Finding Eden

26

Dear Cade,

Dear Cade.

I can't find ways to write your name anymore. If you're wondering why I am not beside you right now, it is because your sister, Cassie, convinced me not to be. She's right, you know? She's been right this whole time. So don't get mad at her.

Charles, Cassie, and you, Cade. I think my life will be filled with names that start with the letter C.

You will wake up and you will recover and you will come back to this house even if it kills you because you are a sentimental being. I am sure of it because otherwise, you wouldn't be reading this. I'm writing under your wallpaper, if you haven't noticed by now. But you have because this is the place where it peels and you were curious enough to come and see what's scrawled beneath it. I'd like to think that this room is full of me like it is full of you and for that I'm sorry.

You are reading this letter because I am sorry. There is more regret and guilt and remorse in my body than there is blood. You should've seen your blood Cade. It was everywhere.

Don't try to find me. You did before and this is what happens. This is what happens when I promise people things and when I do what I want. I think I'll move somewhere down south, where it's closer to the equator and where I can't be as destructive because there are no winters to ruin my insides.

Even if we had met under better conditions, I don't think it would have worked. It breaks my heart to say it but I think it would have been better if we never met at all. You gave me some things and I gave you some more but in the end, we'll end up taking too much. You're right, the world doesn't exist on the principle of equilibrium but I'm trying. I'm trying everyday.

I am not for you. I am not for you in the way that I have put you in that hospital room and in the way that your ribs have fallen apart and the way your hands probably can't do what they do best and what they do best is not tracing lines on my skin or holding my hand but playing your guitar. But maybe not. Maybe you'll recover and everything will be fine and you'll sell out Madison Square. My name is Eden and that should mean paradise but I can't be the paradise you are looking for.

I love you. Dear god, I love you but that is all I can do for you.

Eden.