Page 63 of Run To You
With my hair still dripping, I grab the closest set of clothes and shove them on. Mom is standing in my kitchen holding out my bag, which I’m sure has my charger and some spare clothes already packed.
“Give her a hug from us,” she says as I whip past, kiss her on the cheek, and grab my bag from her.
“I will. I’ll message later.”
Thankfully, Eden’s apartment is only a few minutes away, but I still have to tell myself to slow down as I take a corner way too fast. All I want to do is have her close to me. I have no idea how I’m going to make her feel better. Eden’s grandmother is her idol.
The universe must be on my side as I find a parking spot right by her building.
I fling open the door and take the stairs two at a time, ignoring the sour burn of adrenaline and the weird tingle in my big toe from slamming it into the doorframe in my rush to get in the building. Eden opens the door before I even knock, hair soaked and face ashen, bare feet pressing into the ancient tile like she’s afraid she’ll fall through the earth.
We stare at each other for exactly one second before Eden grabs me, hard. Her whole body is trembling, but when my arms go around her, she shudders once and settles, like she was waiting for some invisible permission to collapse.
“I’m okay,” she says into my chest, which is a bold-faced lie, and then she starts to cry.
Not a slow, sad trickle, but the sudden, ugly, furious type. I rock her by instinct, and every cell in my body is primed for panic, but then I remember the damn advice Dr. Chen gave me when I questioned my ability to be there for someone without it overwhelming me.
I asked her how I could possibly comfort another person, specifically Eden, if I ever needed to. She simply smiled and told me to just hold her and let the feeling pass. No fixing. Just be there to listen. So that’s what I do. I swallow down any negative feeling and concentrate on her heartbeat against mine. I focus on the string of Polaroids pinned above the entry just over her shoulder as she lets out her emotions in heartbreaking wracks of worry and sadness.
I can’t help but smile when I spot the picture of Eden and her gran on a beach, both double-fisting ice creams and giving the camera the finger.
“You wanna talk?” I whisper when her sobbing tapers off. She shakes her head, nose buried in my t-shirt, which is still damp from my wet hair.
“Cancer blows!”
“It’s an asshole,” I say, and she barks out a startled laugh, then sniffles.
“You want pancakes? I can make pancakes.”
“I’ve eaten so many pancakes today, I think my blood is maple syrup.”
I guide her to the couch, stepping sideways so we’re still holding hands. She kicks her feet up under her, pulling a fleece blanket over both our legs. Outside, someone’s started a leaf blower even though there are no leaves, and it’s late afternoon, so what the hell?
She finally lets go of my hand and rubs her eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to unload like that, I just—” She gestures helplessly. “Have you ever wanted to put your head through the wall because reality is too fucking loud?”
“Every day,” I say and mean it. “But then I’d have to spackle and paint the wall.”
We sit quietly. The room is warm and slightly sticky, even with a busted old AC unit doing its best to fight the summer heat. In her silences, Eden’s mind works at ten million miles a minute, so I just let her think, running mythumb along the side of her hand. After a while, she leans her head on my shoulder.
“I’m not ready for her to go.”
“She’s not going,” I say immediately. “You know that, right? Stage one. She said so. If anyone can beat it just out of spite, it’s your gran.”
This hangs between us for a second until she nods, a tiny smile curling the corners of her mouth. “She’s going to make cancer her bitch and then create a ‘Fuck You Cancer’ sculpture celebrating her fierceness.”
I laugh because even though I only met the woman today, I feel like I know her just from Eden’s stories.
We talk in circles for a while more, about Meena’s baby poops and the secret competition between Pia and Todd to see who can go the longest without showering. We talk about Jenna and Kiera, and how surreal it’s going to be meeting Kiera again, and how Bella is petitioning to be the first aunt to take Meena for a tattoo when she’s old enough. I don’t even try to hide how much I love hearing this. Eden is animated, sad and alive all at once.
When my phone buzzes, I glance at it and then at Eden. “Alex is definitely coming to the race,” I mutter as I read the text out loud. I didn’t need the confirmationmessage from her, but there it is, sitting on my phone screen.
Eden shrugs. “I feel weird about it.”
I squeeze her shoulder. “You’re my person, Eden.”
I can tell her a thousand times how Alex means nothing to me and what happened between us was a mistake, but I’ve done that, and after a while words can lose meaning. Telling her she’s my person is a promise.
Her eyes widen a little. She blinks, then leans her head against me, lighter than before. “You’re my person back,” she says, and we both know it means something stubborn and enormous.
