Finding Eden

20

There were only two occasions where I had to be rushed to the hospital.

1. Getting my stomach pumped from ingesting too much medicine.

2. Getting pulled out of the metal cage of my parents' car.

Aldous had reached me first when he came in to check on my progress but I begged him to wait just a few minutes later. I told him I had called Cade and he only looked at me with those aged eyes.

"Mon dieu, Eden," he had said. I didn't know what made it worse: his soft exclamation or the look of pity on his face. I only sobbed harder and clung onto my left leg as Aldous started packing my bag for me and pried the phone out of my hand.

Cade had said, "Hold on. I'll be there. Don't worry, stay safe."

"What makes you think that he'll be here if he wasn't there for you four months ago?" Aldous asked. But he still held my hand and hoisted me up on my other leg to walk to the entrance. He had called for a soloist to drive us to the hospital.

I remembered my knees buckling not from the searing pain in my ankle but from his words. "You don't get to decide that," I said and he only tsked, his dislike for him evident.

I knew that he thought I was weak, not because of my physical injury, but of my incapability to move on from my past. He never once said anything about my parents but he wasn't holding back his tongue for Cade.

Yet he appeared.

My stomach couldn't handle the thought of him and my blood ran colder than winter because it was like seeing the manifestation of all my nightmares—the ones I used to have.

His face was pale, too pale for the season, and the colors under his eyes matched the ones flowering on my ankle.

"Hey," he said, "let's get you to the hospital." He sounded choked and took up a hold of my arms, which Aldous reluctantly give to him, and guided me onto the backseat of the car. My eyes were too busy swallowing up the bitter image of his apparel and he was still wearing the same style of hair. He didn't meet my eyes and stared straight ahead at the traffic. Aldous sat stiff in the passenger stiff and didn't acknowledge Cade.

We hit a speed bump that jostled the position my leg was in and I let out a scream. There was only one thing that hurt me this much and it was the time Jason Parker hit me in the stomach with a baseball in seventh grade. The one right then was incomparable.

Cade's fingers hardened around mine and his thumb stroked the back of my hand soothingly as I bit back profanities. I always thought that my body's pain tolerance would allow me the bliss to pass out but I made it through.

When we neared the hospital, the vice in between my collarbones contracted until there was little passing between my lungs.

"I can't do this. I can't do this again," I said. I can't, I can't, I can't.

"We're going to get you fixed up and you'll be dancing again in no time. This won't be the same as last time. You have me," Aldous swivelled around and said. "Us," he added when he noticed the clutch I had on Cade's hand.

***

The next few hours commenced and I was put under anesthesia. Aldous was right—I was fixed and patched up, righted together. My leg was elevated and the immediate effects of the anesthesia were wearing off. My aunt sat next to me, lips in a thin line. I pushed the button that delivered me pain medications.

Aldous had talked with my aunt and had left I after placing a squeeze on my arm. I had faked faux pain when he did so and laughed deliriously at the shock on his face.

"Mary?"

"Yes Eden?" My aunt was busy combing my hair.

"Will I be able to dance again?"

"We don't know dear." The look on her face told me different and I began to sob into her shoulder. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't cease it and she held me softly, until my heavy heaves dwindled to small hiccups.

"I need to throw up," I requested and she silently handed me the trash bin. "Is Cade here?"

"No, he left after your surgery."

"Oh. Is Charles coming?" I asked and assumed she had contacted him.

"Yes. I'll have to leave after he comes, are you fine with that?"

"Yeah," I replied.

***

Then I slept for hours on end, the heavy weight beneath my lids catching up to me. Charles was next to me when I woke up, a hand on the bed railing and his head bent down near my lap. He was snoring lightly—if at all—and my rustling woke him up.

"Water?" he asked. I nodded and he went outside to pour a cup for me.

"I think I love you," I murmured, adoring the way the fluorescent lights highlighted the profile of his face.

"The moment, babe, the moment."

The first day I met him was the day I landed in Paris. He had arrived there early, planning to visit a few destinations beforehand because he didn't want to be held back by the rest of the company. We were packed around the Mona Lisa when he first talked to me.

"If you really want to see a masterpiece, there's a beautiful one on the other side of the room," he had whispered low into my ear and guided me to it, shouldering against the crowd.

He had placed me right in front of a large painting—I later found out it was a piece by Paolo Veronese—and he started giving me information about it and that was how I became acquainted with art-enthusiast and soloist, Charles Kaminski. We got along right away and he was charming, to say the least, and extremely into history, acting as a tour guide throughout the trip.

"Not the moment. Maybe two or three moments," I said.

"I'm flattered," he said. He had a mild expression on his face and I wanted to smooth away the lines near his eyes. I think I understood what Cade said when he had told me that he would never compare and I was suddenly everything that he was that night, staring at Charles.

"I'll make it last," I promised.

"Just for a while," he replied. He didn't ask about ballet or Cade and convinced me to let him read me a story he brought along with him. His voice carried me back to the warm embrace of sleep and it made my shoulders relax.

By the morning, he had left but his collection of short stories sat by fresh flowers with a note stickied on top.