by Eden Butler
It seemed like the silence was exceptionally heavy around the library when I entered, though I wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with Trent’s call, or just my missing Isaac.
We’d spent almost every day together over the past month—at the library, necking in the stacks, sometimes taking Lenny’s Bel Air to New York to attend poetry slams or hear really good jazz. Isaac came alive in New York where there wasn’t nearly as much attention given to us. We were one couple among many that looked a little out of place, who came and went as they pleased regardless of their surroundings.
Now though, something odd and unsettling buzzed around my stomach as I moved through the silent lobby. I spotted Mr. Welis reading a paper as he leaned against the front desk, a small mug of coffee on the desk top.
“Miss O’Bryant, good evening.”
“Hi, Mr. Welis.” We rarely spoke, Mr. Welis and me, only a handful of times when he’d ask what I thought of Isaac’s chances of getting into Lincoln. The older man wasn’t a stranger. To my surprise, the older man never glared at me the way Lenny did sometimes.
“You looking for someone, Miss Riley?” He had a nice smile and beautiful eyes, nearly green, which looked nice against the dark complexion of his skin. He was lighter than Lenny, but not as light-skinned as Isaac, and handsome for an older gentleman.
The question threw me off a bit. Generally, Mr. Welis would smile a little when he spotted me and Isaac together. Mostly, though, he just ignored us altogether.
“Uh…no,” I said, listening to my gut to keep Isaac’s name out of our conversation. “Just going to study a little before the library closes.”
He nodded, his smile a little bigger than I thought it should be but before I could give it any consideration at all, he turned back to his paper like we hadn’t spoken.
I moved further into the library, expecting to hear some noise, anything to lead me to wherever Isaac was, but all was quiet. Lenny mopped the second-floor tiles but he didn’t hum or whistle like he normally did while he worked. And Isaac wasn’t anywhere to be found—not on the first-floor kitchenette or by the elevators where he usually met me when I arrived.
Something felt wrong, off somehow. For the first time since I’d began hiding out at the Lincoln University library, it didn’t feel like home. As I moved back toward the sound of Lenny's mop moving, I realized the reason the place didn’t feel like home was because Isaac wasn’t there.
“Lenny?”
He didn’t stop his work, instead focusing even more intently on the movement of the thick mop head smearing water and foam across the marble tiles. His back was facing me and I noticed for the first time that there was a long scar that ran down his neck and disappeared into the starched collar of his blue button up. There was no telling how he’d gotten it. Isaac had told me the most awful stories about his childhood in Georgia—how he and Lenny had both struggled growing up in the south.
“Lenny?” I tried again, this time loud enough that my voice bounced on that marble and back against the floor to ceiling windows around us. He turned, frowning a little before he forced a nod in my direction. “Where’s Isaac?”
“Couldn’t say.” He lifted his shoulders, shrugging like he didn’t believe I had any right knowing what had happened to Isaac. “Best you go on out of here before I have to close up.”
He was dismissing me. I’d spent the past month falling in love with his best friend, laughing and joking with both of them and Lenny was dismissing me like he didn’t know me?
“Hang on just a minute.” He stepped back when I faced him, glaring, my growing fear and anger at being disregarded getting the better of me. “Don’t do that, Lenny. Don’t you talk to me like I’m nothing. He was supposed to meet me here.” He moved and I followed, step for step, until he gave up trying to get back to work. “Tell me what happened.”
Lenny was good at guarding himself. Isaac said it came from years of getting out of trouble anytime Lenny disobeyed his mother or acted out at school and didn’t want to get lashing for it. But there was something hiding behind his bored, practiced expression that made me even more worried, because he was doing such a good job of it.
“Lenny…please, tell me. What happened to Isaac?”
He pulled a folded handkerchief from his back pocket, rubbing it along the back of his neck, though he didn’t sweat and I suspected he only did that out of habit, as some odd way to help him think. His face was pinched tight and the muscles around jaw flexed and moved as he continued to work that small fabric along his neck.
“He’ll whop me for sure, but damn if I can’t stomach seeing him so out of sorts.” He glanced at me, forgetting the handkerchief when I narrowed my eyes. “Mr. Welis said someone had reported him. That he was…ah…well, that he was following after some of the students and making them uncomfortable. Said some fella told him Isaac had been seen following his girlfriend back to her dorm. So they canned him. Didn’t want there to be no ruckus.”
“Oh for Pete’s sake.” Trent. That bastard. He just couldn’t stand the thought of not getting what he wanted, and was willing to ruin lives to get his way.
When I glanced back at Lenny, I could see that he knew. That he and Isaac and even Mr. Welis probably knew exactly who had made the report and why, but there was nothing they could do about it but follow procedure. My blood went from icy cold with fear to a rising anger in the space of a few heartbeats. “This is my fault,” I told Lenny, livid that Trent had orchestrated this. “Trent…my ex…whatever he was. I know he did this.”
“That’s what Isaac reckoned too, that it was that fella…the one you used to go around with. He’s got a far reach, that one.”
“Lenny, where is he?” He automatically started shaking his head, even picked up his mop as though he’d determined to ignore me. “Please, I just want to check on him.”
“He’s fine. Just waiting out the end of the week and trying to head off to New York and see if he can’t…”
“Head off to New York?”
Lenny paused, cursed to himself as though he hadn’t meant for the slip of information to worm its way from his mouth. “You didn’t hear that from me.”
“Lenny, please. Just tell me where he is.” He rolled the mop and bucket away from me, starting on a new section ten feet away, throwing up his hand to stop me when I tried walking across the wet time. I like to think of myself as a strong woman, someone who may look fragile and be willing to act the part of a polite, well-bred young lady. My go-to way of dealing with horrible things was to keep smiling, to always have a kind word, to look for the good in things even when they were rotten, but still one who could hold her own in a storm, or not fall apart if the unexpected happen. But right then, I felt all hollowed out, empty. I could only stand there and stare at Lenny and that mop of his moving across the floor, to devastated to even cry.
Finally, when I didn’t move, he looked back at me, and I must have cut a pretty pathetic figure because suddenly his resolve splintered. “Oh, hell, Miss Riley, I can’t stand that look.” He held the mop handled between his fingers, head shaking as he watched me. “That little cottage out on Lakeside? I reckon he told you about his uncle’s little camp out there?” He had. Isaac promised to bring me there one weekend when he wasn’t working so hard, but we’d never found the time. I nodded, walking backward as Lenny continued. “Fools, the pair of you. And don’t you go telling him I told you all his business.”
“I won’t!” I turned, started to sprint away and slipped a little on the wet floor, laughing at Lenny’s loud curse. “Sorry!”
“And don’t you be driving out there by yourself!” I threw a wave over my shoulder and heard Lenny continue. “I mean it! You get a ride or you take the bus but don’t go off on your own!” His voice got fainter and I doubted Lenny believed I listened to his warnings as I took the steps two at a time, my mind set on one goal and my heart feeling like it might leap from my chest.
Ryan didn’t question anything I said because that’
s what family does—stands with you and helps you when you need help. He sat next to me in his Impala, twisting his fingers on the steering wheel like he hoped the small distraction would keep him from speaking.
He lasted a whole two minutes.
“Speak.” It was all the permission he needed.
“I’d say this no matter what guy was in there, sis.”
“Uh huh. I know you would.”
To my left Ryan’s stared glassy-eyed, as though he was willing me to stay put for fear of what waited for me in that small cottage on the lake. Isaac was there. There was a shadow blocking most of the lamplight from the side window—I’d know that shape anywhere. Those shoulders I’d touched and held half a dozen times. That strong, wide back I’d run my fingers over. That thick, long neck, I’d kissed and cradled until the sun dipped low onto the horizon.
“I just…” Ryan’s breath was warm, fogging the windshield when he exhaled. “You’re my kid sister.”
“Ryan, we’re not kids anymore.”
“Yeah, well, to me you’re still that soapy-faced two-year-old jumping out of the tub when Mom went to answer the door.”
I smiled, remembering how often Ryan loved to tell that story. He came off good in it. Me, not so much. “Here we go again…”
My brother ignored me, grip loosening on the wheel. “You slipped on the floor, nearly knocked your head on the tub.”
“But you caught me.”
Ryan nodded, looking out beyond the windshield and I wondered if he watched Isaac like I did. “I caught you.”
He moved his hand onto the seat next to mine and I looped a finger around his, same as we’d always done when we were kids. It never got old, the closeness you feel to a sibling. It never was enough.
“I can’t stop you if you want to…”
“It’s too late, Ryan.” I tightened my finger around his. “I already fell.”
He waited to start the engine until I was on the porch with my arms around my waist and my nerve slipping between weak and endless as I decided if I wanted to knock. Isaac had to have seen me leave the car. The Impala had thick doors and closed with a thud that ricocheted around the lake. My approach wasn’t silent and neither was the sharp tap against the door when I knocked. The strong scent of roses blew through the air when a breeze moved the fallen dry leaves from the oaks around the porch and I tightened my sweater closer to me, not sure if it was fear or the chill in the air that made me cold.
I counted my breaths as I waited for the footsteps on the other side of that oak door to quiet and when they did, I stopped breathing altogether. Would he be angry that I’d found my way here? Did he blame me for Trent’s lies? Would he send me away?
There were bright lights and colors swirling in my head that felt like something I forgot and couldn’t quite place. There was music lost in those small seconds as I waited on the other side of that door; like something I loved had been stripped from me and I’d never be rid of the loss, or perhaps the edge of possibility. Everything held and waited with those footsteps and when the door opened, when Isaac’s impassive, steady expression shifted, even minutely, I believed that what I’d lost stood right in front of me. It was the strangest sensation—he was there, inches from me and it felt something like longing and need and long released hope had just all vanished from me in an instant. He was here.
I couldn’t wait for him to touch me. I didn’t want to. He’d been mine, a long time ago and here he was again. It was stupid to feel that way, I knew. It made no sense, but seeing Isaac after just two days apart had felt like years, decades and I wanted to smash the time between us. I wanted to forget it had ever been there.
“Riley…”
I wouldn’t let him send me away. I couldn’t. Isaac’s body went stiff when I lunged at him, grabbing onto his neck with no intention of ever letting go. It took him three of the longest seconds of my life before he surrendered his fight and held onto me, those massive arms around my waist, the sensation of him inhaling my hair and my feet coming off the porch as he held me close.
Isaac set me down and looked over my shoulder, pausing without moving his hands from my waist and I followed his gaze, smiling at Ryan as he watched us.
“He’s waiting to see if you’ll send me away.” Just then, Isaac’s grip lowered, resting on my hip, as though he had me, like he had me and had no plans of letting me go. His breath was warm against my neck and I glanced up at him, my body feeling buzzed by the look in his eyes, how he didn’t seem able to keep from looking at me like I was real and there and his.
I waved to Ryan and Isaac offered him a nod before he opened the door and led me inside. I heard the car pull away, and then there was only us.
The cottage was nothing more than one large room with river stone fireplace and hand scrapped hardwood floors. There was a small kitchen tucked away in the back of the cottage, and the rich scent of coffee percolated from the back of the room. Two large chairs were situated in front of the fire that crackled beneath a thick wood mantel holding several small picture frames, each one with the thinnest layer of dust. A large bed was pathetically hidden behind a thin curtain. I did my best not to stare for too long at the mattress or think of the untucked blankets and how the entire place smelled of sandalwood and shea butter soap.
“You…you were fired,” I looked up at Isaac as he leaned against the largest of the two columns, thick masses of hand-sawed beams that held up the entire cottage. His gaze was heavy on me and I fiddled with my hair, pulling it over my shoulder to braid it absently; an unconscious habit. Isaac only nodded, watching with his mouth tight and drawn, like he wanted me to say my piece uninterrupted.
“I guess you figured it was probably Trent.” The name came out low, like a curse, and I couldn’t keep my lip from curling a little when I spoke it. “I’d bet anything it was him.” Another nod and I stepped closer to him. “Are you…” My tongue felt thick and knotted. “Do you blame me?”
“Riley,” he finally said, standing away from the beam. “Come here to me.”
I didn’t hesitate and his arms were around me, my face against his chest before anything else could pass between us. This was where I belonged—safe, protected, loved. The idea shocked me, made me huddle closer to him. Did Isaac love me? He’d never said it, but I felt it just then, in the fierceness of his arms, in how tightly he held me, as though he wouldn’t let go. As though he would never let me go.
“You think I blamed you? You of all people?” His voice rumbled against my ear and I hummed, loving the feel of it. “How is it your fault when that dog runs his mouth?” Isaac pulled back to look down at me but kept me in the circle of his arms. “That bastard hit you. He hurt you, body and soul. No one deserves that, least of all you. I wanted... I wanted to....but you wouldn't let me. Your heart is too big. I don’t know if you were protecting him or me, but you wouldn’t let me take out how angry I was on him, even though he deserved it. And I figure if you can let go of what he did to you, then who was I to hold a bigger grudge? So I did what I could to be there for you when you were down. And soon, all I saw was you.”
“But if it hadn’t been for me…”
“This is what I’ve been telling you, Riley, for months. This is the world we live in. It’s the way of things.” He said it so simply, not as something that was a sad, pathetic thing; just a statement of fact.
“But that’s not…it’s not right.”
“Maybe it ain’t, but that don’t change it. Maybe nothing will. Maybe time will, who knows? But in my gut I know who I can trust. I know who looks at me and sees me, not some damn idea they have in their heads.” He moved his hand, running a finger along my bottom lip. “This thing we got…I told you, it won’t be easy.”
“Nothing good is ever easy, Isaac.”
There was a pause as unasked questions hovered around us. I considered what life would be like with Isaac, that no matter how committed we might be to our relationship, we could not exist in a vacuum. Struggles would follow u
s wherever we went, and would spill out to our families, our loved ones, our friends.
He waited. Although Isaac was the one who moved with caution, the one who refused to assume that the easy road would be ours to travel, he waited for me to come to a decision. He wanted me to say yes, but wouldn’t ask the question. He would not lead me anywhere, but would be waiting for me when I arrived—if I didn’t turn back.
“Isaac?” He nodded again and brought me closer. His cheeks were wide, his features strong and he closed his eyes, as though he relished the feel of my fingertips over his face. “Will you love me? No matter what happens?”
Isaac pulled me around him, holding me against his large body, his hand around my waist. His voice was quiet, but filled with strength, with conviction. “Always.”
No one had touched me like Isaac. He had a way about him, something real and honest that was assured by his long, perfect fingers down my back and the slip of his tongue inside my mouth. There was no fear, not when those fingers gripped me tighter, when he slowly lowered my zipper and held my hand as I stepped out of my dress.
He watched me then, and even though a different Riley might have been shy, I liked the way his stare felt against my bare skin. It was me he wanted, only me; only I could sate his hunger, redeem that desperate look that had caught him in a silent pause.
Isaac still held my hand, arm extended with that hard, greedy gaze working over me. He made me feel needed, wanted, he made me feel necessary. And when he pulled my hand to rest it against his heart, I held my breath, waiting to hear what he thought, hoping he wanted me as much as I wanted him. “My sweet…my beautiful Riley.”
He stepped back, my fingers trailing away from his chest, and tugged off his shirt, dropping it to the floor, instantly forgotten. Isaac picked me up and carried me to the bed, divesting me of everything that kept me covered, and everything that kept him hidden from me.