Finding Eden

08

The following mornings, it was like nothing was wrong with Cade. Every night, I would shower at his place and he even stocked his shelves with products that I would use. Every night, he would shut his door without a goodnight and never made a sound until the sun rose.

My sleep anxiety had lessened the past couple of weeks. The therapist tells me I'm afraid of falling asleep because it was the closest I would ever be to being a corpse. She didn't say insomnia or sleeping disorder, she said sleep anxiety as if sleeping gave me panic attacks when it was actually what was waiting for me when I did shut my eyes. But I had no knowledge of what was in the dark other than the memories of waking up writhing between the covers and tangled up in nightmares.

This particular morning, I woke up to the smell of breakfast. It wasn't a familiar smell but it was a pleasant one. The best kind of pleasant where you know someone is doing it for you.

I brushed my teeth and crept downstairs. Cade was, as usual, in a thin cotton shirt and gray sweats. He was in the process of carefully soaking pieces of bread in egg batter, his lanky form bent over the kitchen island. I stood in the corner as he whisked the remnants of the beaten eggs into the frying pan. He yawned and placed a hand on his hip as he started scrambling the eggs.

"Is there cereal?" I asked.

Cade twisted around and lifted an eyebrow. "I make you this and you want cereal? There's some muffins in the oven if you're more interested in that."

"Copacetic," I said. He burst out laughing.

"They're from the bakery though, I'm just keeping them warm," he said after serving the eggs on a place. He slid the plate to me along with the salt and pepper shakers and got working on the french toast. I rummaged through the drawers for forks.

"These are good, perfectly seasoned," I said, "of course I seasoned them myself but the cook on this is remarkable."

"Eden, I advise you to shut up if you want your toast," he laughed.

We had grown comfortable around each other. I was no longer in intermittent periods of despondency but it could have just been time (six weeks we had known each other). I ignored that night when Cade had his terrors and we remained excellent friends.

"I like your pyjamas," he added.

I was wearing one of his shirts. A Superman shirt that had been faded from the wash and turned soft. It was lived in and it smelled like him. But I was only wearing his shirt.

"I'm going to go get changed and we can go to the studio," I said and slid off my seat, bringing my plate to the sink.

"Don't you want toast?" he asked.

"I'll eat it later," I replied.

***

I brought him to my second home, where I went to the most, and introduced him to my instructor, Aldous. Aldous was French, very much like his name and the way he dressed and very much like the way he pronounced things.

"Ah, the boy. I hope you're not a distraction to Eden," he said.

Cade didn't know how to respond to that because Aldous had said it in a way that implied threat but he also said it in a voice that was light and jaunty. I had forgotten to warn Cade about the contradiction that was Aldous and his sharp European tongue. But Cade being Cade didn't mind and found his own peace of mind outside the studio (an audience was absolutely forbidden) and tapped his foot to the faint music coming from our pas de deux class. The American Ballet Theatre was a large place and I had no doubt he would entertain himself.