we need to talk
I’ve got a nasty response already composed, one I’ve used to reject everyone but Heath since eighth grade. But my hands type something else entirely.
OK when?
I study the text a second before sending it, aware of the door it will open. My thumb makes the decision for me, hitting send before I’ve given full thought to what might lie on the other side.
Now. Face-to-face.
I don’t know what world he lives in, but I’m not a citizen of one where Sasha Stone talks face-to-face with Isaac Harver at eleven at night on a Sunday.
I’m outside
“Bull,” I say under my breath, then I hear the purr of a motorcycle in the driveway. I tear my curtains out of the way to see his silhouette give me a little mock salute. How he found out where I live, I have no clue, but I need to get rid of him before Mom and Dad notice.
I pull on some flip-flops and a hoodie, poking my head into my parents’ room as I head down the hall. Mom’s propped in bed scowling at a romance novel and doesn’t notice when I click her door shut the rest of the way. Dad is sprawled on his recliner in the living room with his earplugs so deep they’ll have to be surgically removed.
The only thing standing between me and Isaac Harver having a conversation by the light of a full moon is common sense, and I pause with my hand on the doorknob. That day at the courthouse Isaac had my attention, and he knew it. My mouth was inches from his and not wanting to retreat before his probation officer interrupted. And that was in a public place. After the dream I had I’m not sure if I trust myself alone in the dark with him, but for some reason that feels like more of an incentive than a warning. My feet are cutting through the yard to the driveway before my brain sends them the signal to reconsider.
“Hey.” His voice is low and conspiratorial, yet filled with complete familiarity, as if he has every right in the world to be leaning against his motorcycle in my driveway, eyes going up and down my body. I cross my arms against my chest, half to cover the fact I’m not wearing a bra, half in fear that my furiously pounding heart is about to leap free.
“Hey,” I say, when it was supposed to be, “What do you want?”
He watches me carefully, and I keep my distance.
“Why are you being so weird?” he asks.
“Me? I’m being weird? You show up at my house past bedtime—”
“Bedtime?” He doesn’t actually laugh, but I can hear amusement in his voice.
“You think this is funny? You somehow get my number and text me out of the blue, show up at my house in the middle of the night, and imply to my boyfriend that you know what color my sheets are.”
I realize too late that I’ve crossed the space in between us while I ranted and that Isaac is a full foot taller than me.
“One”—Isaac holds up a finger in perfect imitation of me—“you gave me your number. Two,” he says loudly before I can interrupt, “eleven ain’t the middle of the night. Three, I wasn’t implying anything about your sheets; I know exactly what color they are. And four, I hate it when he touches you.”
His voice hitches a little on that last statement, the words bouncing off a speed bump of emotion in his throat. I feel my own constricting at the idea that Isaac would have any opinion at all on Heath touching me, let alone hating it. I don’t have a response for this naked feeling, this matter-of-fact statement that Isaac throws out there without any thought to his own defenses. I’ve had battlements built around my feelings for so long I don’t know how to react to bare honesty.
“Something you ain’t telling me?”
“Aren’t,” I correct automatically, and he flinches.
“Fuck you. Never mind. Jesus.” He’s turning away from me, climbing back onto his bike, and I feel panic rising, a soft crescendo starting in my belly and bursting out of my throat, my hands following my words.
“Wait. Stop.” I grab him, my hand closing around his wrist, the cuff of his leather jacket rubbing against my skin. He doesn’t pull away, just stares at me with a careful blankness, one I know well. It’s the face of a closing door, one that will remain shut once it clicks home.
“Listen . . . Isaac.” I don’t let go of his arm, and I can feel his pulse jump when I say his name. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
I haven’t started a sentence with “I don’t know” since kindergarten. I can barely get the words out and have to force them, a reverse of the time Heath talked me into trying calamari and I choked it down. The words are as awkward as the squid had been, rubbery and unnatural in my mouth. But I said them, and I said them to someone who may as well be a stranger.
And maybe that’s what made it easier.
Or maybe it’s something else—the feel of Isaac’s skin against mine, the way his eyes are drinking me in, like if he looks away I might disappear. Maybe it’s because he’s turned his palm upward against mine and his thumb is making little circles at the base, making my blood pound through my veins more quickly until our pulses are synchronized, hearts beating in time.
“You don’t know what’s going on about what?” he asks, anger evaporated. “Is this about . . .” He stops, bites his bottom lip. “What’s going on with your heart? I heard your—I heard him say something Friday.”
“My heart? No. I . . . I don’t know what to do,” I say, and my face contorts, muscles pulling my mouth downward into a sag that feels like it will never stop, my eyes squeezing shut against the pressure of tears. I turn away in embarrassment, but Isaac’s hands are on me in a second, pulling me into him, into the warm nook under his chin and against his chest. A place I somehow fit perfectly.
“You can tell me,” he says, and I listen to his voice echoing inside his chest. “If it’s over, then that’s it. But I’m going to make you say it.”
I shudder against him, partially in fear at all his words imply, but also because I may be losing something I never knew I had. I step back from him, my hands sliding down his arms. Our fingers intertwine automatically, out of habit, and it feels as natural as holding a clarinet. And that’s how I know we’ve done this before, stood here staring at each other in the dark of night. I’ve touched him and been touched, and as I feel our blood leaping toward each other through the pulse of our hands, I know we both want whatever this is to continue.
“You’re right,” I say. “We do need to talk.” I glance back at my house, which is lit up against the night, warm and welcoming. I don’t want to go inside.
“Can we go somewhere?”