Finding Eden

19

By the morning, all of yesterday was forgotten.

Charles sat by the dining table drinking from his mug. Without knowledge of my reflection, I knew that my face still carried the remnants of yesterday's shadow.

"What's for breakfast?" I asked.

"Good morning to you too," he replied without looking up from his papers.

"I thought you had rehearsal," I said and poured myself coffee. My hands shook a bit when I spooned in an endless amount of sugar, spilling some of the granules on the counter where I brushed them off and onto the floor.

"Wasn't feeling it today. My throat hurts and I just know that I'll have to yell at the corps for their timing."

"Maybe if you paid your form more attention..." I teased. His attention shifted to me and he gave me a brief frown before getting up and promptly wrapping me up in his arms. His hold only tightened the more that I struggled and soon I was begging for him to let go. The hug softened and he set me down on the counter, but not before dodging my kiss.

"I'm really hurt right now Eden. I don't think I want to swap spit with you."

"You're such a baby."

"Do you mean babe? I think you mean babe. Also I think it's time for you to go."

"You made me late! You owe me dinner," I said. My coffee was drunk hastily and I snatched a piece of his croissant before leaving.

If I had known that at my age, I'd be living in an apartment with another fellow dancer and acting like a grown couple, I would have laughed. Partly because I never imagined myself to make it so far with dance when I constantly ached in all the wrong places. My parents would have laughed too, I think, because they had always planned for me to go to college.

For Charles, I was going to the company and preparing for the Spring Gala and the upcoming Romeo and Juliet. For me, I was visiting the townhouse again and digging through my ghosts. My therapist tells that this is what therapy is. Not talking to someone but talking to yourself. I've been trying to do that more lately, as well as taking care of myself and not sleeping too late. But she can't help my sleep.

***

I arrived there in an hour because I stopped by the florist. There weren't any carnations but I did find daisies and those were the next best thing.

My house smelled like space. It carried that immense aura of a cemetery, as if these metaphorical gravestones were never-ending and I wanted to rid it of it so I went around opening windows and drawing up blinds. The fridge finally got cleaned out and the umbrellas were placed under the stairs. I stacked my CDs by their composers and dusted off the stereo. It still didn't work completely well but it was all that I had at this point.

By the end of my home renovations, I found myself sitting cross-legged on the bed in my parents' bedroom. We never visited this place that often so the sheets were rarely changed and the white bedcovers were greying.

The shirt I had was hanging off my back and I bundled it together to wipe away the tears that landed on my bare legs.

It was strange: to be okay and not at the same time. I no longer wanted to tear out my tongue at the mention of my mom and dad. I no longer wanted to rip my limbs apart every time I was reminded of the first half of this year.

The process of my thought froze when I heard a door slam in the distance and I bolt downstairs but see that nothing has changed. Insecure, I gathered up my senses and closed all the windows, wary of flying critters as I had forgotten the sliding screen. And in a final prayer to my conscience, I slipped on my shoes and carried the daisies to next door. What lied beyond that door was what my therapist would have loved to unwrap.

Three knocks.

Three heartbeats.

Nothing.

"Hello?"

It wasn't his voice. The door swung ajar and I looked down slightly to see a girl. She wasn't much younger than me but she's small.

"Is...?" My throat swallowed up the rest of my question.

"Are you looking for Cade? He's moved since his band's been getting more recognition."

"How do you...?"

"Uh he told me a while ago that if any neighbours come looking for him...to tell her that."

"Well is he still in New York?" I asked. She looked like him, I decided. She looked like him a lot.

"Maybe. Maybe not. You could call him though, if you really wanted to reach him," she said. She shifted unsurely on her feet. "I'm his cousin," she explained.

"No. No, it's alright. Thanks anyways," I said and when she left, placed the daisies near the bush of peonies. It wasn't noticed before but my hands were sweating and my shoulders tight. I stood on his—her—lawn for a while and peered at the familiar arrangement of the scenery before clenching my stomach and walking the short distance back to my house.

Charles. Everything fell back on him at that second and I wanted to cry but more importantly, I wanted to scream and dance and talk and talk and talk. Talking was never enough though, no matter how much my therapist recommended it.

I ignored the urge to dial him up because I knew that if I scrolled through my contacts, I would see Cade's name and his number and his profile and be tempted to call only to hang up with my chest thumping and eyes desperately shut closed.

Feeling unwelcome, I headed to the studio anyways and spent the rest of the day in a private room practicing a new routine and scolding myself whenever I made a wrong turn because all that has been ingrained into me were segments from Le Corsaire. It tangled up the strings holding my ribs together but I bit my tongue through the whole ordeal and managed to lift my leg higher, hold my centre straighter, and keep my arms up despite feeling like they were weighed down by anchors.

Again and again. Over and over. Until I hammered these movements into every fibre of my being. No thinking, just moving. The exact way that I liked it.

But it all came too soon. The strings started fraying at the end, started to bunch up together, started to clot my veins. Slowly but surely, the pressure born in my left ankle started to spread, started to crack, started to destroy. It wanted to see red. It wanted to see stark white against deep wine. And so it did what it wanted.

It came as a dull crackle.

A cry of pain spilled out of mouth and I was falling out of my turn and onto the ground. My trembling fingers tried to undo my pointes but they were too stiff and my limb looked so unnatural. It was like watching a horror movie unfold before me, as I saw the blurred reflection of myself kneeling on the floor on all three sides of me. I was stuck, forever in this prism.

Do something. Do something.

I called the only person I knew. He answered in two rings.

"...E-Eden?"