Eden (6 page)

Eden had balanced the couch in one hand and held it over her head; with her other hand she vacuumed up the popcorn that previously we had been unable to reach.

I stood there in shock for a few moments, not believing what I was bearing witness to. How could Eden have been able to lift that monstrous couch over her head with only one hand? It was impossible; she told me herself that it weighed over one hundred pounds!

What did this mean? How strong was she? What was she?

All of these questions and more raced through my mind as I silently made my way back to my house. I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that I failed to notice the lone figure standing in the street before Eden’s house, watching me.

7

Creeping in the front door, I tried to make my way upstairs without any unwanted encounters. I felt like I was about to go into shock and the last thing I wanted was to be interrogated by my mother. I reached the foot of the stairs and thought I was home-free when I heard a voice boom from the living room.

“So, how did it go?” my mother asked.

“Um, it was alright,” I tried to sound calm and did a horrible job. My mother’s face became a mask of concern.

“What happened?” she asked, approaching me.

“Nothing,” I lied.

She stopped. “You did it, didn’t you?” she accused.

I couldn’t fathom how my mother could make an innocent word like ‘it’ sound so dirty.

“We didn’t do anything,” I said, telling her the truth about that, at least.

“Then why do you look so concerned?” she questioned further.

“I’m just tired,” I said, “I’m going to bed.”

“Good night,” she said in a peculiar voice that let me know that this wasn’t the end of her questioning.

I made my way upstairs and shut myself in my bedroom. I wasn’t tired in the least; too many questions were running through my mind. I wondered if I would ever get to sleep tonight.

How could Eden have lifted that couch? Even though I had read many comic books in my younger years, I knew that there was no such thing as super heroes. What if Eden was an alien from another planet? Like a planet of beautiful Asians? I didn’t think so, but there had to be an explanation.

Could Eden be a mutant? Could she be the next step in human evolution? No, things like that didn’t happen in real life. I had to think this through a little more and stop coming up with these “explanations” from out of a comic book.

I settled down and tried to come to some conclusion that could be based in reality. I realized that I have never seen Eden’s parents. She told me that they travel a lot on business. Could they be scientists? Maybe Eden is like an experiment, a super child, made in a secret laboratory? That could explain why Eden’s family moved here because it was safe and quiet; maybe they thought no one would notice that she was different here. But if that were true, why would they let her become involved with me, a normal human? Unless Eden was seeing me behind their backs and they didn’t know.

It sounded a little far-fetched, but it was the most reasonable explanation that I had come up with so far. If it was true I had to stop seeing Eden. What would happen if her parents found out that I knew the truth about their daughter? Would they hunt me down and kill me to ensure my silence? Not only them, maybe the whole United States Government was behind all this and were secretly funding the research. If they knew that I found out about it, my whole family could be assassinated.

Getting ready for bed I decided that I had to stop seeing Eden, for my own safety and the safety of my family. I couldn’t tell my friends; the less they knew about the truth, the better. My only worry was that if they found out that I broke up with Eden, that Drake might make some moves on her. I didn’t like that idea because no matter what, I still had feelings for Eden and I didn’t like the idea of her making out with anyone else.

I couldn’t break up with Eden because then she would want my reasons for ending our relationship; reasons that I couldn’t give. I had to stay cool; spend less and less time with Eden until she broke up with me. I could then go to my friends for consolation. As I climbed into bed, I hoped that Drake had enough scruples to not go after a girl that dumped his friend, but that would be a lot to hope for.

The next morning I didn’t bounce out of bed like I had the day before. I had to practically drag myself from under the covers. I dreaded the thought of spending the whole day beside Eden. I wasn’t sure if I would have the strength to stay away from her. I sluggishly made my way down stairs.

“What’s wrong with you?” I heard my father ask.

“Nothing,” I moped, “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Your mother tells me that your girlfriend invited you over for dinner last night,” he told me, “How did it go?”

“It was alright,” I mumbled, trying to make it clear to him that I didn’t want to talk about it.

“Did anything happen?” he probed, which wasn’t like him at all.

“Mom put you up to this” I stated.

“You got me,” he laughed, raising his arms in surrender.

My mother came out from the kitchen, where she had obviously been eavesdropping.

“I swear you two are impossible,” she fumed, “How’s a girl supposed to get her daily dose of gossip from you guys?”

She seemed so genuinely upset that I had to laugh along with my father. Using the distraction, I grabbed my backpack and made my escape before my mother could stop and interrogate me any further.

I raced across my yard and past Eden’s house. I didn’t want to risk having a chance encounter with her, especially within eyesight of my parents. I still wasn’t sure how I was going to handle this situation and I didn’t want to be forced into a confrontation before I was ready.

Reaching the end of my block, I slowed down to a walk and rounding the corner, I soon met my friends at the bus stop.

“What’s up, Tom?” Drake greeted as I approached them, “How’s that hottie of yours?”

“She’s hot,” I agreed and left it at that.

“Tonight we’re going to Pizza Heaven, you in?” Matt asked always thinking of food.

“I should be around,” I said.

“Bring your girlfriend,” Kyle suggested, “We’d like to meet her.”

“Like I want her to know that you guys are my friends,” I joked.

“Listen to you,” Drake said, throwing a playful punch at me, “too good for us now?”

“I’ve always been too good for you,” I retaliated, dodging his blow.

His retort was cut short by the arrival of Howie and his Magic School Bus.

“Seriously,” Drake insisted, “when are we going to meet this girl?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, dodging his question this time.

Howie seemed to be listening to our conversation, so much that he didn’t even give us his usual morning greeting. I decided to use that to my advantage.

“What’s the matter, Howie?” I asked him, feigning disappointment, “No greeting this morning? How am I ever going to get through the day?”

Howie blinked and seem to re-enter reality and a shameful expression crossed his face.

“I’m sorry, Thomas,” he apologized, “I was just surprised to hear that you have a girlfriend.”

This confession seemed to amuse my friends, cries of “Even Howie is surprised” escaping their lips between the peals of laughter.

It was humiliating to be mocked by someone that we considered barely functional, but at least they had stopped hounding me about meeting Eden. As Howie pulled away form the curb and the bus began its way to school, I tried to block out the sound of my friends laughter.

I was daydreaming and staring out of the window by the time we crossed Route 22. I thought I had just caught a glimpse of Eden standing on the street corner across the street. My eyes barely had time to focus upon her when she disappeared. Gasping in surprise, I tried my best to locate where she might have gone, but to no avail; there was absolutely nowhere that she could have concealed herself in that short span of time. It was like she had just vanished in front of my eyes.

By the time we reached school, all thoughts of Eden had been erased from my mind. It wasn’t until my friends said their goodbyes and walked off to their home rooms, that I realized that I was going to be alone in class with Eden again. Yesterday it had seemed like a dream come true, today that dream had turned into a nightmare.

That statement may sound overly dramatic to you, but keep in mind that some guys are intimidated by women who are stronger than them; and here I was dating Wonder Woman.

“Hi sweetie,” I heard Eden’s voice come from behind me.

I whirled around to face her. She was as beautiful as ever, her face a smiling mask of innocence; of course it was, she didn’t know what I had witnessed last night and her disappearing act this morning did nothing to ease my troubled mind.

“Hi,” I answered, keeping my cool.

She didn’t notice my abruptness, or she chose to ignore it, either way her bubbly personality remained.

“Did you want to come over and study at my house tonight?” she asked, “I can cook dinner for us again, if you’d like.”

“Actually, tonight I made plans with my friends,” I told her.

I saw her smile fade and my heart began to beat faster. I didn’t want to make her angry. If she could lift over a hundred pounds above her head one handed with no sweat, think of what she could do to my face if she wanted.

“That’s ok,” she said, recovering, “I don’t think we would get much studying done together anyway.”

I joined in with her laughter, feeling more and more uncomfortable. Fortunately, the class bell rang and we quickly made our way to our home room.

As Mr. Olsen took attendance, I tried to busy myself with looking out the window, at the blackboard, anywhere except at Eden. I was less successful in busying my mind and I found myself dwelling on my dilemma.

Thinking back, things had moved incredibly fast between Eden and me. It seemed as if she had no experience in dealing with people, which went a long way in convincing me that my experiment “explanation” was the correct one. A normal sixteen year old as beautiful as Eden wouldn’t be as shy as she was and certainly wouldn’t be as clingy. I had only met her three nights ago and she wanted to cook dinner for me again? It didn’t seem like how a normal girl would act, but then again I had no experience in that respect either.

Only now that I was trying to distance myself from her, could I see how strange Eden’s situation really was. She had been here almost a week and no sign of her parents. It seemed weird that they hadn’t even stopped by to check up on her and their new house. Leaving a sixteen year old girl all alone in a new town, even a safe one like East Harbor, didn’t seem like something responsible parents would do.

Did she even have parents? Was she just a test tube experiment that was set loose on an unsuspecting public to see how she could adapt and cope; or maybe she had escaped from some medical laboratory? If the later was correct, that would mean that she was being tracked down. What would happen if they found me with her when she was apprehended? Whoever or whatever was searching for Eden might not like the idea of leaving a witness to the scene. The more I thought about it, the less I like the idea of even being around Eden; it was too dangerous.

“What’s the matter?” Eden whispered, detecting my anxiety.

“Nothing,” I whispered back, “I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“I hope it’s not because of what happened,” I could see true concern in her eyes and could feel myself wanting to ignore everything that had me so worried.

“No, it has nothing to do with that,” I replied, trying to sound reassuring.

“You still like me then?” she whispered almost to herself, the pleading again evident in her eyes looking up at me.

I could feel my heart almost break and my throat tighten at her question; I wanted to hold her in my arms and tell her that I would love her forever. I wanted to tell her that I would never leave her and stand by her always, but if even one of the worries that had been running through my mind since last night were true; I knew that I couldn’t. The only thing that I was certain was the truth that Eden wasn’t normal.

“Of course I do,” I told her, not knowing what else to say.

Relief flooded her face, it was only then that I realized that she had been holding her breath, awaiting my answer. I felt horrible that I was secretly thinking of ways to avoid her, but I drew strength from the knowledge that she obviously wasn’t being totally truthful with me either.

The bell rang announcing the end of home room. We gathered up our books and made our way out of the room to our first period class.

It was a relief when the lunch bell finally rang and I could leave Eden to drop my books off in my locker. I wasn’t sure if I could keep up this charade all day. It was harder to stay calm around Eden than I thought it would be. It was even harder not to fall in love with her even when doing so was putting me, my family and possibly my friends in danger.

I wanted to spend my lunch period eating with my friends, but I didn’t want Eden joining us and making friends with them, putting them in danger; but if I sat with Eden, they might come over and join us. Either way the result was the same. I had to get Eden to leave the cafeteria with me.

When I reached the cafeteria, I could see Eden already seated at a table. I quickly got my lunch and walked over to her.

“Let’s eat somewhere more private,” I said.

“Sure,” she replied, standing and grabbing her tray, “where are we going?”

“We can eat on the bleachers near the tennis courts,” I told her.

She smiled and nodded her head in agreement and we headed out the door to the outside courtyard.

We made our way across the courtyard to the far side of the tennis courts and placed our trays on the bleachers.