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“I might have.”
“You wouldn’t have, because it would have been wrong. Instead, I let you think I was good. That I cared. That I really was there because I wanted to make a difference. And I sold you on that too. I made you feel guilty. I basically tricked you into working at the studio just to save my own ass, which was just delaying the inevitable.”
Eden’s hand swept up over Jos’ chin until her thumb pressed against her lower lip. “They don’t realize what they’re giving up. They have never understood the value of you, and so they don’t deserve you.”
Jos wished she could keep lying to Eden the same way she’d lied to everyone else just by living, because that’s what her life had turned into. One giant lie. Instead, when she opened her mouth, the truth came out.
“You’re the first person who has seen me. I grew up in foster care. Everyone knows that. When I was thirteen, I ended up getting adopted. Everyone thought it was a happy ending. It was a nightmare. The father in the household was hardly home. He worked all the time. I don’t think he ever wanted to come home. The mother didn’t work. She was seen as a saint for adopting and fostering all these unwanted kids, but she was cruel. She was all about discipline, but it was the fucked-up kind of thing where what you did was always wrong. That house wasn’t a house of love. It was a house of fear. She’d starve us. Beat us. Whip us with a real fucking whip. She was careful. Just enough that none of us ever had to go to the hospital. She knew where to leave bruises that hurt for weeks but weren’t easy to spot. The hunger was the worst. Sometimes the thirst. She’d punish us with sleep deprivation. It was always pain, pain, pain.
“When I graduated, I wanted to leave it behind me. I’ve never gone back. Never once contacted any of my adopted brothers or sisters. I couldn’t even fucking think about it. I shut it out and I did what I’ve always been good at. I went inside myself to that numb place where I didn’t have to feel or think and that’s how I got through college. That’s how I made a name for myself. All those dangerous places? I wasn’t even aware of where I was half the time, I was so far inside myself. I’ve always been good at lying. Lying to the whole world. But I can’t lie to you. I don’t want to lie to you. You are the first person I have ever wanted to tell the truth to.”
She stopped, aware that Eden’s hand had fallen away from her face. Aware that she was sitting back on the couch, her arms wrapped around herself. She’d frozen her with those awful words. She’d just given her the base facts. Just a few minutes’ worth of a lifetime of pain and sorrow and degradation.
“My birth mom had me for a few years. Until I was four. I hardly remember anything,” Jos went on. She tried to retreat to that place of numbness that was so familiar, and it worked just enough that she could keep talking without being overcome by the feelings that should have matched her words. “I have never, ever in my life been in a position where I can remember being loved. You accused me of being too normal, of that being my sell out point, but it’s what I thought I wanted.”
“Jos, that was stupid. I didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“No, you did. Because normal isn’t what I want. I want to know what it’s like to be loved. I want to love someone. I don’t know if I can. I might be broken, I—”
An anguished cry was wrung from Eden, and she launched herself at Jos. She wrapped her arms around her neck and held her tight, hauling her up against her so fiercely that Jos tumbled forward, and they both nearly fell off the couch. She was shocked at the ferocity of it. The intensity. The way her arms wrapped around Eden, and she realized that her cheeks were wet. Hers. Eden’s. They were both crying.
Eden didn’t have to tell her that she wasn’t broken. She didn’t have to tell her that she forgave her for lying to her. She didn’t have to apologize for what she’d said, or for anything. She didn’t have to do or say anything, because her touch was so much more than enough. They didn’t need words. They needed each other. Jos needed Eden more than she realized it was even possible to need another person. Not just want. Need. Nothing in her life had ever been more important than this moment.
She wanted to change. God, she wanted it. She wanted to open her mouth and instead of all the screams and the pain she’d been keeping contained inside herself for the entirety of her life, she wanted there to be something else. Softness and laughter.
And truth.
Eden was truth.
Eden felt like home.
And she welcomed Jos with her soft touches, a hand soothing gentle circles on her back, the other on her hair, while she turned her face and let her sob against her shoulder. She didn’t just sob. She wept. She wept until she was broken and aching and then there were still more tears to spend.
“I’m right here,” Eden told her. Kept whispering gentle reassurances over and over again.
For once, it wasn’t the numbness, the shutting everything out, that made it tolerable to take a breath. It wasn’t what made it possible to look into Eden’s eyes and the salty tear stains on her cheeks. It wasn’t what made it possible to hold still while Eden cupped her face and kissed her gently. It was feeling it all, unlocking that deluge, that made it possible to respond to that kiss. To come alive.
It took Jos forty-three years to learn what it meant to surrender. She was afraid of it. Of tenderness. Of the one thing she wanted more than anything else. Even just the possibility of love was terrifying. She was broken down now, breaking down, and there was so much more to come. So much more that she had to work on.
This time, she didn’t turn away. She didn’t shut herself off or sink into numbness. She left the crumbled stones of her walls where they were and leaned against Eden. She closed her eyes and let her see everything, every bit, exactly who she was.
Chapter 19
Eden
Eden held Jos until she calmed. She was weeping. Crying like it was the only thing she could do that would force out all the things she’d kept locked up for so long. Eden was afraid Jos would get control of herself and disappear into that place where she couldn’t be reached and that would be it. She’d check out and then she’d leave the apartment.
When Jos first threw herself at her, Eden had been so still, so shocked, afraid that if she twitched even a muscle, Jos would get up and leave and the spell between them would be broken, but it wasn’t true. Jos didn’t want stillness. She didn’t need stillness. What she needed was something real. She needed comfort.
Eden wanted to offer it. To say the right thing, but everything she thought was soaked in horror. It was like being drenched in cold oil, choking and thick. That was Jos’ life. That was her reality. So, for the longest time, Eden said nothing. She just wrapped Jos up in he arms and rocked her, soothing her, because she wanted with all her being to be what Jos needed, and she didn’t know what else to do.
It wasn’t until Jos looked up at her, blinking swollen and red eyes, that she realized she could give her the things she needed more than anything. Tenderness. Compassion. Comfort. The openness of her heart.
“I’m so sorry,” Eden whispered as she smoothed circles over Jos’ shuddering back with her hand. The other she had wrapped around her shoulder while Jos tucked her head there and breathed in shuddering, heart wracking sobs. “I’m sorry I said those things to you. Anything I said. I’m sorry I said that you lost your fire. That I called you a sell out. You did so much good, and I had no way of knowing it was a coping mechanism. That you didn’t feel fear because you wouldn’t allow yourself to, because you’d lived through the worst kind of terror for years. I didn’t realize you had to have a coping mechanism, that you had to train yourself to go so far inside your body that no one could see you or touch you or hurt you. I’m so sorry you had to do that. None of it was your fault. I know you don’t need me to tell you that, but none of it was.”
Eden couldn’t imagine the pain Jos had lived with. The fear. The shame, even. She’d had to banish all those things like it was a past life, like she hadn’t lived it, like she was a different person, because it was the only way she could move forward.
Now it made sense, what she’d said about craving normal. Eden had no idea before then. She still had no idea now what it would be to endure those things.
