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Eden: Then he—
*messages deleted*
eighteen
Blood rushes to my head. Jude and Eden disappearing together when she’s upset. Because of me. Ugly, irrational jealousy leaps up to consume me. No, this can’t happen, not on my watch.
No to all of it.
It would take too long for me to walk around the pool, so, in my sleep-deprived brain, it somehow makes sense to dive head-first into the water, make it to the other side in four fierce strokes, and then climb out the other side with a huge splash.
Then I start running.
“Jude,” I shout, trying not to let my voice shake too much, but it is. It is. Because no one, no one should be running after her right now, especially not with a towel, when she’s wet and cold and nearly naked and… No one except me.
I reach them and try to calm my breathing before I speak again.
“I got this,” I tell Jude, with a hand on his back, so he’ll know that this is a boundary and he doesnotwant to cross.‘Don’t touch her’nearly drops off my tongue and I have to grit my teeth to keep the words in. “Give me a minute with her?”
He looks at me uncertainly, and I think he can see right through my lies, but then he pats my shoulder and hands me the towel. I wrap it quickly around Eden’s shoulders, and she hisses at my touch.
Am I so repulsive to her?
No, wait. She’s not hissing. She’s…
She’s crying.
“No, don’t—” I lose my words, I lose my mind. “You don’t get to be upset, Eden,” I say through gritted teeth. “You don’t get to cry. You…”
I am this close to losing all self-control too. And if I start crying, it won’t be pretty and sad like hers. It will obliterate me. I haven’t cried for her since those first days after she left me and everything fell apart. I haven’t cried since my grandpa’s funeral, or the day after.
I remember those huge gulping sobs, how I couldn’t breathe, how I couldn’t see past the dark hole I was sinking into. I told Theo once I thought I could understand a little bit of what he was going through when he felt such despair that leaving this world looked like his only option, and it’s true.
But I haven’t been living in that black hole since. It’s been more of a dull ache at the back of my heart, a hurt that makes breathing always hard, but not impossible.
Right now, it is impossible.
Eden keeps crying quietly, trying to hide her face from me, but she can’t, because I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere. I drape the towel over her narrow shoulders and watch them shake.
My arms ache to hold her and my fingers shake with the need to wipe her cheeks.
“You don’t get to break,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “You don’t get to fall apart. And you sure as anything don’t get to be jealous. Not when you left me.” I close my eyes, willing the tears to go back inside. “Don’t cry, baby, come on, I can’t… I can’t breathe.”
She puts a hand over her mouth, trying to stifle the sound.
That’s even worse.
“Come here,” I gasp. She moves away from me, but there’s not too much space. We’re standing in the hull of a boat, after all. A huge one, but a boat. It’s nowhere near big enough for her to hide away from me. “I was desperate, ok? I shouldn’t have done that. Not in front of you, not out of spite. I’m…” I can’t believe I’m about to say ‘I’m sorry’ to her again, in the same night. Twice.
And she hasn’t said it once.
Not that I’m counting.
“I was out of my mind over you,” I murmur. Her crying has quieted down, and she is just standing there, hunched over, trembling with cold. I press the towel closer to her body. “I said I was desperate, and it’s true. You make me desperate enough to kiss a girl in front of you and hope that it hurts you a little, because that would mean…”
“What would it mean?”
Oh, she speaks.
