"So you learned how to use a computer, Eden?" I asked, wondering how she'd done the detailed research on Acadia. I turned on my headlights and pulled onto the street.
"Yes. I saved up for one and bought a laptop about six months ago. I realized if I was going to find Xander, I'd need one. Calling around places was getting me nowhere."
"Did you call the ranger station?" I looked over at her and she nodded in the dim cab.
"Yes. That's how I got Kristi's last name. But they wouldn't tell me what school she went to—if they even knew—but I figured they did." She bit her lip for a second and shrugged. "For all they knew, I was some weirdo." She paused for a second. "I called there from a phone in the lobby of Felix's building. I was so paranoid." She shook her head again and looked down at her hands in her lap. "It's so hard not knowing how things work . . . what's safe and what's not. I was paralyzed with fear most of the time." She ended on a whisper. "The computer seemed safer, more anonymous."
I nodded, reaching over and taking her hand.
"Anyway," she went on, "I research other stuff, too. I've been looking up politics, religions—trying to understand what different people believe, what sort of feels right to me."
I made a small snorting sound. "How can you believe in anything anymore?"
She was quiet for a minute and I felt the weight of her eyes on me in the dim interior. "Sometimes I don't." She looked straight ahead again. "I'm still working on that, too."
"What else do you research?" I asked to change the subject.
"Um, all kinds of things. Just trying to understand the big . . . I mean, the world. You know."
I smiled over at her. "Yes, I do know. Xander keeps trying to get me to buy a computer—and open a Facebook account. He tells me about it. Of course he uses a take off on his name."
"Clive Richter," she whispered. I nodded, frowning. It seemed that the thought of Clive Richter had been our constant companion over the past few years, dictating so much of what we did and didn't do.
I looked forward and was quiet for a minute. "Xander seemed upset he could never participate in this 'Throw Back Thursday' thing where you post pictures from the past, because he'll never have any of those." I laughed softly, but it held a note of sadness. Xander had actually seemed bothered by it.
"Do you care about that at all?" Eden asked, tilting her head. "I mean, for yourself?"
I thought about it for a second as I pulled into the bowling alley parking lot. I switched off the engine and leaned back in my seat. "I guess not."
She watched me for a couple beats and then nodded. "And who are Xander's Facebook friends exactly?" she asked, raising one brow.
I chuckled. "I don't know, guys he works with maybe? The women he sees. There are definitely enough of those." I stared ahead. Xander had his own way of coping with the demons that haunted him, and the loneliness I knew he struggled with.
I felt Eden's eyes studying my profile for a minute before she said, "I went on there looking for Kristi, actually, but it didn't pan out. I thought about opening an account, but at the time I guessed I'd just be 'Eden No Last Name' and my status update would always be the same–Life Sucks–feeling suicidal. I didn't figure I'd get a whole lot of friend requests."
I let out a burst of laughter and then tried to suck it back. It felt extremely inappropriate. But when I glanced over at her, she had a small, amused smirk on her face and so I grinned and then laughed harder.
She laughed, too, until we were both laughing so hard that tears were in my eyes and she was doubled forward.
The laughter brought on a huge surge of unexpected emotion and it hit me like a tidal wave.
I leaned forward on the steering wheel and continued to laugh until I realized there were tears running down my cheeks and my laughter had turned to shaking.
"Come here," Eden said, and I could hear the tears in her voice, too.
I moved over on the seat and grabbed her to me so tightly that she sucked in a breath.
"I missed you so much. So fucking much," I choked out. "Oh God, Eden, my Eden. Oh my God, I wanted to die without you." I tried to hold the tears back, but something had taken over—maybe the reality of her being back had hit me, maybe the laughter had broken the dam of emotion that was barely contained. I didn't know. But I was helpless to stop it and so I just gripped her to me and inhaled her comforting scent and cried like a damn baby into her chest as she stroked my back. I felt her tears hitting the back of my neck. It was the first time I'd cried since Xander dragged me off that roof.