The Way I Used to Be

“EDEN?” MOM KNOCKS ON my door, tries to turn the knob. I open my eyes; pray it’s all been a dream. I fumble for my phone. One forty-three p.m. I’ve been asleep for fifteen hours. Ten missed calls.

“Yeah?” I moan, trying to scroll down the list: Mara, Mara, Mara, Steve, Cameron, Steve, Cameron, Steve, Steve, Steve. Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Eden!” she calls again.

“I said yeah!” I shout. Don’t make me get up, Vanessa. Please.

“I’m not going to holler through the door!” she hollers through the door.

I drag myself up, dust myself off, whatever, shove the sleeping bag under the bed and throw my pillow on top. Unlock my door.

“You have a visitor,” Vanessa whispers, tight-lipped, “some freaky-looking guy.”

“What?”

“Cameron something or other, do you know this boy?” She tilts her head so I can see him standing in the center of our living room, opening and closing his mouth. He’s playing with his tongue ring, another stupid, annoying thing about him that I hate.

“Shit,” I breathe.

“Eden,” she scolds. I stare at the straight line of her mouth. “Well,” she says, resigned, “your father’s out and I was just leaving to go to the store, but do you want me to stay? I just—I don’t like the look of him,” she murmurs, casting a glare over her shoulder. “Is he—will you be—he’s not dangerous, right? He’s your friend?” The thought of her being worried about leaving me alone in the house with a dangerous boy is just so laughable, I could throw up.

“It’s fine,” I mumble, my tongue and lips dry as paper. Or maybe it wouldn’t be fine, but I don’t need witnesses for whatever is about to go down. “Would you just tell him I’ll be out in a second?”

I slip past her, locking myself in the bathroom. My heart starts beating erratically. I will not cry. “You will not cry,” I whisper to myself. I wash my face and brush my teeth, try to tug a brush through my hair, which is in knots. I hear muttered good-byes and the front door closing. I pull my hair tight into a ponytail. No. Looks like I care what I look like, looks like I’m trying; I take it out and carefully pull it into a sloppy bun.

“You can’t pick up a phone?” he blurts out while I’m still shuffling into the living room.

“I can—I mean, I’m capable, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Oh, okay. You just won’t?” he says, all jittery from trying to restrain himself.

I cross my arms, shrug, absently pulling at a loose thread on my sleeve, a subtle signal that I can barely even be bothered to have this conversation.

“You’re unbelievable. He doesn’t deserve this. I mean, you do know that, don’t you?”

I roll my eyes.

“You know, I told him a girl like you would just destroy him. Because girls like you—”

“Girls like me?” I laugh. Where have I heard this speech before?

“I don’t know what the hell he ever saw in you, I really don’t.”

“Come on, it’s pretty obvious what he saw. What he wanted. He had his chance, right? And he kinda blew it, sorry to say.”

“Bullshit!” He spits the word before I’ve even finished my sentence. “Don’t pretend you actually believe that. Unless you really are that heartless. Are you? I mean, are you really?” There’s this vein in his forehead that throbs every time he raises his voice.

Stone-faced, I mumble, “Guess so.”

“Yeah?” he asks, vein bulging, fists clenched at his sides. “’Cause you’re so tough, is that right? You’re just so tough?”

I grin, let out a sigh. What a dick. He’s not getting to me, he’s not. He takes a step toward me. I resist the instinct that tells me to back up, to run. But I do some quick physics in my head—mass, volume, density—I could maybe take him. Sure, he’s taller, but scrawny. We’d have to weigh about the same. Yeah, if push came to shove, I could take him.

“So, that’s why you were crying? Because you’re, what, tough?” he asks, with this cool smirk. Or maybe he could take me.

I inhale a breath of something that doesn’t feel like air, and then can’t seem to remember how to exhale. My eyes can’t hold their stare; they look down, the stupid cowards.

“Yeah, he told me about that,” he continues. “He told me everything. He said that he was trying to be nice and you were being a bitch—” He pauses, letting the word cut through the air. “Well, I’m paraphrasing here ’cause you know Steve wouldn’t actually call you a bitch, even if you are one, even if that’s what he was thinking. Yeah, he said you started crying, crying like a little—”

Oh, I’m back. “Just shut the fuck up, Cameron! You don’t know—you just don’t even know, so stay out of it!” I can hardly take in enough breath to keep myself speaking. “You wanna talk about pretending to be tough? Take a look in the mirror! You think you intimidate people, the way you look? You think you’re tough?”

“No. I never said I was. I hope I don’t intimidate people, but that’s the difference between you and me, isn’t it? You want to take people down, you want to hurt people, but you know what?” He sneers, inching toward me.

I swear to God I’ll hit him right in the face if he comes any closer. “What?” The word comes out strangled—not tough, not fierce—not the way I meant it to.

“Nobody’s afraid of you,” he says quietly, reserved, restrained, and suddenly in complete control of his emotions.

I swallow hard. I’m losing my shit here. Because I know he’s right. I know it’s true.

“You’re so weak and scared, it’s pathetic.” He smiles, cocks his head to one side. “What?” He pauses, cruelty dripping off the silence. “You don’t think people can see that?”

“Get out.” My voice shakes.

“You think you’re such a mystery? You’re completely transparent—I see right through you.”

“Leave!” I demand.

“You’re toxic. You know, you just spread around your bullshit everywhere you go. It’s so pathetic, I almost feel sorry for you—almost.”

I had no idea Cameron could be so mean. Somewhere, a small part of me almost admires him—almost.

“You—you don’t even know me. How can you—”

“Oh, yeah I do,” he interrupts. “I know all about you.”

I shake my head. No. I can’t speak.

“I’ll go now”—he backs away—“so you can cry. Alone.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah.” He raises his arm and waves. “Sure.”

“Fuck you!” I scream at his back. “Fuck you!” I pick up the ceramic coaster sitting on the end table, the closest thing to my hand, and chuck it at the door as it closes.

Back in my room, I pull my sleeping bag out from under the bed, toss and turn a few times. Then I’m up on my feet again. Rolling the sleeping bag into a ball, I throw open my closet door and shove it in. It flops out. I kick it, kick and kick and kick at it. I throw myself on the floor and push it back in, over and over, but it just keeps stumbling out again. Next, the avalanche of papers, boxes, a toppling-in-slow-motion stack of old clothes that no longer fit, a fleet of stuffed animals, a fucking stupid, useless clarinet. I lie down on the pile and try as hard as I can to stop crying.

I stay in my room all day. All night. I skip dinner.

Steve texts me at eleven: please don’t do this.

He calls and leaves another voice mail at 11:44. And again at midnight.

I turn my phone off.