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I inhale sharply, the need to explain to her, to show her, suddenly consuming me.
“It means this: I hate that I didn’t defend you when she was treating you like crap. It made me murderous. But I just stood there, because I…”
I rub my forehead. I what? I wanted her to suffer? No, that would be pointless. Not when I was suffering so much more. Not when everything inside me revolted at the thought.
“What she did to that dog,” she shakes her head. “I mean, I don’t know much about love or having a pet or a…” She shakes her head, some intense, painful emotion crossing her face for a split second. “But I know that’s not how you’re supposed to treat anything alive.”
What was that? That sharp reaction was when she said ‘pet’? I don’t understand it. I don’t know her anymore, do I? What makes her hurt, what makes her happy. I have no idea.
‘My dad calls me ‘Pet’.’I remember her saying that.
Does she remember saying those words to me? Is that why she looked like she wanted to throw up when she said the word? But whatever it was, the emotion is gone now from her face, as quickly as a shadow.
“If you don’t know much about love, then I know nothing,” I murmur, turning away. I brace my hands on the wall and lean against it, suddenly too weak to stand. There’s a mirror next to me and I turn towards it. My chest looks hollow, my face a blur.
My eyes are full of water.Dammit.
“You know enough,” Eden says behind me. She’s a blur too. All red hair and rosy skin.
I wipe a hand roughly down my cheek, and that’s all the acknowledgement I’m willing to give to those damn tears. I’m not bothering with them anymore. I’m ignoring them. They keep sliding down the angle of my cheek.
“You know enough about love,” Eden repeats, her voice the only thing keeping me upright. “You’re wrong. You’re nothing like me. You know enough.”
I laugh and it sounds like a sob.
“What makes you think that?” I ask her.
“You,” she replies at once. “You make me think that. The way you were back when I knew you. The way you spoke about your mom, your dad, your grandpa…”
I flinch and her phrase trails off. I turn around to face her so abruptly I get dizzy. My knees almost buckle at the nostalgia in her face. She steps back, awkwardly avoiding my touch, and I see the same spark of terror at my sudden movement in her eyes, like I saw before. Dammit. I scared her. Again.
And someone scared her before me. Really really scared her.
I need to murder that someone.
“My dad…” I murmur.
When I met her, six years ago, I had just lost him. And I had no idea I would lose my grandpa so soon as well. I had no idea that being orphaned twice was just a breath away. I used to talk to her about both of them for hours on end. And she’d listen. Over and over, the same stories. Different ones. All the stories. But while I was telling them, my time with my grandpa was drawing to an end.
And then, when he was gone, when I really needed someone to say these stories to… She was gone too.
Eden is biting her lip.
“I’m sorry about your grandpa,” she says softly. “I read that about you when you got famous, a few months later… I couldn’t believe it.” I run a hand through my hair. It’s still soaking wet. I need to get out of here. “I cried so much and I’d never even met him. But I remember every single one of your stories about him. Sometimes I think that was the only time I witnessed real, actual love. You and the way you spoke about him. And your dad.”
“If you saw enough love somewhere in me, it wasn’t coming from me. It was those two people,” I tell her bitterly.
“Even so, it was enough,” she replies.
I search her eyes for the truth. Did she say that I loved her? Or did she…?
Wait a second. Did she say that was theonlytime she saw real love? What the–? What werewe? We were nothing but a joke, right? We were nothing but lie. But what washerfamily, her dad? The one who forced us apart. The one she adored so blindingly, she had to destroy as the minute he asked it. I have so many questions.
“It was enough love,” Eden says again, as if she can see into my brain, “and that’s what matters.”
“Enough love,” I repeat.
She’s standing close enough for me to smell her hair. Too close. I remember how her lips felt close to mine in the rain, how it would take just a tiny dip of my head to fit my mouth to hers. Gosh, I’ve forgotten what it feels like to kiss her.
