The Way I Am Now (The Way I Used to Be)

I am two people right now. The first one wants to throw herself into this, into him. Her tunnel vision is focused only on how good it will feel, how right, how pure and honest. But the second girl? She doesn’t see him at all, really. She has X-ray vision. For her, the room is so cluttered with all the things that have happened here, he’s barely even there. She sees beyond the freshly painted walls and the new furniture and the clean linens and everything in perfect monochrome order, all the scars hiding underneath.

One of us pulls him closer, the other one pushes him away, and I hate them both because neither of them feels like me.

“I’m sorry,” I breathe.

“No, I am. Did I just really misread this?”

I don’t know what words to say to explain. I barely understand what’s going through my head right now, but I take his hands and hold them tightly because that’s all I can do. “You didn’t misread anything. It’s just . . . not here. I can’t. Not here,” I repeat, glancing around the room as if the walls are watching us. I feel like they can do that sometimes.

“That’s okay,” he says, so gently, though he must be even more confused than me.

“It happened here,” I try to explain. “You . . . you know what I’m talking about, right?”

I see the wave of recognition pass over his eyes. He squeezes my hands and nods. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Right. Of course.”

“That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh,” he breathes, straightening his posture. “Okay.”

“No, not that. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried, you know you can talk to me about it.”

I close my eyes and shake my head. “No. I mean, thank you. But no. What I meant is I wanted to talk to you about the . . . the here part of everything.”

“The here part?” he repeats as if he might understand what that means if he says it out loud. “All right.”

“I know I’m not making any fucking sense and I’m all over the place.”

“It’s okay, I’m following,” he says with a cautious smile. “Mostly.”

“I’m not trying to ignore what just happened. Or almost happened. I don’t want to forget about that. I’m not forgetting about it, believe me, but—” I pull his hands toward me and lean over to kiss the backs of each of them. “Can we just put a pin in that for a minute? Or whatever that saying is. Because I really did want to talk to you about something.”

“Sure, we can do that. Yeah.”

“Okay.” I inhale and exhale, trying to get some of this tension out of me. In with the good, out with the bad, I tell myself, just like my therapist taught me. “You know I’ve been trying really hard to make things work here.”

He nods.

“But it’s just not,” I finally admit out loud. “And the more I think about it, the more I’m pretty sure it’s not going to. Like, I try to imagine myself here a year from now and I just don’t even see anything.” I pause to clear the thickness those words leave behind in my throat. “I can’t be here anymore. In this house, in this town. Too much has happened. I don’t fit anymore. I haven’t in a long time.”

“Mm-hmm,” he murmurs, nodding encouragingly. “I can understand why you’d feel that way.”

“So, I’ve been thinking about leaving.”

“Leaving?” His eyebrows pull together, and he shakes his head slightly. “What do you mean? Where would you go?”

“Well, what would you think if I applied to your school? Would that be weird for you or—”

“To Tucker?” he interrupts. “Are you kidding? No, that would be . . .” He pauses, searching for a word. “Perfect.”

“Yeah?” I exhale. “Really, you mean that?”

“Really, I mean it. Hundred percent—a thousand percent.”

I try to stop myself from smiling like this, but it’s hard not to when he’s smiling at me like that. “Okay, I’m really glad you said that because I did.”

“You did?”

“And I got in.”

“Wait, you got in?” he says, too loudly for almost midnight.

“And I think I really, really want to go.”

“You got in,” he repeats. “Seriously, Eden?”

I nod.

“That’s amazing!” He throws his arms around me, and I suddenly feel freer already. “I’m so happy,” he whispers into my hair. “I’m so fucking happy for you.”

“You are?” I ask, hating how small and stupid my voice sounds.

As we pull apart, he tucks my hair behind both ears and holds my face in his hands for a moment, still smiling as he looks me in the eye. “Don’t ask me that; you know I am.” He kisses my forehead quickly, a peck, sweet and chaste. He holds my gaze for a moment longer and then scoots away from me, this time with his back against the wall. I sit directly next to him now, my back to the wall, my arm against his arm, my leg against his leg.

He’s suddenly so quiet.

“What are you thinking?” I ask him.

He shakes his head and says, “I don’t know, a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m really proud of you—is that weird to say?”

“No,” I tell him. But I watch as he swallows hard and looks around my room, differently than he had before. “What else are you thinking?”

He turns his head to look at me, and he squints just a bit. “Honestly? I’m mostly trying not to think about you . . . in this room . . . him,” he adds, his speech halting.

“Sorry,” I say. Because maybe it wasn’t fair to put those thoughts in his head.

“Why are you sorry? I didn’t mean that like you shouldn’t have said anything about it; I’m glad you did. You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“Looks like such a nice room, doesn’t it?” I say, and I don’t know if I’m trying to make light or if I’m genuinely asking. I wanted him to understand how much I need to leave, but it’s hard to watch him actively seeing my life the way it really is, the way no one else seems to get.

“No, it doesn’t,” he says immediately. “Sorry, I just don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“Live in here . . . after everything.”

“I don’t. Not really. I mean, I can’t sleep in here very well. It’s a brand-new bed, but I still end up on the couch most nights. It’s better than before. All through high school, I literally slept on my floor in a sleeping bag. I—I’ve never told anyone that.”

He exhales a long stream of air and puts his arm around me. I let myself lean into his side. “The only time I slept in a real bed was at Mara’s house or—”

“Or what?” he asks.

“Or when I was with you,” I finish, stealing a quick glance up at him, and he’s watching me with the most devastated look on his face. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I don’t know why I’m saying all this right now. I’m really tired.” I sigh. “I know I’m rambling and making this all weird and negative, aren’t I?”

“No, you’re not. Please don’t say that, okay?”

Before I can answer, he’s shifting away from me, and I think for a second that maybe I really have messed this up, but then he’s lying down, his head on my pillow, and he’s holding his arm open to the side. “Come here, I’ll stay till you fall asleep.”

“Really?”

“If that’s okay, yeah.”

I nod and crawl into the space next to him.

“Comfortable?” he asks.

I sit back up because my hoodie is making me too hot. I only put it on because I was in pajamas and not wearing a bra, but that seems so silly now, so I unzip it, and he helps me pull my arms out of the sleeves. I lie back down, resting my head in that perfect spot I’ve tried to find on so many other people but has never felt quite like this.

“Want me to turn the light off?” he asks, reaching toward my desk for the stained-glass lamp.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“No, don’t.” It comes out too fast, and he draws his hand back, almost startled. “I mean, do you mind if we leave it on?”

“That’s fine,” he says softly. “Is that a thing you do? Keeping the light on?”

“I’m not, like, scared of the dark,” I try to explain, raising my head to look at him. “I just sort of am in here, that’s all. Yet another thing I’ve never told anyone.”

He doesn’t speak, just nods. I lay my head back down, let my arm rest across his stomach while his fingers trail up and down my bare skin like a lullaby.

“Eden?” he says so quietly I can barely hear him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Okay.”

His chest rises as he fills his lungs with air, and I can feel his heart beating faster beneath me. “When we were together, did I ever . . . ?” He pauses, and I wait. “I mean, I realize our relationship moved really fast and it started out very, um—”

“Sexual?” I offer, since this is clearly difficult for him.

“I was going to say physical, but yeah.” He pauses again and swallows before continuing. “And you were younger than I thought you were.”

“Because I lied to you.”

He ignores that, continues as if I hadn’t said anything. “Did I ever do anything that wasn’t okay with you or that made you feel . . . ? I mean, did I ever not listen or pressure you to—”

I see where he’s going with this, so I cut him off. “Josh, no.”

“No, don’t—” he says, and the way his voice is trembling, I have to look at him. “Don’t just say what you think I want to hear. I really need to know the truth. It’s killing me,” he adds, his words punching me in the heart.

“I am telling you the truth.”

“Sometimes I think back and I’m not sure anymore how well I treated you. It’s just, I knew something was wrong. Even the first time we were together. I knew, but I didn’t do any—”

“What were you supposed to do? You tried to ask me about it, and I basically told you to fuck off.”

“But I—”

“Stop. You never ever did anything wrong; I promise.” When I reach to touch his face, he takes my hand and holds it there against his cheek, looking into my eyes.

“You promise,” he repeats. “Really?”

“I do.” He lets go of my hand, and I lie back down against him. “Please, don’t even think that for a second, Josh. If anything, it was the opposite.”

“Okay,” he whispers, stroking my hair with one hand and holding my arm with the other. “I’ll let you sleep, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

He doesn’t think I hear it when he whispers, a few minutes later, “Thank you.”