunched, one eye closed. All she says is “I hate you.”
Eden is sitting up in her bed when I walk in, arms wrapped around her knees. She stands and rushes over to me as I close the door. When I turn around, she’s there with her arms open, but I can’t.
“Here.” I push the plastic bag into her hands instead.
“What’s this?” She peeks inside and brings the bag back over to her bed. “I would’ve taken care of this myself, you know.”
“No, I don’t actually know that. I don’t know anything.” I’m pacing back and forth in her tiny room. “Please just take the damn pill. I’m not fucking around.”
“Josh, I don’t understand why you’re so mad. It’s going to be fine.”
“How do you not understand why I’m so mad?” I snap.
She scoffs as she takes the box and the bottle of water out of the bag. “So, what, you’re just going to stand there and watch me take it?”
“Please just do it.”
Her hands are shaking as she peels open the box and takes the pill out of the packaging. I reach over to open the water bottle for her. She sets the pill on her tongue and mumbles as she takes the water from me, “Well, you thought of everything.” She looks me in the eye while she swallows. Then she wipes the water from her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Thank you,” I say, and sit down on the edge of her bed, waiting for the relief to come. But it doesn’t.
“I almost didn’t even tell you,” she says. “But I wanted to be honest.”
“A little late for that.” My words are mean. I can taste the meanness in my mouth, but I can’t hold them back.
“Why are you being like this?”
“Why didn’t you stop me? Did you think Iwouldn’tstop?”
“No, I just—”
