The sun had set when Eden and I got off the floor in Katie's bedroom. I think the paint was getting to my head, 'cause when she held my hand and led me down the stairs, I kept crashing into her like a meteor. My hand bumping against her thigh, our hips clashing. I couldn't walk without feeling some part of her.

She glanced back on the finale step and smiled, that secretive, uneven smile that made my heart squeeze, like someone tied a rubber-band around it and was pulling, tighter and tighter.

It was the middle of fall, and the air was cold when Eden stepped into the backyard. She sat on the old tire-swing hanging from a tree, and pushed herself into the air. I stood on the grass and watched, grabbing her feet each time she came back down.

"Are you coming back home?" she asked.

"This is home."

"The city, Truman."

I sighed. "Nothing good happens there," I said.

Eden planted her feet on the ground until the swing stopped moving. "Your family is there. Katie's there." She paused and grabbed my hand, then whispered, "I'm there."

I took my eyes off the ground to stare at her. She looked sad, unsure. Like a firecracker that could light up the sky in one second, then fizzle and fade into nothing.

"You and your new roommate," I pointed out.

Eden laughed, and pushed herself off the ground again until she was flying through the air.

"That's your fault," she called. "We bonded over our mutual hatred of you!"

I grabbed the swing and Eden shrieked, grinning as her hair flew behind. "When are you going to stop pretending that you hate me?" I asked, wrapping my hands around her waist. Her shirt rod up, and her skin was like an open flame.

She wrapped her hands around my neck, pulled my face to hers. "Force of habit," she breathed.

I still couldn't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that I could have her now. I was so used to admiring her from the shadows, being stuck with my own secretive thoughts, that being able to hold Eden, to kiss her and pull her into me felt like it was all a dream.

"You're not dreaming," she whispered. I froze, not realizing I said that out loud. Her lips were red, and there was enough light in the sky still that her eyes were gold instead of brown.

"I'm not used to getting what I want," I told her. Her hands were still holding my face, and I focused on the way her palms felt against my cheeks. "I want Katie to wake up. I want my parents to stop treating me like I'm a kid who's gonna break down at any second. And . . ."

"And what?"

"And I want you," I finished. "And I want to stop feeling guilty for being happy right now."

"Truman," Eden said, standing up and pressing her chest against mine, "the accident wasn't your fault. You don't need to punish yourself."

"We've both been blaming ourselves since that night, Eden."

"I know," she said, staring up at me with wide eyes. "It feels wrong, to wake up every morning when she can't. To sit in class while she lays in that bed. Smiling, laughing—it all feels wrong, Truman. Even this,"—she gestured to the two of us—"feels wrong, even while it feels right."

I remembered thinking that I wished there was a switch that could turn all of this off. The guilt, the pain, the sadness and the regret, all gone with one flick, like lights turning black. But then I looked at Eden, and felt her hands on my back, and how tightly she was holding me to her, and I realized that, then, I would lose all of this too.

So maybe we had to live with the pain. Maybe we had to bury down the guilt and the sadness until it was nothing more than an ache. Or maybe if I focused on the way I felt every time Eden laughed, or when she let me kiss her, then all the bad would start to fade.

I didn't know what to do, how to live with a heart that told me to push Eden away and pull her back in the same beat. Then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed me, and it was like floating on a wave that brought me back to shore.

I wasn't naive enough to think that Eden could fix me. Love and a few kisses weren't going to bandage up the ache from all the guilt I had felt since the night of Katie's accident. But maybe Eden was right, that just because something bad happened, didn't mean something good couldn't still come along.

Eden pulled her chin back, staring into my eyes. "What are you thinking so hard about?" she asked, probably because I was standing like a statue while she tried to kiss me.

"Nothing," I said. With her face so close, she was all I could see. Nothing existed beyond the two of us. "Nothing at all."

I kissed her again, and rod that wave all the way home.

____

Eden asked me on a date during breakfast the next morning.

"It's not a date," she groaned, pouring milk over her cereal. "It's a wedding, and I need a plus one. Preferably someone who is of age that can sneak me drinks from the bar."

Her smile had already convinced me to go about five minutes ago, but she didn't know that.

I sat at the table across from her, grabbing her bowl and pulling it towards me. "I've never had a girl use me for my I.D before," I said, bringing a spoonful to my mouth as she glared at me.

"You know what? Forget I asked." Her chair scraped against the floor as she sat up quickly.

"Eden, I'm—"

"No, it's fine," she said. She was walking quickly, picking up the milk and cereal boxes and putting them away, knowing exactly where everything went.

"I'll just ask someone else to come with me," she continued, "Or maybe I won't go at all. I'll return that dress I bought. You know," Eden spun around, stared me dead in the eye, "that tight red one? It has a split that goes up my thigh." She stepped closer, leaned in. "All the way up."

I was coughing, choking on cereal when she smiled triumphantly.

"But don't worry," she chimed in, "you don't have to come."

Oh, I had every intention of going.

I cornered her at the counter, placed my hands on either side of her waist. "How high is that split again?" I asked.

Her eyes were twinkling as she grabbed my hand and placed it on her thigh. "This high," she said.

I think all the air had been sucked out of the room, because I suddenly was having a rough time breathing.

"You said something about it being tight?" I asked.

Eden nodded, never taking her eyes off mine. Her face was so close, I could count the freckles on her nose. "Very tight," she said.

"And red?"

Now, she grinned. "Devil red."

My heart nearly burst then. I picked her up and placed her on the counter until we were eye-to-eye. Her lips were parted, and the sound of her rough breathing had me swallowing hard.

"Will you come?" she whispered, her fingers already undoing the buttons on my jeans.

I didn't miss the double meaning.

"Yes." I barely managed to get the word out.

"Great!" Eden jumped off the counter, wiggled under my arm, and ran up the stairs. "You coming?" I heard her call.

Completely fucking confused, I followed after her, all the way into my bedroom where three different suits had been laid out on my bed. Eden was leaning against the closet door, watching me innocently.

"Try them on," she demanded.

"I—" I pointed over my shoulder, back down to the kitchen, still feeling dazed. "What?" I sighed.

Eden shrugged. "I had to get you to be my date somehow."

"So your weapon of choice is sexual frustration?"

"It worked. Didn't it? Will you try these on?" she asked. "I like the navy one. It matches your eyes."

I glared at her while taking off my shirt. "Is there even a red dress?" I grumbled.

She grinned, tilting her head back as she laughed. "No, but there can be."

I grabbed the white button-up shirt and began putting it on. "You're a—"

"Devil?" she finished. "I know."

____________________

getting truman all how and bothered is

quite fun, tbh. thoughts? :-)