Finding Eden

24

Cade was there with me when they sawed off my cast and there when I did my rehabilitation exercises.

"He's called Charles," I told him when he asked.

Previously, I also informed him of Europe, being a principle dancer, and he updated me on his band opening for a one I don't remember the name of but I did recalled how his eyes lit up when he talked about them. There was one thing I missed wholeheartedly about him and it was the way his band fuelled his desires.

"Was that why we never did anything?" he asked, a statement rather than a question.

"What is 'anything'?"

"This," he murmured and crosses his hands over my waist, pulling me against his lips and his skin. Again and again we fell into the same rhythm and rhyme we used to dance around.

The skin around my ankle was swollen but only to a tiny degree and he took care of it as well as he took care of me.

"I've waited so long for this," he said. It was late again but in the way where you were going home after a New Year's Eve party.

"You shouldn't have."

"I told you, didn't I? How scared I was of you."

"Don't," I said, breathing soft against his chest.

"It takes time. So much time. I don't believe in relationships—not anymore. That's what people do," he said.

"Did a girl change you?"

"No, I grew into my own skin. I figured out pretty soon that I'm not meant for a lot of people. They tell you that nothing is as important as honesty but when I'm honest it brings out the storm in people. Even when I'm not. They want more and more about me but I can't give that out, you know? I can't give out the worst parts of me."

There was a lump forming in my throat and I brushed away a stray piece of hair from his arm.

"It's good. I don't mind. Just give me the best of you," I said and kissed his lids, his cheeks, his lips. He held still though, unresponsive. His eyes still hold that same lasting hue of amber and I was close enough to count his dark lashes. His hair still fell upon his head in such a way that was effortless and wonderful to run fingers through.

This was life now and so was Cade.

It was like we were back to where we were, suspended in amber, and my mind couldn't dictate whether it was beneficial or not because he promised change and I had nothing left to give. There were still warning signs whenever we talked too much and while my sanity was comforted by sleep, he stayed up reading. But it wasn't as if they taught him anything but secrecy in pages and determination in tearing out roots for more answers only words could present.

***

"You know when you asked me about my parents' funeral? Why were you there?"

"It was an old neighbor. I don't think he had a lot of friends cause I was the only few that showed up," he said.

We were preparing dinner, side by side, choosing not to get take out tonight. It had been a week now, since I've taken off my cast and I was improving everyday.

"What about the girl? You mentioned her," I said. It was a disgusting, vile emotion inside of me whenever I wanted to know more about him. He said he'd tell me more because "I deserve all the truth" and he'd do anything but lie.

"Let's not talk about her," he tried to keep his voice light.

And I should've thanked someone up above for me not knowing her name because it might have just brought out the worst in him and even I wasn't prepared for it. But he, with all his shadows and books, shouldn't have expected an equal tradeoff.

"It's not fair," I shook my head, "for me to display everything for you and for you to not."

"Stop," he breathed. "I can't be open. Not the way you want. Not when it comes to her or you. Do you know how much it drags out of me every time you ask about the most unpleasant moments of my life?"

"Then I think you really don't know who I am."

"I know exactly who you are. You think life is give and take because you've given so much and now you're willing to consume just about anything to make yourself you again."

"And what's wrong with that?" I asked, my vision clouding with the same scene set out in front of us. We were on the balcony again, this time, too high and too strung.

"Because it's not real! Don't you fucking get it by now? It's not always equilibrium and balance sometimes you're just going to have to, I don't know, suck it up. You've been trying to compensate for this cavity in your core with meaningless things. Just grow up why don't you? Give your aunt some slack."

It was amazing how quick his molten eyes had changed to spewing lava lined with gunpowder. His mouth was still cherry-bruised, the color of all the venom he spat at me.

I should've known. You don't change just because you tell others you will.

His eyes darkened when I recoiled from his orbit and then he was trying to tie his tongue together and stuff everything down his throat because I saw it in his lips and tasted it on his breath last night.

This tension had probably been between us this entire time, hissing and crackling beneath the mattress because it started the day he told me he missed me and I had ran off.

"It was such a mistake. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," I said, again and again, avoiding his attempts at placing his hold on my shoulder, until I headed out the door and picked up a cab. Our relationship could have never handled it; his shaded self and my greedy grip. It should have been someone who could keep up with how much I took and grabbed.

I heard my name being taken by the wind. For the first time, I abhorred how he had enough change in him to chase after me.

I turned around to see him but he's walking too fast, into traffic. Too fast, too abrupt, too haste. His head snapped back as if someone called for him and I was screaming at him to keep moving, forward or back, but he paused for just a sliver too long and the air was pierced with the sound of a horn and the breaking of bones.