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She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter to him.”
“So what are you saying? It’s… It’s over? We’re done? Forever?”
In the dimness, her eyes shone large and soft. “I hope not. But…”
“But what? We wait? Months? Weeks? How long? Goddammit, Willow…” I grabbed her hand, making her flinch. “Stay. Stay with me. Or Marty. He’ll take you in.”
“No, Isaac. You have to go too. Tonight is your chance for success.” She struggled to pull her hand out of mine. “You’re hurting me,” she whispered.
I let go immediately. Pain whipped my skin. She was giving up. Choosing him over me.
I was losing her.
“I have to go?” I asked. “For what? To prove myself? What’s it going to take, Willow? How much money do I have to make until I don’t stink of the junkyard anymore? How much is good enough for your father? Good enough for you?”
“You know that’s not true,” she said. “You’ve always been more than good enough for me.”
“Then why aren’t you fighting?” I said through the wall of my teeth. “You’re giving up. You’re letting him win.”
“He’s already won. If I don’t…”
“If you don’t what?” I took her hand again, trying to squeeze from it the answers she wouldn’t speak. “What’s in this for him?”
“Isaac, don’t.”
“Tell me, Willow. Tell me now. What did you trade me for?”
“I have to go.”
I pulled her close to me, inhaling her, feeling her body one last time. “I would’ve done anything for you.”
“I know,” she said, her tears wet on my neck. “I’m sorry.” She took a step away. Then another. “Goodbye, Isaac.”
Then she was running toward the stage. Bursting like a comet under the lights and falling into her father’s arms.
“O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!”
As her lament poured out onstage, my old armor of silence locked around me.
Never again.
I’d never show myself like this again.
I told Willow things I’d never told anyone else. I gave her my best self. And for what? She wouldn’t fight for us. Now I stood here, alone, helpless. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t fight for us alone.
Part of me hated her. But a truer part of me loved her. Understood her. I knew the truth of what was happening: it was all the wounds Xavier marked on her. They’d just begun to heal, and then her father unknowingly ripped them all open again.
It wasn’t her fault.
My mother dying wasn’t her fault either. But the loss was there. The yawning void of a life without Willow.
I lost her and so my own words meant nothing.
Willow
Act Three, Scene One. The end of Ophelia and Hamlet.
A props person pressed a beaded necklace into my hand, then handed me a rolled-up parchment tied with a red ribbon. Hamlet’s love letter, written in Isaac’s own hand.
