Finding Eden

05

"What are you doing?"

"I'm accompanying you," came his reply. Cade had his guitar case strapped tightly onto his back and he walked his bike alongside me.

"Thanks but I don't really need it. I have a therapy session," I said. Maybe it was guilt that was making me avoid his presence. I had spent every night at his house for the past week and we barely knew each other. We barely talked.

He said nothing in reply and his steps didn't falter for a second. Just as he breathed in and licked his lips, I interrupted him.

"I really appreciate you watching out for me but you don't have to keep doing this. It was a one time thing and we can go back to being neighbors. I don't need any distractions, I have a production coming up."

Very surprisingly, his mouth quirked up at that, undeterred by my declaration. "I don't believe you for one second, Eden. Did you know that when you direct somebody's name in a sentence to them, it gets their attention and in turn, they get an ego boost?"

My lips parted in tired defeat. "Don't you have band rehearsal?"

"Fun fact: I like to carry very important and addictive drugs in this case of mine."

"The only thing you're addicted to is-"

"I never said I was using. Simply that they are there," he said. "And I don't have band rehearsal but I'm scheduled for the studio at four so that gives me plenty of time."

His fingers tangled in his messy hair and I noticed he seemed to never look fully presentable. Always something with his hair or the hollows around his eyes. He almost always seemed to be perpetually dressed in loungewear underneath his scarf and coat. However incomplete he was, he was still capable of taking breaths away.

(Heartbreaker: a person who is very attractive but who is irresponsible in emotional relationships)

"Please don't do this," I whispered.

"Do what, Eden?"

More and more, the sound of my name on his tongue drilled itself deep into the back of my head. I feared it would stay stuck in my memories, like the way perfume doesn't leave hair. God forbid that I'd have to get out the scissors.

"Try to become my friend."

His jaw twitched. "Maybe I'm not doing it for you," he said softly.

I lowered my eyes and we continued the walk in silence.

***

"You go here?" he nodded at the front door of my therapist's loft.

"Does it really garner that type of response? I told you I had a session," I said. I knocked and waited.

"It's just that," he replied "I used to go here." All of a sudden, he seemed out of place, standing outside with me. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his coat and shifted his weight between his two feet.

When I gave him a quizzical stare and he told me that I wasn't the only one who has problems.

"Maddox?" Was the first thing that tumbled out of my therapist's mouth when she greeted us at the door.

"Hi," he greeted her meekly.

"I haven't seen you in a while, Cade. Do you both need a session?" she asked.

"Just Eden here. I'm actually her unknowing companion," he said.

My therapist led me to her study and left Cade back at the living room.

"I didn't know you knew him," she started.

"He's my neighbour. The one I told you about."

I didn't exactly enjoy reaping the benefits of therapy. It didn't get me medicine, it didn't help me feel better, in fact, it made me feel lost. But by now I've built a schedule in coming twice a week until my sessions are up.

"I wouldn't have had you visit him if I'd known it was Cade."

"That's just a bit prejudiced don't you think?" For some godforsaken reason - a stupid one - I took defence.

"He's not the best type of friend to have at your stage," she began. Her pen had stopped writing and she was tapping it against her leg as if the harder her taps were, the better her answer to my question would be. "He can be...reckless."

"And when was your last session with him?"

"I can't possibly disclose that information. In fact, I shouldn't have said anything at all. Eden, I think I've said enough. Let's talk about you," she said. The lines on her face were tighter around her forehead and she smoothed it over with her fingertips, nails painted french.

"Are you implying that he's incapable of change and of growth or god forbid, maturity? What does that say about how you think about me?" I couldn't stop these words from escaping my mouth. The little flutter in my heart turned frantic.

"Eden Brielle. That is not the aim of what you are here for. I'm going to have to ask you now to stop discussing my past client with me."

"Yeah you're right. I'm only here because the doctor prescribed therapy to me," I said.

"What I'm trying to tell you is that you are at a very vulnerable point of your life. Unwittingly, you may tend to develop undesirable responses that are tied to certain things. Objects, songs, places, people," she said.

So I told her about how I lose the contents of my stomach every once in a while. Meeting her stare, I felt like someone was threading ribbons through my bones and pulling hard on the strings of my skeleton.

"Is it something perhaps physical?"

"No, I'm not pregnant."

I felt like my ribs were constricting.

"Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"No."

This tightening in your chest isn't going to stop.

"Is there something you're afraid of?"

The pacing of my heart picked up as she said it, drowning the room with its beats and the pressure inside me built up, threatening to dissolve the contents of my nightmares.

"No. Sorry but I think I'm done for today. I have rehearsal," I excused myself, grabbed my coat, ran past Cade in the living room and out the door.

"Eden!"

Someone shouted. I couldn't distinguish who it was in my hurry. My legs led me past the elevators and into the escape exit.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

Each flight of stairs had eight steps and I made it down five flights, picking up pace as I went, air blowing into my dry eyes. Then came the inevitable. A shock streaked up my spine and I collapsed into the corner.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

Then static.

"Eden, breathe." Two cold hands grasped the joint space my neck and my jaw shared. A forehead pressed itself onto my damp one and a warm sigh engulfed the space between me and Cade. My eyes were wastelands and I was still a mess.

"I'm so pathetic," I whispered.

And so we counted. We counted to twenty and we counted down from twenty. An almost stranger accompanying a wreckage as they counted and as they silently voiced the number of problems in their lives.