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I don’t think she’s listening. I don’t imagine she’s been used to hearing good things about herself. To feeling like she deserves good things. I wish I could change that. Ineedto change that. It’s a physical need, like dying of thirst or of lack of air.
I need a second chance. Well, I got a second chance and I blew it. I need a third, a thousandth. I need a miracle.
Is it too late to—?
“I’ve never been out so late in my life,” Eden says in a low voice. “It’s almost dawn. And I’ve never felt the rain on my tongue. It’s nice.”
I don’t know how long I’ve been crying—I haven’t realized it until now.
“You’re breaking my heart,” I try to say, but what comes out is: “You’re breaking me.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever meet you again, Isaiah,” Eden murmurs, those honey-gold eyes of hers roaming over my face as if she is memorizing every single feature. As if she’s saying goodbye.
No!I want to scream, except I am ten feet underwater. Drowning.Someone, stop her. Someone, stop this.Water fills my mouth, and it’s rainwater, but it might as well be an ocean. I’m not breathing anyway.
“Bye, Isaiah,” Eden says.
And she turns around and leaves me on that stage, soaking in the rain.
…
Five minutes later, the crowd is still roaring my name. Their cries of ‘Issy Woo’ drown out Jude and Miki’s gorgeous music, as I slowly sink back to my knees, where I belong.
Utterly, desperately, completely alone.
“I hope I haunt you!” I shout at Eden’s retreating back, not caring who hears.
“I hope you do,” I think I hear her whisper, before the darkness closes over my head. I’m sure I imagine it.
I’m the one who will be haunted. By the hope that I really did hear her say that.
I know the truth now.
I know that she never left me.
I know that she never broke me. She never broke us. Life did that.
And me. I broke us too.
If anyone is the heartbreaker here, it’s me, not her. I broke my own heart, and hers. And I have no idea how to put what I broke back together.
“Waiting for you, Isaiah,” Skye’s voice in my earpiece.
When did they put the earpiece back in?
I can’t seem to get back up on my feet. I can’t answer Skye. All these people waiting for me, and I can’t open my mouth. I can have pretty much anything I want in the whole world, except for her. She is the one thing I want and the one thing I can’t have.
I know that the hope of her won’t stop haunting me until she’s back in my arms. Where she belongs.
I have no idea how I’ll do it, but as I kneel on the wet stage, mid-show, drained of energy, rain seeping into my skin, I know I’ll get her back. Or die trying.
The minute the truth touched my lips, my fate was sealed. I love her. The coal has burned my lips. Anything that comes out of them now will be scorched by that realization.
Is it too late to start believing in God?
Is it too late to start believing in hope?
I hope it’s not. Because right now, at this moment when I have zero reasons to start believing and even less reasons to start hoping… This is when I freaking start.
And this time, I’m all in.
