The Way I used to Be

“EDEN?” MOM KNOCKS ON
my door, tries to turn the knob. I open my
eyes; pray it’s all been a dream. I fumble for my phone. One forty-three p.m.
I’ve been asleep for fifteen hours. Ten missed calls.
“Yeah?” I moan, trying to scroll down the list: Mara, Mara, Mara, Steve,
Cameron, Steve, Cameron, Steve, Steve, Steve. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Eden!” she calls again.
“I said yeah!” I shout. Don’t make me get up, Vanessa. Please.
“I’m not going to holler through the door!” she hollers through the door.
I drag myself up, dust myself off, whatever, shove the sleeping bag under
the bed and throw my pillow on top. Unlock my door.
“You have a visitor,” Vanessa whispers, tight-lipped, “some freaky-looking
guy.”
“What?”
“Cameron something or other, do you know this boy?” She tilts her head
so I can see him standing in the center of our living room, opening and
closing his mouth. He’s playing with his tongue ring, another stupid,
annoying thing about him that I hate.
“Shit,” I breathe.
“Eden,” she scolds. I stare at the straight line of her mouth. “Well,” she
says, resigned, “your father’s out and I was just leaving to go to the store, but
do you want me to stay? I just—I don’t like the look of him,” she murmurs,
casting a glare over her shoulder. “Is he—will you be—he’s not dangerous,
right? He’s your friend?” The thought of her being worried about leaving me
alone in the house with a dangerous boy is just so laughable, I could throw
up.
“It’s fine,” I mumble, my tongue and lips dry as paper. Or maybe it
wouldn’t be fine, but I don’t need witnesses for whatever is about to go down.
“Would you just tell him I’ll be out in a second?”

---

I slip past her, locking myself in the bathroom. My heart starts beating
erratically. I will not cry. “You will 
not
cry,” I whisper to myself. I wash my
face and brush my teeth, try to tug a brush through my hair, which is in
knots. I hear muttered good-byes and the front door closing. I pull my hair
tight into a ponytail. No. Looks like I care what I look like, looks like I’m
trying; I take it out and carefully pull it into a sloppy bun.
“You can’t pick up a phone?” he blurts out while I’m still shuffling into the
living room.
“I can—I mean, I’m capable, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Oh, okay. You just won’t?” he says, all jittery from trying to restrain
himself.
I cross my arms, shrug, absently pulling at a loose thread on my sleeve, a
subtle signal that I can barely even be bothered to have this conversation.
“You’re unbelievable. He doesn’t deserve this. I mean, you do know that,
don’t you?”
I roll my eyes.
“You know, I told him a girl like you would just destroy him. Because girls
like you—”
“Girls like me?” I laugh. Where have I heard this speech before?
“I don’t know what the hell he ever saw in you, I really don’t.”
“Come on, it’s pretty obvious what he saw. What he wanted. He had his
chance, right? And he kinda blew it, sorry to say.”
“Bullshit!” He spits the word before I’ve even finished my sentence. “Don’t
pretend you actually believe that. Unless you really are that heartless. Are
you? I mean, are you really?” There’s this vein in his forehead that throbs
every time he raises his voice.
Stone-faced, I mumble, “Guess so.”
“Yeah?” he asks, vein bulging, fists clenched at his sides. “’Cause you’re so
tough, is that right? You’re just so tough?”
I grin, let out a sigh. What a dick. He’s not getting to me, he’s not. He takes
a step toward me. I resist the instinct that tells me to back up, to run. But I do
some quick physics in my head—mass, volume, density—I could maybe take

---

him. Sure, he’s taller, but scrawny. We’d have to weigh about the same. Yeah,
if push came to shove, I could take him.
“So, that’s why you were crying? Because you’re, what, 
tough
?” he asks,
with this cool smirk. Or maybe he could take me.
I inhale a breath of something that doesn’t feel like air, and then can’t seem
to remember how to exhale. My eyes can’t hold their stare; they look down,
the stupid cowards.
“Yeah, he told me about that,” he continues. “He told me everything. He
said that he was trying to be nice and you were being a bitch—” He pauses,
letting the word cut through the air. “Well, I’m paraphrasing here ’cause you
know Steve wouldn’t actually call you a bitch, even if you are one, even if
that’s what he was thinking. Yeah, he said you started crying, crying like a
little—”
Oh, I’m back. “Just shut the fuck up, Cameron! You don’t know—you just
don’t even know, so stay out of it!” I can hardly take in enough breath to keep
myself speaking. “You wanna talk about pretending to be tough? Take a look
in the mirror! You think you intimidate people, the way you look? You think
you’re tough?”
“No. I never said I was. I hope I don’t intimidate people, but that’s the
difference between you and me, isn’t it? You want to take people down, you
want to hurt people, but you know what?” He sneers, inching toward me.
I swear to God I’ll hit him right in the face if he comes any closer. “What?”
The word comes out strangled—not tough, not fierce—not the way I meant it
to.
“Nobody’s afraid of you,” he says quietly, reserved, restrained, and
suddenly in complete control of his emotions.
I swallow hard. I’m losing my shit here. Because I know he’s right. I know
it’s true.
“You’re so weak and scared, it’s pathetic.” He smiles, cocks his head to one
side. “What?” He pauses, cruelty dripping off the silence. “You don’t think
people can see that?”
“Get out.” My voice shakes.

---

“You think you’re such a mystery? You’re completely transparent—I see
right through you.”
“Leave!” I demand.
“You’re toxic. You know, you just spread around your bullshit everywhere
you go. It’s so pathetic, I almost feel sorry for you—almost.”
I had no idea Cameron could be so mean. Somewhere, a small part of me
almost admires him—almost.
“You—you don’t even know me. How can you—”
“Oh, yeah I do,” he interrupts. “I know all about you.”
I shake my head. No. I can’t speak.
“I’ll go now”—he backs away—“so you can cry. Alone.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah.” He raises his arm and waves. “Sure.”
“Fuck you!” I scream at his back. “Fuck you!” I pick up the ceramic coaster
sitting on the end table, the closest thing to my hand, and chuck it at the door
as it closes.
Back in my room, I pull my sleeping bag out from under the bed, toss and
turn a few times. Then I’m up on my feet again. Rolling the sleeping bag into
a ball, I throw open my closet door and shove it in. It flops out. I kick it, kick
and kick and kick at it. I throw myself on the floor and push it back in, over
and over, but it just keeps stumbling out again. Next, the avalanche of papers,
boxes, a toppling-in-slow-motion stack of old clothes that no longer fit, a fleet
of stuffed animals, a fucking stupid, useless clarinet. I lie down on the pile and
try as hard as I can to stop crying.
I stay in my room all day. All night. I skip dinner.
Steve texts me at eleven: 
please don’t do this.
He calls and leaves another voice mail at 11:44. And again at midnight.
I turn my phone off.

---