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My heart sinks and my vision blurs. Mary was here? I barely resist the urge to throw the stupid pie away, but I can’t think past her words. My gut sours at the implication, but it’s not jealousy I feel, not anymore. Not the way I’d feel if Roman was with someone else.
Maybe it was never the same. Maybe I was never jealous of Isaac physically being with someone else, just worried they’d take him from me. That I’d lose him for good and be alone in this world again.
My eyes fly over the words another time. What does she mean the news? What happened, and who is she talking about? Clover? Oli? Me?
Christ, we’re all orphans.
A sound from somewhere in the house pulls my attention and I freeze, the note slipping from my fingers.
The creaking floorboards betray me as I make my way down the narrow hall, the old wood groaning beneath my weight. Roman's room, a dormant sanctuary of memories, looms in shadowed silence to my right. The jack and jill bathroom. A cracked mirror in the hall, reflecting a fragmented version of my anxious soul.
Every footfall feels like an eternity, each step filled with the weight of months of separation, of words left unspoken. Isaac's presence, unexpected but not unwelcome, coils my nerves into tight knots. I steel myself, trying to fathom the storm of emotions waiting on the other side of my bedroom door.
I hear him murmuring a jumbled mess of words I can’t make out through the cracked door. The handle feels cold beneath my trembling hand. I grip it, fingers white, and push.
The old wood yields, quietly groaning in protest. My breath catches, a breathless gasp escaping my lips as I take in the scene.
Isaac stands in the center of the room, a disheveled version of the man I once knew. His clothes, usually sharp and tailored, now hang askew, like they bear the weight of the world. His hair, once meticulously coiffed, is now a tangled mess. Fatigue etches lines into his face, each one a testament to the burden he carries.
But I can’t take my eyes off my now destroyed sanctuary, the room I once found solace in. Clothes lie strewn, as if discarded in haste. Drawers gape open, their contents spilled like forgotten secrets. A beat of terror courses through me as my eyes land on my camming laptop, exposed and vulnerable. Boxes that were once tucked away in the recesses of my closet now lay scattered across the bed, their contents laid bare.
Oh, no.
Everything I use for Favorite Fans is spread across the yellow comforter, the evidence damning.
Every thong, every costume, every toy.
Every secret.
Every lie.
Every price I paid for the cost of my freedom.
A choked sound escapes my lips, a strangled cry of disbelief and despair, and my hand slaps over my mouth to stifle it, but it’s too late. His head snaps up, his frantic, wild gaze landing on me, seeing but not.
Time stretches and distorts, the air heavy with the weight of everything.
Isaac's eyes, once familiar, now hold a strange mixture of regret and resignation in their nearly black depths.
I’m a statue, frozen in the maelstrom of this violation. The room seems to spin, the walls closing in, suffocating me. How did it come to this? Weeks of silence on my end, heart wrenching voicemails and devastating texts on his, all culminating in this moment of utter destruction.
My gaze finds my map, something left to me by my dad, in a shredded heap on my desk, and I step forward, my outstretched hand shaking. I pick it up, pain ravaging me from the inside out, but as the scraps sift through my fingers, anger swells, replacing some of the sadness.
I whirl on him. “How could you?” I rasp, my skin crawling.
“Eve, I—I had to. You don't understand.” His fingers rake through his hair as he takes me in, his eyes flitting from me to the mess at his feet, then back to me. “You left me no choice. You wouldn’t speak to me or answer my calls. I didn’t know where you were.”
But he did. Because in one desperate plea for peace, I sent a text. Just one. A response in hopes of getting him to let me go, even just for a little while.
Me:
I’m safe. I’m in Mammoth. I need some time. Please just let me have time.
I don’t point out his lie. There’s no point. Not right now.
“Why did you do this, Isaac?” My jaw tenses, my fists balling at my sides as tears silently glide down my cheeks. “Why did you have to ruin everything?”
His hand lands on his chest, and he rubs the spot over his heart. “I had no choice,” he repeats. “After what Mary showed me, after what she said…” He runs his tongue over his teeth, his eyes briefly flitting to my laptop, a still image of me naked and riding a flesh-colored dildo frozen on the screen. His jaw pulses. “You’ve been keeping secrets, sweetheart.”
