Guns and triggers

Chapter 8...

Song of the chapter: Wonder by Shawn Mendes.

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I wake up with a sense of excitement for the morning ahead, which is something I haven't felt a very long time. I wash my face and put my makeup on, then when I get to my wardrobe I'm torn between a white skirt or a navy skirt, but seeing as today is all about new experiences I decide on the navy skirt, a white collared shirt and a dark green jumper. I put on my jewellery, shoes, brush my hair and grab my bag.

Just after I finish locking my door Eden pulls up as I turn around, perfect timing and I hop down the stairs and into the passenger side of his black Audi. He smiles at me and I return the smile whilst shutting the door carefully. "Morning."
After the smile he gave me I had hoped he would follow it up with a warmer verbal greeting, but no, he's back to the cold distant Eden.
"Oh um morning"  he starts driving away from the house and I begin to feel like this was a bad idea.

As I'm about to put my headphones in to drown out the awkwardness he grabs them from my hand "No listening to music when you never tell me what it is you're listening to."  What the actual hell, who does he think he is? My dad?
"Oo sorry father" he glances at me with a smirk and I reply with raised eyebrows.
"If you're going to refer to me as a relative I'd rather you call me daddy"
I nearly choke on the air around me. I look at him with an open mouth and he doesn't miss a beat "Oh now, don't open your mouth like that unless you're going to put something inside it, you're being a tease Evie"   This time my eyes widen and my mouth closes causing to him to explode into a fit of laughter. He has a beautiful laugh, almost melodic.

"Where are you taking me anyways? Because if it's somewhere far away then we'll be late for school and I"-
"Oh shush. It's not much further, promise."  I look out of the window and take in the scenery, we're driving down a road surrounded by thick green fields and blossoming trees and it's almost hard to take my eyes of it as we turn through a grey stone arch which leads to what looks like...a graveyard?  It can't be, why would he take me to one of these? 

"Here" he stops the car and comes round to my door to open it for me.
"Uhm thank you, but why did you bring me here Eden?"
He takes my hand and starts leading me through little turns and arches before starting to answer me.
"Well, on your first day at school, when you talked about your parents..specifically your father, I uhm-I, well I thought maybe if I told you how my father died..you'd tell me what happened to yours" glancing back at me with questions behind his eyes I start to believe that maybe, maybe I could trust him with this.
We come to a large grey headstone, I assume it's his fathers because it has big lettering ingrained into it which reads 'Adam Harris'
Eden looks and me with watery green eyes and I can see this is a sensitive subject for him.
"This is my father"
"and, this is my mother"  he says pointing to the smaller gravestone beside it. 'Evie Harris"
My heart aches for him and my stomach starts to twist with regret for telling him to Shutup and stop talking every time he called me Evie. My eyes start to water and I look up at Eden "Adam and Eve...and Eden" my voice betrays me and cracks on the last name.  "Yes, my mother passed first, cancer. It took her away piece by piece until one day..there was was nothing left to take"  he breathes out and I squeeze his hand in an attempt to comfort him.
"I could see it taking my father with it too, watching his only love slowly slip from him, he couldn't take it. Then one day he took me and Luke out to the beach and it was great you know?" He looks down at me and a single tear falling down his cheek and off his sharp jaw, breaking my heart as it hits the floor. "Then Luke's mum picked him up and it was just me and my dad. He said we should go for a swim and I was ten so of course, He ran into the water and I followed behind. And then his head disappeared beneath the water.."
He kneels down reaching out to Adams headstone "and I waited and waited for it to come back up, but it never did. The medics said it was an accident, he just inhaled to much water but, I know it wasn't. He couldn't live without my mother and there was only one way to be with her."

My heart sinks and tears spill over my  face, hot against my skin reminding me that this is real and of how rude I was for deciding he was just another rude asshole. He has a reason for being so distant.

He stands up and leads me over to the bench across from his parents. "I'm sorry for calling you Evie, my father always called my mother that and..I don't know, it just brought her back for a few seconds every time I said it"

He turns to me with wet cheeks and I throw my arms around his neck holding onto him as though it would take any of his pain away. I sob into his shoulder and he hesitantly puts his arms around me. "Eden..I'm so sorry. I should never of told you you can't call me Evie. You can call me whatever you want, it's okay" my voice is up and down with my sobs and my heart rate does the same.
"I just want to know why you don't like it, if thats okay?"
We let go of each other and he stares into my eyes with a frown. Well here we go...
"Well, uhm..I told you my father died but it all stems from my mother so, I should probably start there..."
I take a deep breath as Eden wipes a tear from my cold cheek, "My mother was a bad person, a bad mother and a bad wife, she had severe bipolar..which not long after turned into schizophrenia."

"She neglected me as a child only noticing me when she had something to degrade me for, if I wore  at shirt I was too boyish and if I wore a cropped top I was a slut. I could never do anything right with her, I'd do what she asked me to and I'd still be in the wrong, anything I did was wrong and she would remind me of that every chance she got...she used to call me Evie every time she mocked me.."
His breath hitches and he apologises with his tears.
"by screaming at me or hitting me, she'd always find some type of way to hurt me whether it was mentally or physically, that woman would find a way...so my father looked after me until I was about thirteen...that's when he started drinking."

Now my tears are really falling and Eden's hand can't wipe them all away although he tries his best. My hands shake and clasps them in his.

"That's when I had no one left. I was so alone."  I choke on my words and start to let everything out.
"Every time it was a school break all the other kids would be talking about how happy they are to have no school and be able to stay at home..and thats when I realised my home was no longer my home. I dreaded going home every day after school and would purposely take the longest way home"
Keep breathing Eve, you can do it.
"Then one day I came home to see my mother being dragged out of my house screaming by two men, but I didn't move to help her...I didn't feel anything. I was numb. Then I waited for my father to come out but he didn't so I ran inside the house with ambulance sirens in the background.

"He'd overdosed..and those two men were taking my mother to be sectioned"  I look back into Eden's eyes which never strayed from me the whole time. His tears are trailing down his face just as mine are and he asks "They were taking her to a mental home weren't they?"
His raspy voice is filled with heartbreak the same way it filled my words when he told me what happens to his parents.

"Yeah... and now, I'm here. I know maybe I should feel something, feel sad or miss my parents but..I don't. I feel nothing. Just emptiness"

We look into each other through the human windows we call eyes, and before I know it, our wet faces are colliding with each other's. His lips taste of salt from the tears that previously consumed them and I assume mine taste the same. Our lips dance with one another's until finally we part. Eden takes my eyes in with his. "I will make you feel something Eve"
"And as for calling you Evie, how about we just call each other E?"

I manage to stifle a laugh and agree by nodding. "Okay E"

We head back to his car and make our way to school in a comfortable silence.

xx Wow. That was a rollercoaster. What do you guys think!? They're really falling for each other right? Anyways I'll speak to you again soon babies;) xx