Finding Eden(14)

I nodded and offered a small smile, feeling joy in the word, 'belong'. Finally—the thing I'd been searching for my entire life.

We talked for hours. My mom had many more questions about how I'd been treated in Acadia. I told her of my loneliness and confusion. I spoke of Mother Hailey and felt a pressing on my chest. I didn't speak specifically of Calder or Xander. I couldn't—not yet. But I did tell her there'd been happiness for me there, too, and that I'd had friends. And I filled her in haltingly on more of the horror I'd experienced at the end, most of it, at least. My mom cried some more and so did Molly.

We filled each other in on what our lives were like now, about what it'd been like for me to re-enter a new and different society, about Felix, and the things my mom had done to keep my memory alive all the years I'd been gone.

Finally, as the night grew darker, I covered my mouth to stifle a yawn. I was emotionally exhausted. "I'm sorry," I said, shaking my head. "It's been a long day. I should get going. Do you think you could give me a ride?"

"You'll do no such thing," my mom said, setting her wine glass on the table. "Please, Eden, I meant what I said. Please stay here. Please."

"Seriously, Eden, she has rooms to spare upstairs. And you said you were looking for a place . . ."

"All right. That would be wonderful, actually. Let me just call Marissa and tell her. She's going to be thrilled. Really, I can't wait for you to meet her."

"Meet her? I'm going to squeeze her so hard. She's been taking care of my baby!"

I breathed out. "Thank you, Mom." I looked over at Molly. "Thank you, Molly. You made today so much better than I ever could have dreamed."

We all stood up and hugged, my mom shedding a few more tears, and then Molly showed me to my new room, in my new home, and brought me a few of her things to borrow until I could retrieve my own the next day.

When I'd slipped into bed, my mom came in and sat beside me on the mattress, gazing down at me in wonder and running her hand over my hair. "My little girl," she said softly. She hummed to me for a few minutes, a look of awe-filled joy in her expression.

"My beautiful Eden," she whispered, "I never thought I'd see you again."

"I love you, Mom," I said, blinking at her, trying not to tear up. "I never forgot you."

She caressed my cheek, a tear escaping her eye. It rolled slowly down her cheek as she said, "Oh, my sweetheart, I love you, too. I never thought I'd get the chance to tell you that again in this life. We have so much lost time to make up for." She wiped the tear away and hummed again for a few minutes.

I lay there after she'd closed the door, looking around in the dim light of the moon outside, reeling at how life could change in an instant.

All my life I'd dreamed of my mother, held on to the belief that I'd been loved before. And now I had her back. I said a silent thank you to the God of Mercy, hoping against hope that being back in my mother's arms would help heal another piece of my broken heart.





CHAPTER THREE




Eden



The day I stumbled away from Acadia, the day I lost the love of my life, I thought I'd never feel happiness again. I didn't think I'd ever care about anything. Nothing mattered and all I could do was hurt. Just breathing felt like enough.

I'd heard it said that the only way through grief is to grieve. Sometimes I felt like I'd done a decent job of that, and other times, I saw something, or remembered something, or smelled something, and the pain would hit me so hard, I almost felt like doubling over with the blow.

I'd been living at my mom's house for a month and like I'd hoped, the stability and love I had found there was a balm to my heart. Not that I hadn't found some measure of peace with Felix, but it wasn't quite the same. I didn't belong to him. For the first year I'd been there, the only thing I'd been able to do was grieve. For the two years my mind could focus on anything other than my grief, I had focused on earning and saving money, attempting to build something of my own that would allow me to feel safe. I didn't imagine I'd ever have more than a few fleeting moments of happiness, but I craved safety, security, and so that's what I worked toward. I had known Felix was ill the day I arrived at his house, and losing him had been a constant worry for me, for more reasons than just the fact that I grew to love him.

Every morning during those first weeks at my mom's house, I woke up in my pink, frilly twin bed—the comforter still preserved from my childhood room. It felt like again, I had woken up to a whole new story and I was a different main character, stumbling through, trying to understand my new role.

I had expected that not having to concern myself constantly with how I would take care of myself and how I would survive on my own if it came to that would help me heal even more. But in fact, not having that anxiety allowed my mind to spend time probing areas I'd somewhat successfully neglected up until then, like skirting around the edges of a fading bruise only to find the pain remained. I hurt. It felt like I ached all the time that first month at my mom's house. I still hadn't yet told my mom or Molly about Calder because I simply didn't know if I was strong enough to talk about him to anyone. It was another step I'd have to feel ready to take—I guessed I'd know when that time came. But my mom didn't seem to want to discuss Acadia very much anyway. We'd talked about it that first day, but anytime I made any reference to it now, she changed the subject. I wasn't sure if she was trying to protect me from the sadness she thought it brought me to discuss it, or if she herself preferred not to think about it. I suspected the latter.