Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Travis
PRESENT DAY
“You came,” I say, getting up from the deck. Isabella walks toward me in a different outfit from earlier. Her hair is up in a ponytail, and though she’s still far away from me, I see the light in her eyes.
“I didn’t have much of a choice!” she yells, echoing in the woods. The lake is still, and the night is chilly, but the instant I saw her figure in the depths of darkness coming towards me, I couldn’t feel it anymore.
I join her in the middle. Now that she’s near, I definitely see that light. “Yes, you did,” I say, trying to contain my smile.
“I didn’t know how long you would stay out here if I didn’t, so I did. That’s it,” she defends.
All the excuses in the world wouldn’t change the fact she came. She came.
“No, you chose to come, Bella. Just as you had a choice to approach me at the fair that night, you also had the choice to ditch me after spring break. You could’ve gone by your day and ghosted me as if nothing had happened in that gondola, but you chose to run in my arms as soon as you came back. You always have a choice,” I say as I take closer steps towards her.
The distance between us defines where I want us to be. And today, I want us closer than ever.
“Travis,” she murmurs, taking a step backward. Her gaze shifts down to her feet and she ignores my demand for her to find me halfway.
“And like today, you had the choice to either stay at home in the comfort of your room or come out here to see me without knowing what would happen or what I had to say to you.”
I reach for her hand and her shoulders raise as she inhales. A shivering inhale. “Please,” she cries, figuratively.
“And the biggest one of all… You had the choice to either stay or leave me, in which you chose the latter,” I say, brushing my fingers against her skin. Her fingers crawl in, leaving me no choice but to grasp my chance.
“And you had the choice when you packed your bags and left this town without turning back once to check if I was still there.” A faint breath escapes her mouth, and I assume she’s about to speak, so I cut in. “Because if you had, you would’ve noticed I wasn’t going anywhere. I was always ten feet behind you. Always.”
I finally close the gap between us and with my free hand, I lift her head to face me. The light in her eyes shimmers as tears pile up her lower eyelids.
This is the second time I see Isabella’s eyes watering to something I’ve said. The first time wasn’t so pleasant, so I’m hoping this one is positive.
My index finger hooks underneath her chin as I force her to look up at me. “You had a choice, Isabella.”
“Did you ask me out for this?” she says, her voice cracking.
“You called me, Isabella. You called.” I smile.
“I—” Her words continue to get stuck in her throat.
She pushes my hands away and takes a step back. “Yes, I called. And yes, we kissed last night. But it doesn’t mean anything, okay? I was drunk and you were?—”
“Completely sober and clear of my thoughts and actions,” I interject.
“Maybe not.”
“Bella,”
“Stop calling me Bella!” she yells. “You weren’t clear of your actions, okay? And I’m no longer you Bella, you said it yourself.”
“You’ve always been.” I approach her again.
“Stop!” She blocks me with her right palm against my chest. “Please stop. Last night was a mistake, you know it. Because if it wasn’t and you were sober, that’ll mean we’d be turning back the clock to a time that no longer exists. It will mean that?—”
“That I want you.”
She pauses, her lips still parted since I had cut her off amid speech. Her eyes glisten in a way my heart cramps at the sight of it. It’s like watching an iceberg melt at the touch of the sun.
“You don’t want me. You think you do, but you’re just stuck in the past. You still have this idea of what could’ve been, but we’ve lived it. Six years ago!”
“You don’t get to do that. Not again. You don’t get to dictate my feelings for you. Again . They’re mine. I feel them. They hurt me and made me happy the same. Why is that so hard for you to accept?”
“Because it’s not real. We were never real to begin with. You wanted to know if you were just a moment, huh? The answer is yes—you were. But you were my moment to reminisce whenever the clock hit midnight. It was mine to remember whenever a certain Shelby with a British accent was on my screen. You were my memory, Travis. A memory from a past I once wished to hold on to.”
“So why couldn’t you?” I ask, brushing off any hurtful words in her attempt to push me away. I might have failed before, but I don’t want to keep wondering what could’ve happened if I had held on to her. Today, I will.
She takes a deep breath, glaring at me. She turns on her feet in an attempt to walk away. I don’t allow it as I rush to block her off. Her body collides with my chest, and I brace myself by gripping her upper arms. “What the heck was stopping you, Bella?”
“I wanted you too!” she says with a shrill, high-pitched voice, mixed with frustration and defeat.
“You had me,” I say.
“No, I needed you, so badly. But the few times you were present weren’t enough to free me from the fear I had of the future ahead of us.”
“What are you talking about?” I let go of her arm.
“Maybe, I had you back then, but along the way, I knew I would lose you. Can’t you see? It was already written in our story. We were bound to this ending, Travis.” She becomes agitated, expressing every word with her hands.
They distract me and I grab them, stopping her fidgeting. “No,” I say.
“Travis, please.”
Isabella is unyielding, like a wall that won’t crumble even under the force of my efforts. I believed back then that I was trying enough to get her to let me in. I thought I was in, but every time I took a hit, she cemented another brick. That’s who she is and what she does best.
But me… I’m a fighter, strong, willful, and in need of the one woman who brings out the best in me. So, if I have to continue to break through her walls, then I will. But not before I get her to understand how worthy she is, in every aspect of my life and every corner of this earth. She’s more than who she’s dolled up in her. And she has to know that.
“I kissed you last night,” I push through.
“I know,”
“And you called.”
She lightly breathes out, dropping her shoulders. “I know that too.” She looks away, not giving me a second.
“If what you’re scared of is our future, fine, I’ll rewrite it. I’ll hold your hand as I write down the future we deserve. The one I know I want with you,” I say.
Her body shifts back toward me as she turns to face me. “A future with you lying in my arms as we watch that certain Shelby for the hundredth time. A brilliant future in which we’ll still get to the same destination no matter how different the roads we take. I don’t know what kind of future you believed in, but nowhere in life, was I ever going to be the one to let go of you.”
The next second, a line of tears stream down her right cheek. She’s stoic and still has a poker face on, but her feelings beat her to it. “I regret a lot of things in my life, but what I regret the most is walking out of that door, leaving you behind when you needed me the most. So, break my heart, Bella. You can shatter it into a trillion pieces as much as you want, and I’ll still stand in front of you as I am now.” I lock my hands with her, looking directly into those eyes.
This is my confession and promise to her. To the woman I love.
“Break it, and I’ll hold on tighter. I had once made the mistake of letting you go without a fight, but not today. Break my heart, Bella, for it is only yours.”
This time, both eyes well up with tears and they begin to turn red. These beautiful green eyes hold many secrets that I’m desperate to unravel.
She doesn’t say anything for a while and just stares. The next thing I know, she shuts her eyes, takes a deep breath, tightens her grip on my hands, reinforces her eyelids and streams continue to flow down her face.
“Isa—” My whisper of her name is cut short as her lips crash down on mine. Releasing her hands, she grabs my face and pushes into me.
In that moment, everything and I mean everything, comes washing back to me. Her scent, her laugh, her smile, her jokes, her hugs, and the taste of her lips. Everything feels like I was never deprived of them. Like an addict, I fall into it and wrap my hands around her waist, pulling her in. Our bodies glue to one another and it sends shivers down from my head to my toes. I’ve found my home.
After all those empty bottles pining me to the floor with nothing but the echoes of her laughter, holding her in my arms now feels like I can finally breathe again. We sit at the edge of the deck for a few minutes, maybe an hour, staring at the moon as it sets, her head on my shoulder.
I’ve never been happier than in this moment. I fiddle with her fingers on my lap, and I still wonder if I’m in a dream. There’s still much I have to figure out with her, but right now, I’m glad she chose this.
“What about your mom?” she speaks with a tinge of dread lingering in her voice.
“I just laid my heart before you, and you’re asking about my mother? What about her?”
“Nothing. Forget about it.” She shakes it off.
I shift, causing her to rise from my shoulder. “What about my mother, Isabella?”
“Nothing, seriously. I mean it.” Her eyebrows lift as she widens her pupils at me.
I reach out for my phone to call my mother. Pretend to call my mother.
She stares at the phone as I swipe to open my contacts. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asks.
“She’s the first person who came to your mind, so I’m calling her. Maybe, she’ll tell me why my girlfriend is thinking about her in a moment like this.” I insolently smile.
“Stop!” She reaches for the phone, bouncing up to attack me but I lift it over my head, distancing it from her. Her arms raise up, yearning for a touch of the solid rectangle with my mother’s caller ID on it.
“Are you going to tell me whatever you’re hiding?”
She drops back down and sits without an answer.
“I’m calling, then.” I press call and as soon as it starts ringing, I shove the phone in her face to show it to her.
“Fine, fine, fine. I’ll tell you,” she rushes to say, and I put the phone back in my pocket. “But promise me you won’t overreact or anything.”
“Can’t promise anything.”
“Please.”
Her eyes become this big ball of cuteness and I succumb to it.
“Okay, I’ll try. So, what is it? What about my mom?”
“I had promised myself to never tell you this but a big part of the reason I had ended things with you six years ago, was because of your mother.”
“Um… what?”
“She didn’t approve of us and I believe, was never going to.”
I stare at her, my mind all over the place. I don’t know if I’m getting what she’s saying, at all. None of it.
Her hands land on mine, cupping them in warmth, but it only puts fuel to the fire burning in me. Two and two start being put together and the more they do, the tighter her hand cups mine.
“It’s fine now, I’ve come to realize she might’ve been right, then . But things have changed. I’ve changed. Sure, I was pissed at her, but she was only being a mother,” she speaks, but I barely make her out. The sound of her voice is like a powerful breeze trying to wash me away, but I’m glued to the floor.
“It makes so much sense now. So much,” I mumble to myself.
“She was only being a mother, Travis. It was nothing serious.”
One second, I’m on the deck reassured everything is back in place and the next I find myself dragging Isabella along with me to my car.
“Mom!” I yell, slamming the door, gripping for dear life onto her fingers. “Mom!” I search for her.
The first turn leaves us nothing but an empty dining room with the chairs pulled in. The next one doesn’t make things easier as I see Simon seated on the couch, watching his favorite reality TV. I don’t know how I look right now, but it’s probably nothing good. My face is burning up and it feels like I might explode.
“Travis.” Simon rushes up, a high-pitched voice accompanying my name. His gaze shifts to who’s behind my right shoulder. “Isabella?” he calls in hesitation.
“Simon, where’s Mom?” I pass by him, still in search of my mother.
“She’s in the kitchen, why? What’s going on?”
“Stay here, Simon. We’ll be right back.” I sprint to the kitchen.
I take the lead and roughly so, Isabella tries to resist my pull. “Calm down, Travis,” she says, pushing my hand from hers with her other hand, but the more she does that, the tighter I hold on.
I need her with me.
We walk into the kitchen and there she stands, slowly turning back at us. “What’s with the yelling?” my mother asks.
I put us to a halt, and for the first time since Isabella told me what my mother did, I took a deep breath. Slowly and hurtfully, Isabella finds a way to slide her hands away from mine, making me look down. She shakes her head, communicating a thousand words I’m pretending to not hear.
I feel betrayed, useless, and stupid all at once. All these years when I thought I was present and knew everything about what was going on around me, I was wrong. Very wrong.
“How could you?” I murmur, looking back at my mother.
I clench my fists as this revelation settles like a rock in my gut. My mother had crossed a line I’d never thought she would. No matter how excessive and controlling I knew she was, this takes the cook. She was the one person who made me feel whole and have a purpose left.
“What?” Sheputs the towel in her hands on the counter.
“How could you do that to me? Your son, Mom. How could you?” I ask. My voice cracks with every step I take toward her, leaving Isabella a few steps behind me.
“If you don’t explain what’s going on, I wouldn’t know, honey.”
“You drove her away? Why? Why did you have to say all that to her?”
Her glare drives past me and she sees Isabella. “You told him?” she asks.
The sweet, cool demeanor she painted on herself a few seconds ago suddenly turns into something I haven’t seen since I brought my former friends to our home, back in London. It still shivers my bones whenever I think about the performance she had on that day. Her eyes were like spikes and with every second that was passing by while she was talking to them, those spikes began to feel like they were hovering on top of a balloon.
That was the first time I saw her for who she truly was. My mother . Who would’ve thought I’d be seeing that again?
“No, she didn’t. I forced it out of her, and she took her damn time telling me as well,” I answer in Isabella’s stead. “Six years, Mom. Six, and it’s just now she tells me how my mother belittled her in the house I came back to every day since we broke up.”
“Let’s calm down and talk, okay? Simon can hear you.”
“Let him. Actually, it would be a good thing for him to know what kind of a mother he has. The kind who uses her children to juggle. You.”
“Travis, don’t,” Isabella interrupts, but I keep my focus on who’s in front of me.
“Careful with what you say, honey,” my mother adds.
“Why did you tell her she wasn’t enough for me, Mom?”
“I—”
“There’s no one on this Earth better for me than her. No one.” My voice continues to shimmer. “I thought you knew that.”
“I did, but honey, you two were young and stupid.”
“Stupid?” I chuckle. “How were we stupid, huh?” I take a step forward. “Did I look stupid when I rushed downstairs, skipping two or three steps every time my phone rang, and I knew it was her? Did I look stupid when I stood in front of you in the kitchen the day you first met her and told you that I loved her? Was I stupid for falling in love with her?” I ask.
A dull pain churns within me as I gaze at her. Beyond the betrayal lies a deeper problem: the vulnerability. Isabella had to go through that alone and I can’t help but hold on to the thought of her being vulnerable in front of my mother. A mixture of anguish and fury overwhelms me, as I wrestle with the impossible reality that the person I held most dear is the one who ripped everything to pieces.
Knowing now that my mother was the hand holding the knife that slashed my chest only makes this unbearable. Her job was to protect me, to be happy for me whenever I was happy, and most of all, to give me a helping hand in catering for things dear to me. Maybe, she might have lost the contract for the job description, but I don’t think she forgot how to tell the truth when it mattered.
“You know that’s not what I mean.” She upholds.
“Then what do you mean, Mom? Why exactly did you think it was okay for you to—” I pause. “Wait!”
My mind travels back to seconds spent with the two, each moment playing out like a film, looking for the day when my mother’s venomous words began to poison the bond I thought was unbreakable.
Nothing comes up. Absolutely nothing, so I turn back to Isabella to ask. As I continue to rack my brain, the kitchen turns into a walk-in oven. “When did she say that to you?”
Her gaze falls as she presses his lips together, shaking her head slowly and hesitantly.
“When?” I ask again.
Isabella stands on her toes, her gaze fixed somewhere else, determined to stay silent. “The day you asked her to come check up on me,” my mother says.
I stumble, brushing my hair back with my right hand, eyes closed and with a whole lot of pent-up anger ready to burst into flames. “Oh, my God,” I whisper. “Is she why you broke up with me?” I ask Isabella.
A part of me wishes for her to not answer, but the other part deserves an answer. If she says yes, I don’t know how I can handle it. And if she says no, my world will crumble again as it will open another door of questions. Which would make me feel lost about who to blame.
I want Isabella back more than anything in the world but if all of this is true, it’ll only mean she had easily let go. She decided for me without my knowledge, thinking I couldn’t handle it. She was wrong. Between the two of us, she’s the one who couldn’t, which is unfortunate.
“No, Travis. No,” she answers, and I glare at her. “Partially, but we also had our problems. Our relationship was already crumbling through thin glass. It wasn’t all about your mother.”
“But she pushed it, didn’t she?”
“No.”
I sink under the weight of everything, my head drooping and pressing me into silence, until I feel her hand slip into mine—a familiar, desperate grasp, as though she were trying to hold me back from falling apart.
“Hey, look at me. It was happening one way or the other, with or without your mother. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about us, but I was scared and obviously immature. I shouldn’t have ended things without letting you know what went wrong,” she says to me, and only to me.
The tenderness of her touch calms me down, and I glide back into reality.
5. She’s selfless.
“See, son. I did you a favor,” my mother interrupts.
“Don’t even, Mom,” I stop her immediately. “To even think you decided to say that to her on the day I brought her to this house to check up on you, disgusts me. I love you; I do. But I can’t forgive you for this.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen that day or spoken to her about your relationship, but it had to be said. You two were walking on different paths and she wasn’t going to lead you anywhere.”
I hysterically laugh because somehow, the sharpness of her words is too painful for me to do anything but laugh.
“Really? Is that what you think?” I ask. “I’m sorry to break this to you but I wouldn’t be where I am if not for Isabella. Everything you see, from the top to the bottom, from my major to my job, everything is because of her. And I mean everything.”
“What are you talking about? She has nothing to do with your career… She’s been gone for years and look at you. You’re excelling in what you do, without her to bring you down.” She continues to dig the knife deeper.
“Mom, she’s the one that kept me afloat all those years. Well, it seems you never acknowledged my feelings for her so you couldn’t have seen it, but every piece that you’ve smiled at, felt proud of, and hung on the wall, had everything to do with her. Every time I picked up a brush, the memories of her kept flooding back to me and I released them through my paintings. The same painting you brag about to your colleagues at the hospital, the family back in London, and the people in town. They were all about her.”
“No.” My mother stumbles back and hit her hip on the edge of the sink. “I don’t believe you.” She shakes her head.
Her eyes dart to Isabella and anger washes over her face. “Did you tell him to say that?” she asks her.
“She doesn’t even know any of this, Mom. No one does.”
“Okay, sure, maybe the memories of her built your career, but it doesn’t mean she can walk back into your life.”
“She didn’t walk back in. I pulled her in.”
“What?”
“I need her in my life, Mom. I need her to save me again.” The words get caught up in my throat as tears begin to well up, threatening to pull me further down.
“Save you?” my mother asks.
“Yes, Trav, what do you mean by saving you?” And then, Isabella.
I never thought I’d be exposing myself today, but if it has to be said, I want her to be the first to hear it—with my mother listening at the back.
“A few months after we moved here, I first saw you in the hallway of school and was immediately attracted to you,” I begin and she lifts her eyebrows. “And the days after, I kept searching for you around school, hoping to catch a glance of your hair, of your face when you laugh or smile, and a hint of your scent. It became addictive, but most of all, it made me forget my struggles at home. I couldn’t bear the move because of how sudden it was and to add to it all, my mother became even more controlling. No offense, Mother.”
I briefly direct the last part to the latter and by the frown written on her face, I can tell she took offense.
“I didn’t know she could reach that level, but she did, and I couldn’t take it much longer, so the weekend before I first saw you, I was planning to run away back to London to my aunt, Belinda.” I pick up. “So yes, the anticipation of seeing you kept me going and surviving for a couple of months. Then the fair came, and God, was I lucky to be standing in front of you for the first time after months of gaping at a distance.”
“Seriously? You were watching me?” she asks, smirking.
“I was always watching you, Isabella, and though you couldn’t see me at first, you were with me. Through it all, you were there,” I say.
Which is why I need her.
“So, Mom, just so you know, the moment those words slipped your lips and reached her, you broke a piece of your son.”
“Travis, I—” Her words start to flow in, but I grab Isabella’s hand in a rush, muting her.
“Let’s go,” I whisper to Isabella.
This day could’ve been avoided a long time ago if only one of them had the will to trust me in handling this. I could’ve handled my mother’s doubts of the future I wanted the same as I could’ve handled Isabella’s doubts in us.
This wasn’t a battle… It was a fluke in time. One I wasn’t allowed an opinion in. But all is well now. I’ve taken the baton, so it’ll get better. Stronger, fruitful, tasteful, and mine. It’s my life. Mine.