She flinches, and I slide my hand into hers under the water and hold it, lightly.
“That’s not a bad thing. Leo was, objectively, a bad thing. And I lost control then. But you – I lost control in a more pleasant way around you. In a way that was healthy, and supportive. Losing control showed me the intricate web of emotions I’d been denying for so long. You teased them out, like the sun does to spring sprouts.”
The flush on her cheeks grows redder, and I smile. But then I realize I’m holding her hand, and disengage quickly. Motions like that are not helping her move on to a better man. None of this is. And yet I’m too selfish to stop talking, to walk away. I want the sun. I want to be warmed again on her heat, if only for a fleeting moment.
“Gregory taught me to control myself in a deeper way than I was doing alone. He took me to the desert, a ranch house he owns in the middle of nowhere, and he made me work. I hauled water and firewood and struggled with the stallions. Horses hate me, by the way. And they hate snakes. But primarily me.”
“The difference between you is marginal,” she muses, grinning. I flash her a smirk.
“Gregory made me fight – him, mostly, and sometimes his ranch hand; a giant of a Najavo man. Gregory showed me that control isn’t suppression – it’s expression, expressed when and where you choose and with deliberate purpose. After three months, he said I was ready to join his team. And I did.”
“Spying,” she says.
“Information gathering,” I correct. “Only people who watch too much TV call it spying.”
“So you’re spying on Nameless.”
I nod. “Trying to. He’s very secretive, and more clever than I gave him credit for. But with enough time, we’ll get solid evidence.”
“What’s he done? Other than ruin a fat girl’s life?” She asks, steely.
“Provided his hacking services to a number of internet black market kingpins involved with opium, meth, child slaves. The list isn’t pretty. He probably didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but he knew it was illegal, and that’s enough to put him away.”
Isis is quiet. She puts her hands between her legs and rocks on the edge of the fountain, a nervous gesture.
“I’m scared. Every corner I turn – I’m convinced he’ll be on the other side, waiting for me.”
“Then why come out here alone at night?”
“He doesn’t like the dark,” She says.
“Fascinating,” I say as I file the information away for later use. “Not that you’re scared,” I correct quickly. “But that someone so terrible could have a fear so mundane.”
She shrugs. “He was locked in the closet a lot by his dad when he was a kid. For hours.”
We’re quiet. Isis tries to break the tension.
“So, you and bikini going steady, then? Charlie said it was to get info out of her, but I mean, c’mon, look at her. No living thing with a portable piss tube could not feel something while dating someone that hot.”
“She’s boring,” I say, my voice acidic. “If you must know.”
“I do say I must know,” Isis takes on a faux-British accent.
“Why? Why would you care?”
“Because, idiot,” She snaps. “I like you. I told you that a long time ago. Not that you’d remember – you get confessions like that all the time, why would you remember one from an annoying, angry little girl –”
Even after all the hurt, she still likes me.
“I’ve hurt you. You deserve someone better.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Oh my god, I forgot how arrogant you are. Who are you to decide what people deserve?”
It goes unsaid between us, but even she can tell what I’m thinking.
“And Sophia…Sophia loved you. She would’ve wanted you to be happy. That’s all any of us can do in this short-ass life. Try to be happy. And I know it’s killing you and I know you blame yourself but you’re not the only one blaming yourself -”
She stops, a choke ending her words.
I’m not the only one. How could I have forgotten that? What selfish prick had I become – running away and leaving her to bleed over my shadow, and the shadow of all she thinks she should’ve done? She waited alone in silence, and fear, bravely holding together the pieces of my life that I abandoned because I was too selfish to stay. Even after abandoning her, she held on to the memory of me, to her feelings for me, guarding them carefully so they wouldn’t start to rot. Any girl would have given up. Any other girl would have sowed hatred for me for the rest of her life. But not Isis. Not my stubborn, courageous, kind Isis.
“It’s okay,” She looks up, smiling, though her eyes are waterlogged. “It’s nice of you to say you still like me, but. But I understand. If you don’t really, you don’t have to say I should find someone better. You should just tell me. I know I’m not – I’m not all that ladylike, and I’m weird and loud, and I’m inexperienced, and I know that isn’t your type. And I’ve got a lot of huge dumb issues, so. That’s too difficult for someone to deal with, I think. That night in the hotel was months ago so it’s okay if things have changed. You don’t have to feel bad about not wanting me anymore. It’s okay to just like someone as a friend and not want to sleep with them. We can be friends. Just friends.”
I want you. I want you as more than a friend. I want you in my arms, in my bed, where you’ll be safe and ecstatic and all mine. I want to show you how good a kiss can be. I want to show you life isn’t always suffering – it’s pleasure, too. My brain screams it, but my mouth never moves, condemning me to silence. I have to be stone. The slightest crack, and I’ll spill my every secret at her feet – that I crave her like a parched plant craves the rain. That the only time I feel alive – honestly, radiantly alive - is when I see her purple streaks, the outline of her shoulders, her smile.
If I open my mouth, the darkest spear of secrets would pierce her through.
I love you.
But what kind of barbed love could I offer her? I’m broken, shattered like a mirror of lies. She would try to pick up my pieces and only cut her delicate fingers on them. Any love I could give her would hurt her more, when all I want to do is heal her. I want to build her back up, not tear her down with me. She is too important. Any further hurt by a man could tip the scales of her heart irrevocably, and send her into the place of no return, where no light or love could ever reach her. I’d ruin her for good. And I could never live with myself if I ruined her.
Not after Sophia. Not after ruining a girl once before. Once is an accident. Twice is malicious and unforgivable. I’d be no better than Nameless. If I put my own wants and needs above her safety and well-being, I’d be no better than him.
So I put my best mask on. The lifeless one. The one Isis practically destroyed. There are only shards of it left, but it’s so familiar I fill in the blanks quickly and make my expression unreadable.
“I apologize,” I say. “For leading you into thinking we were something more than friends.”
For all the things she is miserable at, she is very, very good at hiding her pain. The light drains from her eyes instantly at my words, something deep and bright dying within her. Hope. But she hides it in a split-second, sweeping it under a rug of sardonic exasperation.