Present
ONCE I FINALLY SUMMONED THE courage to open the car door and place my feet on the gravel-covered ground, adrenaline must’ve kicked in and taken control. One foot in front of the other, my body worked for my brain rather than the standard other way around.
It was almost as if I had no say in the matter. That nagging feeling from before—about being beckoned back to this horror show—was in full force. However, it wasn’t just a magnetic pull from the past that drew me to climb the rickety steps of the house. It was dangerous curiosity. Like those naïve heroines in spooky flicks, scaling the dark walls of a haunted house and going up to the attic all alone.
Don’t go that way! What are you, stupid? Those were the things I would scream at the screen. Only this wasn’t a movie. I couldn’t change the channel or walk out of the theater. This was real life, and like one of those on-screen idiots, I feared I was walking straight into the arms of my worst nightmare. Yet, I did it anyway.
I should have trusted my gut. I should have taken the warning signs seriously. The discolored, chipped-paint exterior, the warped plank and rusty nails boarding up a smashed window, the stench of mold, wood rot, and abandonment.
Not much had changed, to be honest, but it was still a dreadful sight. Knowing that Violet still lived here, part of me hoped she’d used some of her girly influence to spruce up the place she called home. I laughed in spite of the circumstances, because that notion was ridiculous. Violet couldn’t take care of herself, let alone this godforsaken piece of property.
Nevertheless, I took a deep breath, choking back the dank and musty odor. With one hand on the doorknob—the same knob I used to slam the door on my past so long ago—I entered with a lump in my throat and a throbbing pit in my stomach.
“Welcome back,” Violet chuckled sinfully as she lit a cigarette in the eat-in kitchen where I could almost touch her from the living room.
In a rush of ten thousand emotions with all five senses at attention, I was sucked into a vortex of memories I thought I’d buried deep below the surface of dignity I worked so hard for. I wanted to cry. Yes, I’d let the tears come. It was okay to cry; Joy told me so. I tried with all my might to hold them back, but as I stood in the house that haunted my dreams and tainted any good memories I ever had of my childhood, visions whooshed past me with a dizzying effect.
William piss ass drunk and screaming at me for fucking up his dinner.
A four-year-old Violet crying for the mama she never knew.
Violet sitting at the kitchen table, dismissively, as I warned her not to go near Lennox ever again.
It was too much to recall after suppressing the memories for so long. I wasn’t strong enough for this.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” I lurched forward and hung my head between bent knees.
This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come. I needed to leave.
“Calm down, Eden. You’re making this harder than it has to be with your dramatics.”
I could smack her for being so smug. She was the one who called me here. She was the one who couldn’t handle her own shit. How dare she make light of my feelings and the shock my body was enduring from this ambush of bitter memories?
“You know what?” I composed myself and fought the nausea, my eyes meeting hers from across the room. “Go fuck yourself, Violet! I’m out.”
With that, I turned my back on her and darted for the door and outside.
She called out from behind, and met up with me on the road with her hand on my shoulder. I shuddered from her touch and shrugged her unwanted grasp away. “Don’t touch me,” I mumbled. The words scraped my throat and burnt the inside of my nose with tears as I spoke them. She was my sister, my flesh and blood, and the idea of her skin on mine made me wince in disgust.
“Eden, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a bitch.”
“Oh, but you are a bitch and I can’t do this. I don’t need to do this. I’m leaving. Find someone else to paddle your sinking boat up Shit Creek.”
I swung the car door open without looking back. Jumping into the driver’s seat, I started the ignition, threw the car in reverse and almost floored it. The image in the rearview mirror, however, rendered me immobile.
With her hands over her eyes and her body wracking with sobs, Violet made it impossible to drive off without barreling over her. A sick, twisted part of my brain urged me to do it. Step on the gas and get rid of her for good. But there was another part of me—the unpolluted portion that remembered things from long ago—that saw the little girl who once needed me and loved me and kept me sane in an insane world.
“God, give me strength,” I whispered with my eyes closed. There was no use calling on Him when He’d betrayed me in so many other ways, but I was at a loss. I needed something, anything to keep me here.
And that’s when he emerged from the house.
Lennox Dean. Or at least I thought it was him. He was barely recognizable from the man who once owned my heart, the NFL rookie, the rising star. In his place was a deteriorated version. An imposter exploiting his body and butchering its beauty with poison, time, and regret.
When I first saw the state of Violet, my heart sank to my toes. The initial return to my childhood home kicked that same sunken heart to the curb. But seeing Lennox? Like this? Anything that was left of my fractured heart was completely obliterated.
Past
HE WAS DROP DEAD GORGEOUS in that most-popular-guy-at-school kind of way. In other words, unavailably gorgeous. I ogled from afar because that was the closest I’d ever get. He didn’t know my name . . . Heck, he didn’t even know I breathed the same air. But that wouldn’t stop me from discretely scribbling our names together in my notebook.
Eden Dean, Mrs. Eden Dean, Lennox & Eden Dean
It looked fabulous. I mean, Eden Goldenflarb looked better than Eden Hayward. Anything to get rid of my ties to my father would do, but never mind that. Or William. I was focused on the fairytale ending. Lennox as my knight in shining armor. One day we could ride off into the sunset, away from here, and off to some better place. Oh, Lennox, take me away.
“Um. Hey. You get what he’s saying? He may as well be speaking Chinese, if you ask me.”
My erratic thoughts were interrupted by a tap on the back and the most thrilling sound.
His question, his chuckle, directed at me.
I almost forgot he was behind me—daydreaming will do that to you—and immediately turned the page on my notebook so Lennox couldn’t read what I’d been scribbling.
With a lump of nerves lodged in my throat, I checked the front of the classroom to make sure Mr. Nettles wasn’t looking in our direction and then craned my neck to answer Lennox. “Yeah, I get it. It’s not that hard if you just—”
“Any way you could help me after school? I’m tanking this class and I hear you’re more than just a pretty face. Brains and beauty—dangerous combo.” Thick eyebrows wiggled over devastatingly spellbinding meadow-colored eyes.
Was I imagining this? I was dreaming, right? I looked down to make sure I wasn’t wearing my threadbare PJs and fuzzy bunny slippers. I wasn’t, but I was convinced my eyes and ears were playing some kind of cruel joke on me.
I quickly warned my tongue to formulate a coherent sentence that didn’t have me drooling or babbling or sounding too eager. Luckily, my brain kicked in and did the job for me, as if confidence was my middle name. “Sure, I can help. Where would you like to meet up?” I turned my attention back to Mr. Nettles when he cleared his throat in the direction of our whispers.
“Under the scoreboard on the football field. Three o’clock.” Lennox’s warm, minty breath tickled the back of my neck exposed by a high ponytail. It sent shivers down my spine, causing me to bite my lower lip in an effort to stifle a moan. What the heck was that? I’ve never felt that before.
Straightening in my seat and trying to cool my overheated teenage hormones, I bobbed my head and gave a thumbs up over my shoulder.
This wasn’t happening. This had to be someone else’s life. How on earth would I get through the rest of the day knowing I had a study date with the Lennox Dean in less than . . . five hours and twenty-two minutes?
I needed more time to prepare. A better outfit. Some Chap Stick?
I was getting ahead of myself, but then again, this was my shot. Before today, grabbing the attention of Lennox Dean was a pipe dream. Now it was a reality. If I’d learned anything from my craptastic home life and horrible fate, it was that only I could fix it. This may be the only chance I had to get that fairytale ending I’d been dreaming of.
THE REST OF THE DAY dragged by like slow torture. When the final bell rang, I scooped my books into my bag and beelined it to the bathroom to freshen up. Gazing into the dull mirror, I redid my ponytail so the loose strands were tucked neatly away. Reaching into the front pocket of my backpack, I took out my compact and blotted away any oily spots.
I didn’t wear makeup—with no mother figure in my life to teach me those things, I got by without it. Mother nature had blessed me with fair, unblemished skin and nicely proportioned features. So many girls my age hid behind caked on foundation to cover up acne, or encrusted their lashes with far too much mascara to give them a more mature appearance. I didn’t have much to be thankful for, but I was grateful I could bear to look at my reflection in a mirror without complaint.
Conviction in tow, I slung my bag over one shoulder and gave myself a pep talk as I made my way to the football field. By the time I arrived, Lennox was already sprawled out on the grass, textbook, binder, and loose leaf paper scattered around him. I didn’t peg him for the studious type—he was a jock. Jocks weren’t usually as into their academics as they were the game, but his readiness for what I hoped would be the first of many study sessions made me smile. I took a minute to take him in before he could realize I was stalking.
In a fitted white T-shirt, the corded muscles of his arms flexed with each insignificant movement. He was tall, towering over many of the other boys our age, so his legs stretched out for miles in front of him, covered only to the knees by a pair of loose basketball shorts. I admired the total package that was the All-American high school athlete. Only, there was nothing ordinary about Lennox. From his unique name, to the unconventional length of his ashy blond hair, to his strong, almost-too-defined-for-his-age jawline, and that staggering smile created by heart shaped lips and Colgate-commercial teeth—he was perfection. Every teenage girl’s naughty fantasy and romantic daydream rolled into one insanely amazing specimen. And he was waiting for me—a miraculous offering for an undeserving recipient.
I blinked my goo-goo eyes once more to solidify that this was indeed really happening, and that’s when he noticed me standing there. It took me exactly two point five seconds to get with it and pretend I hadn’t been naming our future babies while drooling over him.
“Someone’s taking American Literature seriously?” I joked, closing the distance between us and then tossing my bag on the ground. It came out more poised than I actually felt, considering butterflies invaded my belly in a flock of flutters. On the outside I portrayed the coolest me possible.
“Someone’ll get kicked off the team if he doesn’t get his shit together.” Lennox looked up at me with a toothy grin that did weird things to my insides. Good weird. So good.
“Well, then. Let’s see what the trouble is. The football team won’t be any good without the best quarterback in the county.”
From that moment on, everything was smooth and effortless. Part of me even hatched the impossible idea that Lennox wasn’t having trouble interpreting Mr. Nettle’s latest lesson on The Great Gatsby at all. I started to believe he asked me to help just to get to know me. Crazy, I know. Why would someone like him have to make up an elaborate lie to hang out with someone like me? I was certain he knew all he had to do was ask and I’d fall at his feet. But then again, who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth? I’d go along with his Gatsby issues if it meant being able to stare into those incredible eyes and listen to the melody of his laughter a few afternoons a week.
Little did I know, that ridiculous notion I’d hatched up wasn’t so ridiculous after all. After our third study session, the remarkable boy who was on every girl’s wish list was on his way to becoming mine. Lennox made more advances with me than he did in his studies. And that was saying a lot, because he aced his first assignment from Mr. Nettles even though he spent more time flirting with me and creeping into my heart than he did reading the damn novel.
I would never forget the feeling of wearing the #10 jersey he gave me to the first football game and seeing him wave to me from the field with pride and adoration. I felt like royalty. I felt whole. For the first time in my meager life, everything was falling into place. My future would be brighter than my tragic past. All my wishes were coming true. I was high on young love and I had Lennox Dean to thank for that.