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She almost told me so herself.
‘Some people call me ‘Pet’.’
‘That’s cute.’
‘Is it.’
Her voice had been dripping with so much bitterness when she’d said that‘is it’. She knew something was wrong with that. Of course, she thought it had been her actual father who was calling her ‘pet’, not that that would have been any freaking better. But it wasn’t even her father. It wasn’t…
I know this girl. The girl she was while she was in Solomon’s house. I am the only person in the world who does.
Not her real dad or her family. Not the police or the doctors. Not the reporters.
No one freaking knows who she used to be, how she used to be but me. And this is who she was:
Solomon’s abuse didn’t turn her into a hard person. She was strong and sweet and funny. She became nothing like the bitter shell I have become after such a stupid, minor thing as a break up—at least it feels minor and stupid compared to the hell she’s survived. I lost my dad. So did she. And then she lost the whole entire freaking world—it was pulled out from under her with one rifle shot.
The Eden I knew was the best person I had ever met, and unlike her, I had meta lotof people. I’ve met even more people since. And no one even comes close to measuring up to her. Even at fourteen, she was nothing but lovely, kind and brave. And yet, inside her nestled the poison of that vicious man who would dye a freaking baby’s hair in order to keep her disguised.
And I spent all these years being mad at her.
While she was fighting, tooth and nail, for her literal freaking life.
I wasted all this time thinking she had ruined me, and meanwhile she was drowning in plain sight, two inches away from me. Right in front of my eyes.
‘I came here for you.’
So now I get it.
She thought I knew what had happened to her. Everyone on the planet did—she had no reason to suspect I didn’t know. And I can definitely understand why she never once brought it up. And neither did anyone else.
I had reached the conclusion that I have been an ass all these years even without knowing her story. The horror of what happened to her did not force me to recognize the monster I’ve become: I did that by myself. Pathetic as it is, at least I arrived at the conclusion before I knew. I now, of course, feel like double the monster I did before I watched this video, but that is beside the point. That is what I deserve. But I had known what I was before this. That is the only thing I am grateful for right now.
That, and the fact that she didn’t apologize for what her kidnapper made her do to me. Well, she did start apologizing, but she stopped herself. She is such an amazing woman. She is even more amazing than she was before: she respects herself enough that no matter how awfully I treated her, she would never ask me to forgive her for something that was not her fault.
At least she spared me that piece of self-loathing.
‘I came here for you.’
Of course, now she thinks I don’t want her any more. Or maybe she thought I was over her, or worse, that I thought she was ruined, like that reporter with his fake, pitying tears on TV seemed to think.
“No, no, no!”
I’m leaning over the toilet again and Sky is rubbing my back, and asking me frantically if he has to bring a doctor in. I sit back, struggling to catch my breath. Jude is immediately next to me as well, his hand on my arm.
“Don’t you dare,” I tell Skye. I brush my teeth for what feels like five hours and then Miki asks the staff to bring me coffee.
We sit there quietly, while they eat something, and I try to sip the coffee slowly so that I don’t upset my stomach. Lou has to leave, to get dressed for her opening act.
“How are you feeling?” Skye asks me.
“Well, let’s see,” I reply, swallowing a mouthful of coffee. It tastes like poison. “Like a monster. Which is no surprise, since I am one. Also, I feel like we’re about a gazillion hours late.”
“For what?” Jude is rubbing his eyes, disoriented.
A harsh laugh escapes me. I can’t think of anything as insignificant as a stadium full of seventy thousand people right now.
“For our pre-show warmup,” I reply.
