After that, Eden avoided Sterling like the plague. Even the classes she shared with him, she did her best to avoid him. She’d enter class at the last second and take a seat away from the young man, and slipped out as soon as the bell would ring.
She couldn’t face him. She really couldn’t. She liked him. The last time she liked someone, he turned out to be a monster. She’d entangled herself in his sick and twisted mind and had let him manipulate her into staying. She became his property and he had branded and hurt her whether it was emotional or physical. And though she knew Sterling would never do the same… she couldn’t help but think it, anyway. He had once promised her he’d make her happy, too, after all. But with him, she had been just as good as dead.
When Eden got home, it had been six in the evening. She hadn’t gotten into any fights, but Eden couldn’t bring herself to go home sooner. Ashley and Lucas were both at home when she arrived.
She didn’t have any energy to walk to her room. She merely slid to the floor, face in her hands, and broke down completely.
She couldn’t heal. She had tried. For two years, she had tried. Nothing had worked. Some things could never heal. They were destined to break and remain shattered. Eden was no different.
Ashley and Lucas had been laying in his bed, limbs entangled as they simply talked about their day, what they were planning on doing the rest of the week and the weekend, and anything else that crossed their minds. There had definitely been some kissing, but that was irrelevant — even if it was partly because of things they’d said to each other. When she got thirsty and wanted a glass of water, she’d reluctantly left her boyfriend’s arms, kissed his cheek, and stepped out of the room.
The sight she was met with made her heart stop. Eden was crying, bawling, curled up against the door. The blonde quickly made her way over and kneeled beside her, placing a gentle hand on her knee. She didn’t saw anything; there was nothing to say. Nothing except a whispered, “I’m sorry.” For not being there when you needed me most. For not seeing that you needed me. For not trying to help you sooner. For making you feel alone, when you were and always will be far from it.
Eden gasped through her tears, trying to catch her breath. The tears never stopped—they just slipped out without a stop. She bawled her eyes out, wiping off tears though they kept falling. She trembled, body aching, heart bursting with pain. She wanted it to stop. Why wasn’t it stopping?
And then she felt a hand on her knee and it took everything out of her not to recoil. It didn’t work. A whimper escaped her limps as she slid back, back meeting the door. Through her blurry vision, she saw Ashley. At some point, her lenses had slipped out, too.
Then Ashley was joined by Lucas, who, thankfully, kept his distance. Eden gripped her hair in her fists, curling up more, the sobs escaping faster than they did before.
“I ca—can’t do—do this anymore—“ she hiccuped, tightening her hold on her hair as if the physical pain would help against the mental wounds. “I can’t—I don’t—I’m done. It’s too—too much—“ she cut herself off with another whimper, too broken to even continue.
“Eden… Eden, stop. Let go of your hair,” Ashley murmured slowly as she reached up to disentangle the girl’s fingers from her hair. She kept her hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze, looking at her best friend with obvious concern, as if she didn’t even try to hide it. “Talk to us. Talk to me. Please. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me…”
“Everything,” Eden gasped out, her breathing heavy, panic taking over her. She couldn’t breathe. It felt like someone was squeezing her throat, cutting off her air supply.
“Eden… Eden, breathe,” her brother’s voice filled her ears. “It’s going to be okay. Just breathe. Talk to us.”
“Sterling—he kissed me,” Eden blurted out in distress, shaking and trembling. It was a good thing neither of them pulled her into a hug. It would have worsened her condition. “He—he asked first. I wanted it—I just—“
Ashley just blinked at first. And hen realization dawned on her face, and her lips parted in shock.
“He kisses you… And you wanted him to? Did you kiss him back?” she asked softly, rubbing light circles into the backs of her palms. And, because she was the kind of friend who would do such a thing as tease her friends about their crushes and love lives, she added with a small smile, “Was it good?”
”You don’t understand,” Eden breathed heavily, panic flooding her again. “I can’t—I can’t do that. I keep feeling his hands on me—violating me and I can’t do anything about it. No matter how many times I scrub myself clean, it’s always there and it’s been two years and I still can’t get over it and I don’t—“ she broke off as more tears spilled down her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to wrench her hands out of Ashley’s hold so she could do something to make this pain go away. “He’s going to come back and he’s going to hurt me again and again and again and I’m absolutely terrified—“
Ashley tightened her grip on her best friend’s hands so that she wouldn’t tear them away again. She shivered slightly closer, just so she could be nearer if Eden ended up wanting a hug or something, even just a shoulder to cry on.
“What happened, Eden?” she whispered after a long moment of silence. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but… If you can, please try to tell us.”
”He’s going to hurt me,” Eden repeated breathlessly, bringing her knees to her chest and hiding her face in it. Ashley had tightened her hold on her hands, which made another sob escape her lips. She wanted the physical pain. She couldn’t deal with the emotional tearing her apart. “Like he’d always done—he’s going to come back because he said he would and he’s going to abuse me again and I can’t—I can’t go through that again—“
“What did he do to you,” Ashley muttered, unable to keep the anger from making her voice shake. She knew exactly who he was, and she was going to make him pay for what he did to her best friend. He would know true pain when she and the others got through with him. Pain and fear of them. “Please, Eden, tell me what he did. He cannot get to you here, and I will never let him touch you again.”
Lucas couldn’t breathe. What Eden just said… how could he have never noticed? How could he have let her suffer through that alone?
His sister finally lifted her head, and through her tear-stained face, red eyes and a hopeless look on her face, smiled. It sent shivers down his spine.
”Everything,” she breathed with a humorless chuckle, the smile breaking off to make room for more tears. “He did everything to me. And no one even noticed. No one. I cried and cried and everyone just kept on looking forward. No one asked me why I had so many bruises on me. No one asked me why I stopped hanging out with everyone other than him. No one asked me anything. There’s nothing you can do to keep him away. He gets what he wants. Always.”
Ashley stiffened at the words before taking a deep breath. She let it out slowly as she buried her face in her and Eden’s hands. “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry, Eden,” she whispered. “And I know that doesn’t cut it, but I’m so fricking sorry… We should have noticed what was going on, but we were too blind to notice. And you suffered for it… So I’m sorry…”
Eden said nothing. She rested her face back in her knees, body still shaking, sniffles escaping her. What was she supposed to say? ‘It’s okay?’ ‘It’s all right?’ It wasn’t. It could never be all right. She was completely, utterly broken. Nothing could fix that.
“I like him,” she found herself whispering. “So much. But I can’t stand it. I can’t stand another man touching me like that again. It’s disgusting. It’s revolting. It reminds me of how he kept on violating me. Sterling kissed me and I kissed him back but I couldn’t fight off that feeling of those hands on me and—“
Lucas didn’t know what to do. He wanted to hug his sister, but he didn’t know how she would react. He would probably make it worse, so he stayed where he was. He even had Ashley speak to her only, thinking Eden would feel better if it was a female. His sister hardly calmed down. And then her next words made him freeze. Not the fact that she admitted to liking Sterling Ainsley, but how she couldn’t stand being touched like that. What the hell did he do to her?
“What did he do to you, Eden,” Lucas breathed, fury lacing his voice. “What did he do to make you react this way?”
His sister let out a humorless laugh, wincing. She didn’t lift her head. Lucas desperately wanted what he thought happened to be just a misunderstanding.
“What do you think, brother?” Eden’s voice shook and trembled, but the way she addressed him was bitter. It felt like she was mocking him. It made Lucas wince. “You didn’t even care to search for me that night.”
Those words broke Lucas’s heart.
Ashley winced at the words, the pain and anger and fear lacing them. She hated this, hated that she couldn’t help the girl she had always thought of as her best friend. And to didn’t help that she blamed them, either…
“He… I swear, Eden, if he did to you what I think he did—“ she cut herself off, her voice choked with emotion, and released the other girl’s hands, pressing the heels of her palm to her eyes. “I’m going to hurt him so bad.”
The second her hands were released, Eden immediately wrapped them around her legs, nails digging into the flesh. She gritted her teeth. What was the point now? They were two years too late.
“Oh, no, I got lucky,” Eden chuckled bitterly, wiping her eyes. “What he did was enough to make sure I never let another man touch me again.”
She pulled herself to her feet, her legs trembling. She needed a shower to get rid of those touches. It was pointless telling them. What could they do, anyway?
“Eden, I… I’m so sorry,” Lucas’s voice broke off. Eden bit down on her lip. “I promise, I won’t let him hurt you again. I’ll protect you.”
“Just like you protected me before, when you promised the same thing?” Eden interrupted, bitterness lacing her voice. “This was a mistake. Telling you was a mistake.”
“Eden…” Ashley started, the name trembling on her lips. She shifted closer to Lucas, simply needing his touch, his warmth. This hurt. All of this hurt. She couldn’t help her, and it hurt. She knew that Eden was hurting, knew that she wouldn’t even let them in anymore… And it hurt. The girl hadn’t even answered the unspoken question she had placed before her. She didn’t want to ask, but… “Eden, did he— did he rape you?”
Eden froze, her arms wrapping around herself, fingers digging into her arms. She didn’t want to answer that question.
“He might as well have,” she answered quietly, gritting her teeth, head hung low. This was a mistake. “Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been any point of doing all of that. He backed off. Apparently I was too worthless to go through all of it—all he needed to do was make sure I knew who I belonged to.”
“But he didn’t… he didn’t actually do it? He just… Oh thank goodness,” Ashley breathed, burying her face in her hands again. She scrubbed at her face with her palms before looking back up at Eden. “I’m glad you didn’t do this to you, but I’m still going to make him pay for touching you like he did. I don’t know what you want me to say; I don’t know what to say to make this better. And I know that I can’t, especially not if you don’t let me. You’re locking us out, Eden. Nobody can help you if you don’t let them in. You know us. You know we would never try to hurt you. If we had know what was happening, if you had told us, we would have helped you. We would have been there for you. And you know that we tried to be, even though we didn’t know everything that was going on.”
For a second, Lucas thought his sister would budge. She had to, right? She knew they loved her. She knew they cared.
“I don’t need your help,” her voice was cold all over again. “You’re two years too late. It’s funny, too, actually, how I tried telling both of you countless of times, whether it was through words or the bruises. In the end, it only got me deeper in his fury. Who do I have left but myself to count on? What do you expect me to do other than to lock you out?”
Lucas stood up, walking to Eden slowly, hesitantly as if he was afraid she’d freak out again.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that alone,” he started softly. “I’m sorry we weren’t there to help. And I know an apology can’t fix anything. We should have realized. We shouldn’t have been so blind to your problems. But Eden, you don’t have to do this alone. You can share your fight with us. We can help you carry it. Please, let us in.”
“And what exactly can you do?” Eden turned around to face us, her eyes red and puffy, tear stains on her cheeks, expression both cold and broken at the same time. “Do you think it’s that easy? To ‘fix things?’ Do you think you can just make me think you’re going to help me get better and that’ll be enough? Well, it’s not. So don’t bother.”
Ashley stared at Eden, the energy drained from her eyes. She had tried, tried and failed to help. Multiple times. And yet she wouldn’t budge. She wouldn’t even let them try to fix things.
This was no longer the girl she had befriended all those years ago. This wasn’t the girl she had been growing up. She had truly been changed and broken. No. Not broken. Shattered. That man had taken everything from her, including the light from her eyes and the love from her life.
Ashley had never wanted to kill anybody, but it seemed like he would have been a good person to start with.
“Did you know I actually tried to kill myself when he left?” Eden said quietly, looking down at her shaking hands. “I locked myself in the bathroom and took a blade, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was too much of a coward. And then I realized hurting myself soothed the storm. So I did that. And now it’s a drug to me. It’s the only reason I’m still here. You may think I’ve changed, but nobody’s noticed that more than I have. I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I deserve a peace of mind. I deserve a good night’s rest. But there’s nothing else I can do to help myself. There’s nothing anyone can do. Not you, not Lucas, and certainly not Sterling. I’m lost and I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.”
“You do deserve all of that. All of that and none of this. I’m sorry you had to go through that, Eden, and that we weren’t there for you when you needed us the most. There’s no excuse for that, but we’re here now. That has to at least mean something to you,” Ashley whispered, finally breaking her silence. “Please, Eden… Let us try. Just try.”
Eden took a few deep breaths, wiping her eyes again. She exhaled, her body trembling. For a second, she made a move to walk away. Then she took a small step towards them and stumbled, her legs unable to hold her weight. Lucas immediately stepped forward to wrap his arms around her, preventing her from the fall.
Eden gritted her teeth, but didn’t pull away. She merely rested her head against his chest, her arms wrapping around him in defeat. One of her hands were opened, an invite for Ashley.
She’d been so alone, so miserable. She couldn’t do that again. She had no energy anymore.
Ashley watched Eden stumble and took a step forward to catch her. Lucas was faster, though, and got to her first. When his twin collapsed into his arms, holding out a hand for her friend, Ashley’s eyes stung. She ran into them and wrapped her arms around them, blinking at the tears in her eyes.
Lucas wrapped his arms around the two females he loved the most, enveloping them tightly. His twin sister and his beloved girlfriend. He kissed the top of their heads before resting his forehead.
Eden trembled in his arms and he tightened his hold on them. She was melting. She was letting them in. She was letting them touch her. Lucas gritted his teeth in an attempt to keep his tears at bay. He could finally help her.
“Make it stop…” his little sister whispered weakly. “The pain. Make it stop…”
“We will,” Lucas promised, kissing her head again. “We’ll make sure of it. I promise.”
