I studied her. "Morning Glory," I finally said, taking her in my arms again and hugging her to me. "What are you trying to find here?"
She shook her head against my chest, her arms trapped between our bodies where she still held onto her shirt. She stepped back a very small step and looked up at me. She sighed and pulled the black, loose top over her head. "They haven't been able to identify Hector," she said quietly. She reached back and took her hair out of the smooth ponytail it was in and ran her fingers through it as it fell over her shoulders in a beautiful cascade of light morning sunshine. I inhaled as the sweet smell of her shampoo filled the air. "And I just thought, if I could figure out who he was, where he came from, you know, it would help me see him more as a man and not a—"
"Monster?" I finished.
Her eyes flew to mine and she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. Finally she said, "Yes."
I let out a loud breath and furrowed my brow. "I get it, I do. You know more than anyone on planet earth, I do. But this," I waved my hand over to the board with all her research pinned to it, "this can't be good for you—to spend so much time with them, it can't be healthy."
She crossed her arms in front of herself and looked over at the board, seeming to consider. "I thought it might help me figure out who your parents were, too," she said, sadness flashing in her eyes. "They're still not even close to identifying so many of the bodies."
I grabbed her hands and held them in mine between us. "You don't need to do that now," I said gently. "I'm here."
She nodded. "But you still don't know who you are," she said. "If you can find out where your parents lived before Acadia, you might have grandparents somewhere . . . aunts, uncles, family."
I looked off behind her, pausing. "I don't think I was born in Acadia anyway."
She tilted her head, looking confused. "What do you mean?"
I told her haltingly about what Mother Willa had said to me all those years ago, about how Maya was born at Acadia, but that I was not. And then I reminded her of the things Hector had said at the end about how he had brought me to Acadia. Granted he was as mad as a hatter, but. . . "My coloring, it was so different than my parents' and my sister's." A dull ache throbbed in my chest as I mentioned Maya, but I pushed that aside for now. "And learning that you were abducted, makes it even more plausible that I was, too. Clearly kidnapping was yet another thing Hector wasn't morally above doing."
Eden was studying me, biting her lip again. "Well, then this is even more reason to look into—"
"There's no way to find that out," I said, shaking my head. "I'm sorry, it's just, I can't . . . I can't go back there, not even in my mind, all right? I can't. Not yet."
She looked at me with such understanding sorrow and something inside me pulled tight and felt on the verge of snapping. I sucked in a breath and turned my attention back to the board. "I'll help you take it down."
She shook her head. "No. Not yet. I'll do it in my own time, but not yet." She motioned to the bottom of the board. "But I can take all this down. It was my attempt to locate Kristi so I could find Xander."
I looked down at the lists, some items crossed off, notes next to others. It looked like they were names of colleges printed from the Internet. My heart squeezed so tightly I almost brought my hand to my chest as if I was going to have some sort of heart attack. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. Instead, I grabbed Eden and squeezed her to me again, putting the overwhelmingly fierce love for her into that embrace. Morning Glory. Morning Glory.
She squeezed me back and after a few minutes, our arms grew looser and Eden gazed up at me. I loved when she looked at me like that. It made me feel worthy. She shut her closet door. "I'll take care of that later. For now, take me on a date, Calder Raynes." She tilted her head and smiled at me. "It will be my first, you know."
"I'm all your firsts," I whispered, "and all your lasts."
She smiled. "And I'm all your firsts," she whispered back.
I grinned at her, feeling a stab of pain at the fact that she wasn't all my onlys anymore. Another thing I'd have to learn to forgive myself for. And I only hoped she'd be able to as well.
"Come on," I said, taking her hand. "Oh, grab some socks." She did and then slipped her shoes on at the door.
We quietly descended the stairs. The voices were still coming from the garden. I had borrowed Xander's truck so I didn't have to drive Eden around on my motorcycle. Plus I didn't even own one helmet, much less two, and there was no way on earth I'd ever risk Eden's safety. As a small matter of fact, I was suddenly a little more concerned about my own. I squeezed Eden's hand as I helped her up into the truck as the feeling of disbelief swept over me for the millionth time in a day and a half. Then I leaned in and inhaled her scent, reminding myself this was in fact, reality. Her relaxed and sweet expression caused me to think she knew exactly what I was thinking. And she probably did. I rounded the truck and climbed into the driver's seat, turning the ignition.