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“I just want to be here for you,” he mumbles against my neck. “Please, Zay, let me just be here with you.”
So finally, crumbling to the floor, heaving for breath, I do.
I hadn’t seen Eden as she used to be in four years. I didn’t have more than a handful of pictures of her on my phone anyway, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at them. But now that I saw her, teen Eden, my version of Eden, talking and moving, I am struck again by how this girl feels like home for me. Like she is my home.
Not used to be. Is.
And I have broken her. I have shattered what took her years and an absolutely amazing amount of inner strength, integrity, and mental capacity to survive.
“It’s ok,” Jude croons as he tightens his arms around me, trying to keep me together by sheer force of muscle power. “It’s ok, it’s going to be ok.”
But he knows it, and I know it. It’s not ok.
Not one thing that I watched in that video was ok. And I know how the rest of Eden and Solomon’s story plays out, and here’s the thing: The ending is not ok either. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of ok.
And it’s never going to be ok again.
Eden’s phone
*Voicemail by Lou*Hey, Eden, are you ok? I’ve been looking for you, and Jude said you left. Wanna call me when you have a second? I really hope you’re ok.
*Voicemail by Lou*It’s been three hours and no one can find you. I’m getting scared, Eden. We all are. I can’t lose you, Eden. I… I guess I just never got around to telling you, so I’m telling you now. Do you know how you affect those around you? Jude has changed since he met you. He’s more open, calmer, happier. He used to be a black hole, and now he’s not. And I am a completely different person.
You did that.
You are amazing, Eden.
All the things we did together… You have no idea what they meant to me, do you? The girl’s nights, the take outs, the karaoke in the music room. Baking with the chefs at that hotel in Athens, practicing jumping off the boat. You told me once you’d never done any of those things before, but guess what? Neither have I.
Being sort of famous doesn’t mean you’re not a complete loser.
And I was a loser before I met you. While you are a warrior.
Please come back, Eden. If anything, you need to see this show. It’s going to be magical. I need you to hear me sing the opening act, I’m so nervous. I was counting on you. But if you still want to go back home, I’ll fly you out myself on my plane. Please, Eden. It’s the least I can do. Not because I nearly got you killed, which I’ll never forgive myself for. Not because you’re Pooh’s mom now. But because you’re my friend.
I hope.
*Voicemail by Lou*Call me back, En, I’m so scared. Don’t tell anyone I said I was scared, by the way, I’ll deny it. But. Come back. You’re not supposed to make me cry, dammit, that was my job. But I hope I’ve changed. Damn you, Eden, come back.
thirty-four
I can’t stomach watching any more.
I just rewatch the part I’ve already seen over and over, and I try to wrap my mind around the facts. I can’t.
At some point I fall into a kind of unconscious trance, not exactly sleep, but close to it, and when I finally snap out of it, it’s late the next morning. The morning of the concert.
Jude, Miki and Lou haven’t moved from my side, and they ask me if I slept. Did I? I have no idea. My head is still over the toilet. Wordlessly, I grab my phone and all three of us start watching everything we can find about her—tons of videos and articles, literal tons of them. There aren’t many different photos of her, but the few that are being circulated over and over keep hitting me like a punch to the stomach.
Then, finally, we come to end of the story.
I already know how ‘Edie’s’ story ends, but the fact that I know now it all happened to my Eden is impossible to digest. We read about how Solomon Kennedy found out she had been sneaking out of the house. He told her that she had destroyed her pure soul by mixing with the outside world. She was unclean to him now, tainted.
He threatened to kill her, but at the last second, he changed his mind and shot himself in the mouth with a rifle right in front of her. ‘Edie’ somehow called the police about a day later.
The police arrived and found her still cradling his dead body in her arms. She was soaked in his blood. She hadn’t moved from the spot she was standing when he had done it.
She could not talk for about a week.
