Page 41 of The Way I Am Now
There’s a silence that I feel it’s my turn to fill.
“I’ve gotta be honest, it was hard to see you with another guy. But more than that—I just felt like maybe I should try to leave you alone.”
“No,” she says, squeezing my hands in hers. “I would never want you to leave me alone.”
“Well, I thought, if you’ve moved on, I should try to do the same, and maybe that would make things easier or—”
“IfI’vemoved on,” she repeats, her voice turning harder now as she lets go of my hands. “You’re the one who has a serious girlfriend.”
I shake my head as she speaks. “No, I don’t. That’s not—it’s been over for a while.”
“What?”
“It’s over,” I repeat.
“Since when?”
“Since I came to see you that night. In December. She wasn’t actually okay with it.”
“You lied to me?”
“Yes,” I admit. She nods slowly, and I watch as she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and then looks at her hands in her lap, her hair hanging down over her face. I angle my head to try to see her expression, but she brings her hand up to her forehead like she’s shielding her eyes from the sun. “Eden?” I reach out and raise her chin until I can see her face . . .smiling.
“Oh, don’t look so broken up about it,” I joke.
She looks up now and covers her mouth. “No, I’m sorry. I’m not smiling,” she says, but she’s losing her voice as she muffles a laugh.
“No, you’re laughing!” Which only makes me start laughing too because it’s so absurd. “What’s so funny?”
“No, nothing—I’m sorry!” She bats her hand at my arm. “Stop it,” she demands, but then she cracks up all over again.
“Youstop.” Her laugh is a drug. “You’re the one laughing at me.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m laughing. I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I’m not laughing at you, I promise.”
“No, don’t worry. It’s okay,” I tease. “It’s just my heart.”
“Oh my God,” she sighs, pulling herself together. “I’m the worst.”
I nod, pretending to agree, stopping myself from saying,No, you’re the best.
When we finally stop laughing, we’ve somehow drawn even closer to each other. “It’s just that I’ve been obsessing about you and this, like,dream girl, and now . . .” She shakes her head for a moment and then looks at me so intensely, her cheeks flushed.
“What?” I ask her.
“I do care about your heart, you know.” She reaches out and lets her hand hover over the center of my chest, her fingers barely touching my shirt. “A lot, actually.”
I cover her hand with mine, pressing it flat against my chest. We’re so close now, and I wonder if she can feel my heart pounding through my shirt. She inches toward me and touches my face with her other hand, the way she had the night of the concert, so softly. I turn my head and kiss her palm, and as her hand moves down to my neck, she pulls herself closer to me. She leans in and presses her lips to my cheek for a moment before pulling back to look at me. Her other hand tightens around the fabric of my shirt, and her eyes dip down to focus on my mouth. I watch as she takes this tiny sip of air—God, I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten this detail. It used to get me every time, the way she’d always take that little breath right before she kissed me. I close my eyes, and I can feel the warmth of her mouth, our lips nearly touching.
I can barely catch my breath—because this is happening— but then, as I wait for her to close this impossibly small distance between us, her hand loosens its grip on my shirt and presses against my chest now. I open my eyes to see her backing away.
EDEN
I am two people right now. The first one wants to throw herself into this, into him. Her tunnel vision is focused only on how good it will feel, how right, how pure and honest. But the second girl? She doesn’t see him at all, really. She has X-ray vision. For her, the room is so cluttered with all the things that have happened here, he’s barely even there. She sees beyond the freshly painted walls and the new furniture and the clean linens and everything in perfect monochrome order, all the scars hiding underneath.
One of us pulls him closer, the other one pushes him away, and I hate them both because neither of them feels likeme.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe.
