11. Isaac
11
ISAAC
I’ve been standing by my car for fifteen minutes waiting for Izzy. We’re only going home for a few hours, so I don’t know why it’s taking her so long to get ready, but she’s always like this. I check the time on my phone and see that it’s already past eight, which means that if Izzy doesn’t appear in the next five minutes, we’re going to be late.
Huffing out a breath, I decide to wait in the car instead. Izzy hates getting into a cold car, so I might as well start warming it up. I turn the heat on low, putting her seat warmer on, too, as I think about what a great brother I am. I scroll mindlessly through my phone and then end up doing something that I haven’t done in weeks.
I open up my message app and stare at my thread with Violet, who’s still pinned to the top. She was always the only person I wanted to talk to at all times so having her at the top of my messages just felt like the right thing to do.
It’s still saved the same way that it has been for so many months now - the nickname with heart emojis around it staring back at me because I don’t have the heart to change it or think of her as anything less than what it means.
ONE YEAR AGO
“Mum, I need to finish my homework. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Even though Violet has the phone held to her ear, the volume is loud enough that I can hear her mum’s voice coming through the speaker.
“Okay, meri jaan. Make sure you don’t skip dinner again.”
“I won’t. Bye, mum, love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Violet hangs up and throws her head back, letting out a groan as she places her phone on the desk. I stifle a laugh at how dramatic she’s being just because of a five-minute phone call with her mum.
I think the relationship she has with her mum is sweet, and they seem close in a way that goes past just being mother and daughter. Admittedly, sometimes I get a bit jealous when she talks about her mum because I can’t imagine having that close of a relationship with either of my parents. But when she told me that her dad left when she was a baby, I think I understood it more. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like for her mum to raise Violet alone. My parents have both always been so heavily involved in my life, but at least they had the flexibility of one being able to take over if the other wasn’t available.
“I want to meet your mum.” I blurt out before I’ve even realised it.
“What?” Violet’s head snaps up as she turns to face me.
“I don’t know. I was just thinking about how hard it must have been for her. I want to meet her so I can see who made you so amazing.”
Violet reaches for my hand that’s closest to hers and I meet her halfway, linking our fingers together in the way that always makes me feel like electricity is running through my veins.
“I would say the same for you, but I don’t think your parents had anything to do with how wonderful you are.”
She leans forward to kiss my cheek, and that feels electrified, too.
I lift our joined hands to kiss the top of her knuckles, and she's smiling when I look up at her through my eyelashes. She’s just so pretty, and I can’t believe she’s mine, that I get to cherish her like this, be with her in our own world where it feels like all my worries disappear.
A question pops into my head, something I’ve been wondering for a while but always forget to ask.
“What does your mum call you?”
“Hmm?”
“She always says that thing when you guys talk, mary something?”
Violet bursts out laughing, her free hand coming up to cover her mouth as she tips her head back. I love the sound of her laugh and even if I’ve just said something absolutely ridiculous and embarrassing, I don’t care as long as I get to keep hearing that sound.
“What?” I ask as she struggles to catch her breath .
“You’re so cute,” she says, which isn’t really an answer, but I’ll take it anyway.
She moves her free hand to cradle my cheek, and I lean into her touch. The comfort I get from her is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before, it’s like the whole world quietens, and we’re the only two things in existence.
“Tell me what she says, what it means,” I say, my voice low as I stare into her beautiful eyes as if they hold the answers to every single question in the universe.
“She calls me ‘meri jaan.’ It’s a term of endearment for someone you love, it means my life, my soul, that kind of thing.”
I know she’s not calling me that, but just hearing it from her lips after finding out what it means has my heart racing.
“Meri jaan,” I repeat slowly, trying my best to match her pronunciation and hoping that she’ll realise that it’s a word that perfectly encapsulates how I feel for her.
The smile she gives me lights up my entire life.
“But there’s another way to say it for when you’re in a relationship.” She adds, and I turn my head slightly to kiss her palm, urging her to go on. Her thumb strokes across my cheek as she continues. “Usually, people say ‘jaanu’ to their partners.”
“Jaanu.”
My life, my soul.
I don’t ever want to call her anything else.
“Jaanu.”
“I like that a lot,” I tell her as I lift my hand to hold her wrist and stroke my thumb across it, feeling her heart beating as wildly as mine.
It’s muscle memory at this point as my thumb moves to tap the screen to open up our past messages, but then the passenger side door opens, and I lock my phone just as Izzy gets in.
“What took you so long? We’re only going home for a few hours.”
“I had to get my hair done! Violet always has her hair in cute styles, and she said she would do it for me.”
I’m all too familiar with how Violet does her hair and the countless calls spent with her trying out new styles and asking my opinion on them. I was never really helpful, though, because I thought she looked beautiful no matter how she did it.
Izzy turns in her seat to show me the back of her head, and it’s done in a way that Violet used to do a lot: two small braids around the top of her head that meet in the middle like a crown. I have to look away.
“It’s only lunch, you didn’t need to bother her for that,” I say as I start the car, needing some kind of distraction. “Put your belt on.”
The words come out clipped and harsher than I intended, and once again, I’m taking my emotions out on Izzy when she’s done nothing wrong. It’s not her fault that I messed things up with Violet. I’m glad that she doesn’t seem to be holding our breakup against Izzy, either.
“I didn’t bother her. She was awake anyway.”
“At this time on a Saturday?” I try to mask the surprise in my voice and hope Izzy just takes it as shock that anyone would voluntarily be awake this early on the weekend .
Really, it’s because I know Violet never wakes up this early, and the number of times I’ve had to call her so she wouldn’t miss weekend breakfasts is proof of that.
I wonder why she’s awake so early, wonder if it’s because of me.
I haven’t slept well in months, and I hate to think that it’s the same for her. I got so used to talking to her every night that when the calls stopped, it threw me so off balance that I struggled to sleep. I thought it would have gotten better with time, but it’s still the same, and I barely get four hours of sleep a night if I’m lucky.
“Yeah, she was just sitting in the common room reading. She had tea, too, so I think she’d been awake a while.”
My grip on the steering wheel tightens, and I add another thing to the list of reasons to hate myself for. I hate that she’s not sleeping properly when I know how much she loves it.
“Okay, well, stop bothering her. It’s our last year. She’s probably stressed out enough without you harassing her.”
“I don’t! She even offered to teach me how to do it myself.”
“Just leave her alone, Izzy,” I finally snap, my voice harsher and louder than I’ve ever spoken to her before.
I glance over to her, and if looks could kill, I’d be gone by now. Izzy shifts in her seat so she’s turned to the window and puts her earphones in. I let out a deep sigh, the list growing longer and longer as I keep hurting the people I love. I reach a hand over to tap her shoulder but stop myself at the last minute, retracting it and putting both hands on the wheel again. Izzy hates when I apologise immediately because she said it feels less sincere, so I hold it in for now, resolving to talk to her when we get home instead.
We drive the rest of the way without saying a single word to each other. Before I’ve even finished parking up, Izzy unbuckles her seatbelt and gets out of the car. I think about calling after her, but I know she probably wants some time alone, and I think I need some, too.
I know I can’t keep getting upset any time she mentions Violet, but I can’t help it. I used to love knowing that they were close, but now the idea that she talks to my sister more than me now is too much to bear. It just makes her feel closer when she’s still so far away like she’s right within my reach, but I can’t get to her.
I stay in the car for a bit, steeling myself to see my parents again. I don’t get any kind of reprieve from their pressure whether I’m at home or school, but at least at school, they and their expectations aren’t a constant looming presence. When I’m home, every single conversation revolves around Oxford or preparing for the LNAT and interviews. It is exhausting.
At school, I had Violet as my resting place. She never mentioned it first, always waiting for me to bring it up first if I ever wanted to talk about it. Even then, she would simply listen as I vented and got everything off my chest. She’d reassure me that everything would be okay, and I believed her.
I get out of the car and make my way into the house, trying to get rid of all thoughts of Violet. I hope I can make it to my room without being seen, but as soon as I close the front door behind me, I hear my mum calling my name from the kitchen. I try to pretend I haven’t heard her and keep walking towards the stairs, but then there’s a tug on my arm, and I have to stop.
“I called you, Isaac.”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear.” I turn to face her, shrugging her hand off me, and it’s like looking into a mirror.
My mum’s genetics are strong. Izzy and I both inherited her green eyes and dark hair. Sometimes, it feels like I don’t take after anything from my dad at all, and it just makes the gap between us feel even wider.
“The Smiths will be here at one, so make sure you’re back down before then.”
“I’m going to study for a bit, and then I’ll be down.”
A complete lie.
Instead, I’m going to stare at my ceiling and wonder how I got into this situation where I’m having to fake so much with everyone. I turn to head back up the stairs again, just wanting to be alone for a bit before I have to put on a happy face and be the dutiful son that my parents expect me to be whenever their friends come around.
“Okay, but tell your sister that she has to come down earlier to set the table.”
I hate when they make Izzy get involved in these things. She comes home because she still has some kind of faith in our parents, but she can’t see the fact that they’re lining her up to be just like me. That’s the last thing I want for her, so I do everything I can to prevent it, even if it means making up an excuse to get her out of this dinner. I turn back to my mum .
“I’ll do it. She’s had a busy week. She said she wasn’t feeling too good on the way here.”
My mum’s face sours but the looks she gives me don’t affect me anymore. Whenever she was disappointed in me when I was younger, it would ruin my whole day, and I’d spend so much time working up the courage to apologise for whatever it was I’d done. As I got older, I realised that nothing would ever be good enough, so there was no point wasting my energy being upset about it.
“She won’t get anywhere by sleeping.”
“Mum, it’s ten in the morning on a Saturday, and we had an early start. Just let her rest.”
I don’t miss the way she rolls her eyes before retreating into the kitchen. A sigh escapes me as I trudge up the stairs, and even though I want nothing more than to just lie on my bed in the darkness, I know I need to talk to Izzy first. I turn left at the top of the stairs and knock on her bedroom door.
“Come in.”
I open the door and peek my head in to see her sitting at her desk. She turns in her chair and when she sees it’s me, she lets out a groan.
“I thought you were Mum. Get out.”
“Izzy.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
Great, now I’ve heard that from the two most important girls in my life.
“I want to say sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that in the car.”
I open the door wide enough for me to get through and shut it behind me before I take a seat on her bed. She swivels in her chair to face me, arms crossed as she feigns anger. Izzy gets annoyed with me easily, but she’s never once been actually angry with me.
“No, you shouldn’t have. I didn’t even say anything wrong. I was just talking about my friend.”
“I know.” I take a deep breath, deciding to give Izzy some half-truths that might help explain why I’m always so on edge whenever Violet’s name is mentioned. “The thing is… I kind of had a crush on Violet.”
“Oh my god, you’re lying.” She uncrosses her arms, leaning forward in her chair, and scooting closer to where I’m sitting. “Tell me everything.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” The biggest lie I’ve ever said.
“I had a crush on her. I told her, she didn’t like me, and that was it.”
Izzy stands up then, coming closer to me and staring me dead in the eyes. She’s trying to figure out if I’m lying, but luckily for me, she’s never been good at that.
“When did you tell her?”
“Like two years ago.” Truth .
“What did you say to her?”
“I just said, ‘Hey, I think I like you’.” Half-truth.
“Oh my god, no wonder she rejected you.”
I resist the urge to put her in a headlock like I used to do when we were younger.
“Okay, yes, not my finest moment, but it’s fine. I’m over her now.” Lie .
“That’s a lie, but okay.” She sits back in her chair, and the look on her face scares me. She’s plotting something. “I think you should try again.”
If only she knew that was all I wanted - the chance to try again, to make up for the way I hurt her .
“Why? Nothing has happened to make her change her mind about me.”
It’s easier to talk about her now with this half-truth out there, easier for me to try and get advice from my fifteen-year-old sister, who really shouldn’t be thinking about dating at all. I make a mental note to find out who else Izzy talks to at school and to ask them if she’s interested in anyone. I’m too protective of Izzy to let her heart get broken like I did to Violet.
“What’s the harm in trying? Maybe things have changed, and she could like you now. You’re just going to give up after only trying once?”
It’s like Izzy already knows everything that’s happened, her words hitting harder than I expected them to, and that’s why I decide to open up more.
“I already tried again.”
“And?”
“She didn’t want to talk to me.”
“Hmm… you probably did something to her for her to reject you twice.”
Now she’s scaring me. I open my mouth but close it again, trying to figure out what to say without giving away too much.
“Oh, yeah, you definitely did something to her. I can tell by the look on your face.”
Putting her in a headlock is starting to seem like a great idea.
“You know what, I’m not having this conversation with you.” I stand up, but Izzy does, too, and she pushes me back down. “Isabelle.”
“Don’t full name me. I’m trying to help you here. ”
“Okay, so stop judging me, and just tell me what to do. How can I get her to give me another chance?”
“I don’t know what you did to her, and I know you’re not going to tell me either, so I can’t really give you any solid advice.”
I lift my hands in exasperation, wondering what the whole point of this was then.
“But I can talk to her when we get back to school. I’m seeing her tomorrow anyway.”
“Isabelle Evans, don’t you dare say a word to her about this conversation.”
I start panicking, trying to think of a way I can make sure Izzy doesn’t tell Violet. I’m worried that if she says anything, Violet will think I’ve told her everything about us, and that was never what we wanted.
“I’ll take care of it myself.”
“Relax, I won’t tell her everything. I’ll just put in a good word for you. Talk about what a great guy you are.”
It already sounds like that’s going to be the worst conversation in the world because I know Violet thinks the exact opposite of me right now.
“For some strange reason, I don’t trust you to do that.”
“You’re so annoying. I’m trying to help you. Do you want to go out with her or not?”
“I do.” It comes out too quickly. I can’t hide the desperate need I have for that, for her.
“Okay, so I’ll talk to her tomorrow, and then we can take it from there.”
I look at my sister and wonder how I missed her growing up so quickly. I think I spent so long trying to shield her from our parents, wanting her to have a childhood that was completely different from mine, that I missed the moment when she matured. I’m determined to have a better relationship with her from now on so that she knows I’ll always be here for her, just like she is for me, even if she doesn’t realise it.
“Thanks, Izzy.” I stand up again and this time I pull her into a hug. She pretends to try and wriggle away but she hugs me back, both of us knowing we can lean on each other whenever we need to.