| published! under the new title MEET ME IN THE MIDDLE | Eden knows she can't love Truman, the boy with the angelic smile and devilish eyes. Why? He's her best friend Katie's older brother, who she strictly promised she'd stay away from.
But when a...
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E D E N
I was laying on the couch, staring out the window, thinking about Truman. Not the cigarette that always dangled from his lips or the way he held that bouquet of flowers in his hands outside the hospital, softly.
I wasn't thinking about the look that flashed across his face when he realized he didn't know what Katie's favourite flower was.
Instead, I was thinking about how our paths haven't crossed in a week. Not out of luck, either. Rather, avoidance. I had been avoiding him ever since he admitted that, somehow, he liked me, too. Liked. Past tense. As in, it doesn't matter anymore.
He never showed up at the bar again. I assumed he must have taken my warning to heart, because the seat he once occupied remained empty. That didn't stop my eyes from drifting there every night, waiting. It was a treacherous thing, the way a heart works sometimes.
Like I said, I was getting good at this: avoidance.
I still remember sleepovers at Katie's and how Truman never woke up before noon. He liked to sleep in, Katie told me once. He also liked to walk into the kitchen shirtless and sit on the counter, eating cereal and holding my gaze.
He was a tease then. I wasn't sure who he was now.
I assumed Truman still slept long into the afternoon, so I slipped into Katie's hospital room early in the mornings before class when there was no chance of us running into each other. I knew he was still in bed, probably draped around Santana.
I tried not to think of that, either.
Instead I focused on school, the bar, the occasional boy to keep me company, and how much my life had changed in such a short span of time.
It feels like I've aged years in the past few months. I couldn't wrap my head around how I had gone from laying on my stomach on the floor of Katie's bedroom, where my biggest worry was the upcoming Calculus test, to spending my nights shifting between a bar and Katie's hospital room.
It didn't make sense.
I wanted time to slow down. Everything was moving too fast. And I felt lost, somewhere stuck in the past before everything went to shit.
I jolted as the door to my apartment slammed open. Ramona, my roommate, crashed through like a tornado, running and collapsing on the couch beside me. Her arms were flying through the air, words coming out too fast for me to understand.
"Woah!" I held her by the shoulders, laughing. "Slow down, Mona."
She stuck her hand in my face. "I'm engaged!"
I gawked at the diamond resting on her finger, sparkling under the sunlight pouring in through the window.
"Holy fuck," I breathed, grabbing her hand and pulling it to my eye. "Is this even real?"
