He doesn’t remember driving home.
He doesn’t remember pulling out his phone and dialing a number he hasn’t called in over a decade.
The phone rings five times before a woman answers. “Hello?”
Alexander clears his throat. “A-Ma? I... I need help.”
Alexander doesn’t show up for work the next day. Or the day after that.
Or even the day after that.
The sinking feeling in Eden’s chest won’t go away. It’s so intense that she isn’t sure if she needs to vomit, cry, or scream. Maybe some kind of combination of all three, though she can’t be quite sure.
It’s hard for her not to worry. He up and left in the middle of service and hasn’t been back since. She sent him a couple of texts asking after him, but they’ve all gone unanswered.
She wants to throw up because this feeling is all too familiar.
Waiting for her parents. Wondering when they were coming home. Sitting alone as the sun set with a ton of unanswered questions. Feeling anxious. Wanting to cry, but trying so desperately to be brave. Something’s probably keeping them. She just has to be a good girl and wait.
She’s angry, too. Not at him, but herself.
Now that she’s had some time, she has nothing but ample opportunity to reflect on how wrong she was. How selfish, how childish, how cruel and unthinking.
She pushed him too hard. She kept poking and prodding under the excuse of wanting to get closer when she should have recognized his boundaries and respected them. Just because she’s shared her secrets doesn’t mean she has a right to his.
It’s just that she’s scared of not knowing. Not knowing means she feels out of control.
She’s spent half her life not knowing about her parents, and it’s instilled this deep, ugly, twisted insecurity within her very marrow. It’s an insecurity that she wasn’t fully aware of until now, and she feels that much more of a fool because of it.
Eden knows it’s a poor excuse, but she can’t rationalize it any other way.
She comes to work on the fourth day and finds that he still isn’t there. She enters the kitchen office, but there isn’t any sign of him. It’s at this point that she really starts to panic. Alexander wasn’t in a good state of mind when he left, and he sped away too quickly for Eden to get through to him.
She sits down in his office chair and sighs, resting her elbows on the desk before her. No one ever chooses to stay. No one ever chooses her.
Is it because she’s broken? Is it because she’s not good enough? Why else would people just throw her away?
There’s a soft knock at the door. Eden nearly jumps out of her seat. “Alexander—”
Freddie pokes his head into the office, offering an apologetic smile. “Nope, sorry. Just me.”
Eden slumps in her seat. “Oh.”
“How’re you doing?” he asks, moving to lean against the edge of the desk. Freddie folds his arms across his chest and observes her, calm and patient.
“I’m fine.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
Eden shakes her head, too drained to keep up her brave face. “I made a mistake.”
“With Chef?”
“I said some things that I shouldn’t have.”
“That can happen sometimes.”
“No, I knew better. But that didn’t stop me from pushing.”
