Page 102 of The Way I Used to Be

“That’s not true, Eden.” He reaches for my hand, and strangely, that, too, feels like the first time he’s ever touched me. It feels new, tingly, electric almost. It’s like the first time anyone has ever touched me. Which, in a way, is true—I’ve never really been this person before.

“No, I just mean, I can’t keep thinking of myself as someone who needs rescuing.”

He opens his mouth, but pauses, “Okay, I get that. I do, but just let me—I don’t know, let me help you.”

“You are.”

“I can do more, though. I’ll be with you—really with you—if you’d just let me. We have something, Eden. We do. You can’t deny that.”

“Remember that day when you came over to talk to me?” I ask him.

He looks at me blankly.

“Remember, I was sitting in the grass by the tennis courts and you had just gotten out of practice and you were waiting for your mom to come pick you up?”

“I...” He stares hard at his ceiling, trying to recall this moment that was so fresh in my mind. “I guess,” he finishes uncertainly.

“You were telling me about dandelions?”

He thinks for a second. “Right, yeah.”

“Before you left, you gave me the in-between one, that’s what you called it. Remember?”

“Oh God, yeah,” he says with a laugh. “That was pretty stupid, huh?”

“No, it wasn’t. I kept it. I still have it.”

And now he looks at me like maybe it’s the first time he’s really seeing me, too.

“I thought it was really sweet,” I continue. “But of course I couldn’t bring myself to tell you that. I loved it—” My mouth shuts out of habit, not used to sweet words exiting, but I make it open again, for the important part. “I mean... I loved you.”

He nods, only once. “Past tense,” he states matter-of-factly, not looking at me.

We sit in silence like strangers.

“Eden, this isn’t gonna happen, is it? Us, I mean.”

“I wanted it to—I really did, but...” I shake my head gently. “I think you’re right, though. We do have something. I’m just not sure what.”

There’s a brief moment of silence for what we’ve lost. And in that moment, it ends. Finally. The past of us officially comes to an end.

“Eden, I think I’ll always have feelings for you, you know that, right? I don’t know that they’ll ever go away, but—” He stops. “But I’ll be your friend. I mean, I want to be your friend. Do you think that would be okay?”

“Yeah. That would be okay,” I say with a laugh. “That would be very, very okay. That would be perfect. I think I want that more than anything in the entire world.”

“Okay. Friends.” He grins and knocks his shoulder into mine.

“Friends.” I smile. I have a friend.

He smiles back, but only briefly. “Eden, I know you don’t want to hear this, but as your friend, as someone who cares about you, I really think you need to tell someone about this. I mean someone besides me, someone who can do something. Like the police.”

And suddenly the reality of it all comes crashing down like a storm inside of me—it feels like someone’s taking my internal organs and twisting them into demented balloon animals.

I guess it shows on my face, because he says, “I know it’ll be hard, but it’s important.”

He gives my hand a squeeze and says the one thing I really need to hear: “They’ll believe you, don’t worry.”

There’re probably a million things I should say to him. I’m sure there are some things he wants to say to me, too. But we just sit, side by side on his bed, in silence. We sit like this for a long time, just being together, not really needing to give voice to all those unsaid words, just knowing and accepting the truth of what we really mean to each other. There’s not enough language, anyway, for these things.