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We’re walking back to my apartment by the time I get the courage to ask. I suck in a breath, heart-pounding, and look up at Isaac to find he’s already searching my face for what I’m thinking.
“Can I ask you about…back then?” I say in a rush, my voice quieter than I want it to be.
He turns away from me, fingers still laced with mine, and for a few moments, we walk down the sidewalk in silence.
I’ve fucked up. I shouldn’t have asked because it isn’t my business, and now I’m pretty sure he’s pissed off about it.
“Just this once,” Isaac says finally. “Because you, out of everyone, have a right to know.”
“Not if you don’t want to tell me,” I promise. I don’t like talking about my own trauma, so asking for his feels invasive.
“But only if you tell me about what happened toyouat some point,” Isaac bargains, his thumb rubbing over the scars on my wrist that he can reach while keeping hold of my hand.
“Yeah…okay,” I say, bewildered and hoping he forgets. Even if he doesn’t, I don’tmindtelling him. Especially since it feels only fair if he’s going to tell me what happened to him.
“You know my parents were awful,” he points out. “Even when we were that young, you totally knew they were abusing me.”
“I did,” I agree, my ribs compressing against my insides threateningly. “I should’ve told someone. I should’ve done–”
He rounds on me quickly and presses me back against the brick wall of a corner store. His forearms press to the wall behind me, bracketing me in as he traps me there with his body. This close, I can practicallyfeelthe heat rolling off of him, and I definitely don’t want to push him away.
“We were twelve,” he points out, his voice low. “And I know you were trying to help me in whatever way you knew how. I was over at your house for dinner almost every day, and that’s probably the only reason I didn’t starve.” He rewards me with a smile I don’t deserve.
“I wanted to get my parents to adopt you,” I admit softly, finding it hard to maintain my irritation and annoyed facade aroundthisspecific Lost Boy. “I thought I could talk them around.”
Isaac chuckles and kisses me briefly, then pulls away. “They never would’ve let you.” There’s sadness in the words, and he pulls me away from the wall with his hand in mine once more. “I missed your birthday party because my dad decided it was time to leave. I don’t know why, but…” He shrugs. “They packed up all our stuff, most of it, anyway, and told me we were going to visit my uncle.” I can see the tightness of his shoulders, and I step closer to him so that our arms brush as we walk.
“It was pretty bad,” he sighs, and when I find his gaze, I see that he just looks…empty. Like he’s describing what happened to someone else, not himself. “They hit me, tried to sell me at one point, I think. My dad gave me alcohol and thought it was funny to get me drunk. By the time I was seventeen, I had thought I’d rather be dead. Or at least take my chance somewhere else. So I did. I left after a particularly bad night.”
“And…?” I prompt because that really can’t be the end of the story. He didn’t justleaveand then end up here as he is now.
“And I got lucky. I stumbled into the road in front of Cy’s car the next morning. He hit me.” Isaac chuckles at the memory. “Just a little fender bender. But when he got out and saw how awful I looked, he dragged me into his car and took me home.”
“Like a stray puppy,” I point out.
“Like an abused, stray puppy,” Isaac agrees. “I’ve been with Cy ever since. I wasn’t thefirstor anything. Arlo was there before me, and Ashe knew us before deciding to join our littlegang.”
“What about Ezra?” I can’t help but ask.
Isaac grimaces. “Ezra is…different,” he says finally. “Look, all of us are pretty fucked up; I’ll give you that. But Ez?” he shakes his head. “Ezra had a really rough childhood as well, but something in him just kind of…broke, at some point. If it was ever whole, to begin with.”
“He seems a little…”
“He’s a psychopath,” Isaac says flatly. “The rest of us may be awful, but we’re the kind of awful that might feel badly afterward. Ezra doesn’t. Hecan’t.”
The thought is unnerving, and it takes me a minute to realize that we’re back at my apartment building and going up the stairs.
“I have akey,” I inform Isaac, digging it out of my pocket and waving it at him. “You may be unfamiliar with them, but these unlock doors. Isn’t that fancy?”
“Not at all.” Isaac swipes the key with a snort and shoves it into my lock so hard it makes me wince. The door swings open a second later, and I follow him inside as he looks around with a sigh.
“Yeah, sure, you can come in,” I grumble, though the fight isn’t really present in my words, and I kick the door closed behind me without any more complaint. “Why not? It’s not like I’m the sole renter of this place or anything.”
“What’s yours is mine,” Isaac says blithely, grinning at me with all the aggression of a golden retriever.
I hate how adorable I find him. He’s not like Ezra. He doesn’t look friendly andgenuinelike Ezra pretends to be. He just looks like Isaac.MyIsaac.
Though I internally wince at that thought because he isn’tmine. At least, not anymore. I couldn’t help him as Cyril had.
