The Way I Am Now (The Way I Used to Be Book 2)

I sit in the back of the lecture hall so I can slip out a few minutes early without drawing too much attention. I’ve come early to each of my classes this week to explain why, so soon in the semester, I’d have to be out next week. I got the time off cleared with the library and sort of cleared with Captain Douchebag at the café. I traded shifts with someone, but he said he still needed to approve it.

At this point, let him fire me. There are at least five more coffee places in a ten-minute radius of campus. I’m sure at least one of them is hiring.

I walk to my next class, fast, on a mission. This is the last formal explanation I’d need to give. I’m a witness in a court case in my hometown; I have to appear at a hearing next week, so I’ll need to miss class. That was the statement it took me and my therapist the better part of my last fifty-minute phone session to figure out. And that was what I told every one of my professors. Each time, it went over pretty well. No real follow-up questions or concerns. No emotional outpourings on my part.

I have my lines memorized.

I make my way down the steps to the lecture hall floor, where my professor’s standing at the podium trying to connect her laptop to the projector, muttering, “Goddamn thing!” And there’s something so human about her, all frustrated, that reminds me of my mom.

“Um, hi—sorry,” I say as I approach.

She looks up at me and brings her glasses down from the top of her head, puts them on before speaking. “Hello, what can I do for you?”

“My name’s Eden McCrorey. I’m in your World History section this afternoon.”

She nods and glances back down at her laptop, not quite paying attention. “Okay… and?” she mumbles, distracted. Again reminding me of my mom.

I take a deep breath. “It’s just that I’m going to have to miss class next week.”

She removes her glasses now and stares at me, as if to say, Oh, really?

I open my mouth to continue, but I realize I’ve already messed up the order of my lines.

“I mean,” I try to start over, “I have to appear as a witness in a trial in my hometown. Or, not a trial.” I stumble and fall over the words. “Yet, anyway. It’s actually just a hearing.” But then I have my therapist’s voice in my head, saying, Don’t minimize, don’t apologize. “Well, not that it’s just a hearing,” I add.

She takes a step toward me and turns her head slightly, like she’s having trouble understanding me. I’m not explaining this right. This wasn’t what I was supposed to say.

“It—it’s just a preliminary hearing,” I stutter. “To see if there’s going to even be a trial.”

I take a breath and pinch the bridge of my nose. Hard. Trying to drive back the tears I’m feeling working their way through my skull. “Um… sorry, I just—”

My lungs are suddenly out of air, and I’m having a hard time refilling them.

“Oh,” she coos. “It’s Eden, right?”

I nod, unable to answer her for some reason. And then she’s taking a step toward me, her arms outstretched. I don’t understand. She’s hugging me before I even realize I’ve started crying.

“Oh, sorry,” I sniffle through her poofy hair in my face.

“It’s okay,” she says, and sort of rocks me back and forth. I feel my cheek collapse into her shoulder, I let my weight fall against her. “It’s okay,” she repeats.

Out of nowhere, I’m sobbing like a child in this total stranger’s arms—she’s smaller than me, and I can actually feel my body shaking hers as I clutch the sharp bones of her shoulders. But I can’t stop myself. “Oh my God, I’m really sorry,” I blather, pulling away from her. I pull my sleeves down over my hands and wipe my eyes. But it’s ugly crying, all snotty and gross.

She turns around and goes to her briefcase, rummaging around for a moment before pulling out a tiny rectangular package of tissues. “Here,” she says, pulling one out and handing it to me.

“I’m really sorry,” I repeat. “This is just the fifth time I’ve had to explain this. First time I’ve cried though, lucky you.” I try to laugh.

“It’s quite all right, Eden.” She gives me a frowning smile, a head tilt, and one final pat on the back. “It’s no problem. Why don’t you come to my office hours after you return, and we’ll figure out some way to make up the time?”

“That would be great,” I gasp, my breathing erratic. “Thank you.” Thank you, I silently tell her, for not asking why I’m crying or if I’m okay.

She hands me the whole package of tissues now. “If you need to miss today’s lecture, I can have Lauren, my teaching assistant, send you the presentation.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m fine, really,” I say by default.

“Self-care is more important than sitting here listening to me bang on for two hours about the politics of ancient Rome. Really,” she says. “Please.”

Say yes, I plead with myself. Just say yes.

“Actually”—gasp, gasp, gasp—“I think that might be helpful if you’re sure you don’t mind. It’s been a really long week.” My therapist would be so proud of me for accepting this small offer of grace.

But now it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and I have nothing I’m supposed to be doing. It’s a strange, unsettling feeling, after months of rushing and endless things needing to be done, to have time. I get a coffee and decide to stop at the store on my way home, thinking maybe I need to stock up on some travel packs of tissues if I’m going to be spontaneously ugly crying in public.

I pass the customer service desk at the front of the store and eye the racks of cigarettes tucked safely behind the counter. I could buy a pack. Just have one, throw the rest away, and feel so much more capable of handling everything right now. I get in line, behind the older woman holding her stack of scratch-off lotto tickets. But I won’t have just one, I know this. And Josh would smell the smoke on my hair, taste it on my tongue. Then he’d worry. I watch as the lady in front of me hands over her winning tickets and the twentysomething cashier scans them, reciting how much each ticket should be worth.

I step out of line. Tell myself I don’t need the cigarettes. I tell myself maybe it’s only hormones—I started on the pill just a couple of weeks ago. I’ve never been on birth control before, and Mara warned me it could mess with my emotions. I don’t exactly need any more interference on that front, but with the amount of sex Josh and I have been having, I couldn’t risk anything happening. I tell myself it’s this and not that I’m slowly unraveling as the hearing gets closer.

I’m walking up and down the aisles, not even sure what I’m doing. I smell a package of strawberries and set it back down. I pick up a pear and squeeze it gently. I sample a cube of cheddar speared with a toothpick.

I select a bag of organic coffee that is way too expensive and carry it like a baby as I continue down the aisle. And then I see cake and brownie and muffin mixes. I exchange the bag of coffee for a chocolate cake mix.

I’m surprising Josh with a fun dinner at this hibachi place he told me his parents took him to for his birthday last year. I’m trying to do something special to preemptively make up for missing his birthday next week. Of course, I haven’t told him I’ll be gone, because I haven’t told him about the hearing yet. I’ve been telling myself for weeks, Tomorrow. I’ll tell him tomorrow. But then tomorrow never comes.

I take my phone out. It barely rings before my mom picks up.

“Hello?” she answers, sounding alarmed. I can’t remember the last time I called her instead of texting. “Eden, you there?”

“Hi. Yeah. Are you busy?”

“No, not at all,” she says, though I can hear phones ringing in the background at her work. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, I just had the afternoon off and I’m in the grocery store.”

“Okay…”

“I’m trying to get stuff to make a cake. For Josh’s birthday,” I add. “And I thought maybe you’d have some ideas. I want to do sort of like a peanut butter chocolate flavor.”

“That sounds nice,” she says. “So, things are going well with him? With Josh,” she inserts, making a point to say his name.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “It’s good. Things are good.”

“Good.”

There’s a painfully awkward pause.

“Um, so I have this chocolate cake mix, but I don’t see any kind of peanut butter type frosting. I don’t know, I just remember you always made different flavored frostings for our birthday cakes when we were kids.”

She laughs. “Watermelon vanilla. That was your ninth birthday,” she says.

“Right. I remember. That was a good one.”

“Let me see.” I can hear her typing on her work computer. And as I wait, listening to her breathing into the phone, sort of humming to herself as she scrolls, I wish she were with me right now. “Oh, here we go. I think I found something. Yes, this is an easy frosting recipe. All you need is peanut butter, whipped topping, chocolate syrup, and mini peanut butter cups—all of which you should really have stocked in your kitchen anyway, as a college student.”

It takes me a second to realize she actually made a joke. “Oh.” I laugh. “I thought you were serious for a minute there.”

“I am serious! You should have lots of junk food around for all your late-night studying.”

“Okay, I’ll get right on that.”

“I’ll email you the recipe,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “Or, I could try to text it.”

“Email’s fine. I can get it on my phone either way.”

“Sending now.” I hear her typing again.

“Thanks, I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

“Well, let me know if you need help.”

“Okay.”

“See you next week. And, Eden?” she adds. “You’ve got this.”

I’m not sure if she’s talking about the cake or the hearing, and I don’t know that I agree with either, but I tell her, “Thanks, Mom.”

A minute after I hang up, I get a notification from my bank that my mom has sent me thirty dollars with the note: For the birthday cake fund!

Since I’ve been away, she’s been surprising me with these small gestures that tell me she really does care that I’m doing all right here.

I decided to buy everything—mixing bowls, a baking pan, a whisk, a spatula, measuring cups—because I correctly assumed we didn’t have any of those things at the apartment.

It feels good to not have to be thinking about anything but whisking the eggs and water and oil into the powdery chocolate mix. To be doing something for someone else.

Parker gets home just as I’m putting the cake in the oven.

“Whoa, what’s happening in here?” she asks, stopping at the kitchen island to run her finger along the inside of the bowl. “I honestly didn’t even know if that thing worked.”

“What, the oven?”

She nods and licks the cake batter off her finger, murmuring, “Yum.”

“I’m making a birthday cake for Josh.”

“Aww, roomie.” She gives me these big doe eyes. “That’s really freaking sweet.”

“You’re still coming tonight, right?” I ask her for the twentieth time.

She hesitates. “Actually, I was thinking about staying in because this week has kicked my ass, but okay. You convinced me with this damn cake. What time should I be there?”

“Eight. Sharp. No, seven forty-five. You and Dominic are bringing the balloons with you so he doesn’t suspect anything.”

“So, what you’re saying is I really never had a choice in the matter, did I?”

I smile, shake my head. “Nope.”

“Fine, you master manipulator you,” she says, and drags her bag behind her as she heads to her bedroom. “Grabbing a nap. Wake me at seven fifteen.”

“Okay,” I call after her.

I’ve never had a friend like Parker. But then, I haven’t really had many different kinds of friends at all. I like her, though. She’s not very touchy-feely with emotions or overly polite or warm, but somehow it feels good. She doesn’t seem to mind that Josh is here all the time or that I spend half my time there. She’s comfortable with who she is, and for some reason that makes me feel comfortable too. Like, neither of us has to pretend to be anything other than who we are. Although we have created an alter ego for takeout by combining our names “Kim McCrorey” and “Eden Parker.” We laughed way too hard about it the other night when a delivery guy buzzed up to our apartment and said that he had an order for a Kimberly.

I go to pull up the recipe for the frosting and see that I have a text from my mom:

Hi Eden, Mom here. Remember that you need to let the cake cool for at least two hours before frosting it. Let it sit out at room temperature for 30 mins and then you can put it in the fridge for the rest of the time. Love, Mom

If this wasn’t so new for us, maybe I’d poke at her, say something like, you don’t have to use formal salutations in your texts. But I just write back: OK, I will. Thx

I follow the directions, step by step, measuring out and mixing in the peanut butter, whipped topping, chocolate syrup, and mini peanut butter cups. I set it in the fridge to chill and sit down on the faded red couch while I wait for the cake to finish baking.

Twenty-three minutes still left on the oven timer.

Twenty-three minutes to just sit and do nothing.

My brain jumps on the opportunity to terrorize me with doubts and questions I don’t have answers to. I pull up the emails from Lane that I’ve been avoiding looking at over the past month. She’d offered to hop on the phone with me multiple times to talk through the hearing process. And it’s only right now, at five thirty on the last Friday before everything begins Monday morning, when she’s sure to be out of the office, that I finally feel the urgent need to talk to her. Today’s email from Lane:

Happy Friday, Eden:

Just a reminder that we’re touring the courthouse/courtroom at 8AM Monday. Try to spend some time this weekend reviewing the police report and the statement you gave Det. Dodgson so it’s all fresh in your mind. I know DA Silverman sent over a hard copy, but attached you’ll find a pdf for your convenience.

Make sure you dress in something comfy and natural (modest, for lack of a better word). Think business casual. Let me know if you have any questions.

See you soon,

Lane

I wonder if she sent Mandy and Gennifer the same thing. There have been so many times I’ve wondered if the lawyers would really know if we talked, wondered if we could get around the rules. Because on some very deep level, I wanted to know what he did to them, and I wanted them to know what he did to me. Not the details, but more the how of it. I’m not sure why—I guess because I’m still not sure even, all these years later, how it happened to me.

But I resist.

Instead, I search the term business casual and see a lot of blazers over brightly colored tops. I’m thinking anything bright is not the way to go. And I do not own a single blazer.

I finally text Amanda back now. I think about apologizing for taking so long. Trying to come up with an excuse for why it’s taken me a month to get back to her, but she probably doesn’t care about that; she just wants my answer, so I give it to her.

Yes. I’ll be coming back.

I immediately see the three dots beside her name, dancing like excited atoms. I wait for a response. It doesn’t come.

The oven timer goes off. I toss my phone on the couch and run over, opening the oven door and reaching in, forgetting the brand-new set of oven mitts I’d lain out on the counter.

“Shit!” I hiss. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” I whisper as I turn the faucet on and run my hand under the cold water. I look back at the cake sitting there, the oven door wide open like a mouth, and then I watch as two red lines bloom across the palm of my left hand, a bite mark from some kind of rabid animal.