Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Isaac
One week later…
My forehead rests against the cool surface, my fingers linger instead of turning.
It takes a minute to move. To turn the key and open the door.
The apartment is dark when I walk in, too dark for the time of day.
It’s not even late, and I don’t even bother turning on the lights as I trudge towards the bed, letting the shadows take me wherever they want.
They’ve taken everything else. What else can I lose?
I don’t spend much time dwelling on it, before I can sulk in misery.
My phone vibrates in my pocket for the third time in minutes.
Text after text. Call after fucking call. All of which I ignore and continue my plans for the rest of my day.
Sulking.
Marinating in what I call a season of pain and longing.
I know I’m doing the right thing, but I’m dying over here.
I waited so long… For so long, I wished to be in a timeline where I could love her.
Mmm, maybe that anime was right, ‘love is the greatest curse of them all.’ Exhaling harshly through my nose, I plop myself down on the edge of the mattress, my elbows resting on my knees as I stare at nothing.
The lights are on even though no one’s home.
Maybe I should go see a therapist like Agent Blake suggested.
What the fuck am I gonna say that’s not out in the news or tucked so far into my brain?
Why does doing the right thing feel so shitty?
Taking responsibility for the kid, in books, that's the right thing to do. Even though it cost me what I love the most. Letting her go so she can find herself again is also the right thing. I know in my heart that it is. It just fucking hurts. It all fucking hurts. My eyes remain fixed on the ground, and I allow my mind to empty. To think of nothing. I tuck away my emotions till I don’t feel anything at all. Just exist.
If you can even call it that.
There’s a sharp knock that rattles my door and startles me.
I don’t move. It’s not like it’s her. I can tell by the power behind the knock.
Plus, she’s done everything to avoid me, even going as far as staying with Alexa and only visiting Nixie and my stepmother when she knows I’m too busy to come around.
I wouldn’t, though. The one thing I refuse to do is impose myself when she asks me to let her go.
To set her free, and I’ll happily condemn myself to damnation if it gives her the space for her to heal.
Another knock interrupts my afternoon brooding session.
I still don’t fucking move. Whoever it is can go to hell, same as the rest of the world, because I’m not answering.
“OPEN THE FUCK UP!” Sledge shouts. Of course, it had to be him. Who else would care enough to come and check on me? Knock…. knock… knock. “I know you’re in there, man. I saw the Camaro pull up, asshole.”
I sigh through my nose before dragging myself up and walking over to open the door.
When I open it, he looks over at me once and shakes his head like he’s expecting the worst…
and I guess this might not be quite the worst, but it’s also not the best. I know that I look just like I feel.
Complete and utter shit, of course. But that's all I have. All I can give.
“Jesus Christ, man.” He brushes past me into my apartment,while I stand like a dickhead, still holding the door open. “You look like you died and your ghost didn’t get the fucking memo.”
I let out a breathy scoff as I shut the door, turning my attention to my best friend. “Not in the fucking mood, asshole.”
“Yeah?” he scoffs. “Take a number and fall in line. Neither am I. Why did I have to hear it from Alexa that you’re moping around like a lost puppy who lost its owner? That you might need me, and you won’t even talk to me.”
My jaw ticks. How the fuck would she know?
Anger quickly surfaces, only to be mellowed out by the fact that she knows well enough to know that I wouldn’t be okay right now.
Still, I can’t help the annoyance that rolls through me.
“Alexa should stay out of it. But I guess that has never been her forte.”
He sneers, his lips curling into something protective.
An emotion I know too well. A silent command to steer carefully, one that fades quickly into concern.
“And you need to stop pretending you’re okay.
You’re dying here.” He lets out a sigh as he drags his inked hand down his face.
“Wanna know what kills me?” I don’t. Not right now, at least, and he doesn’t get the memo, so he continues anyway.
“There are people willing to throw you a life jacket so you don’t drown.
” He lets out a breath. “And yet, you refuse it. Why?”
My best friend stands there, his arms crossed over his leather jacket, blonde waves perfectly placed in a low ponytail as he scans me and then the apartment.
It’s messy here, piles of takeout I can’t finish adorn the counters, dishes in the sink, and clothes scattered all over the fucking place.
It smells like gym, weed, and garbage, yet there’s not an ounce of disgust in his features, only sadness and concern.
Is this what depression looks like? For a moment, we don’t say anything, but his eyes burn into me like he’s trying to find the part I buried.
The part that still hurts the most. The part of me that I lost in that basement, and have been desperately trying to find.
I don’t say a fucking thing, but that doesn’t stop him from talking.
Forcing me to listen to the severity of my situation. “I heard that woman is pregnant.”
A bitter laugh escapes my lips as I walk over to the tray full of stubbed-out joints and pluck one from it. “You heard correctly, looks like I’ll be a daddy after all.”
I bring the roach to my lips and light it up, trying not to focus on the horror written in his icy stare. “I’m sorry, man.”
I laugh harder now, a cloud of smoke bursting from my lips as I choke.
Waving off a hand, when he inches closer, telling him to stop.
“Don’t be. I mean, hey, you’re gonna be an uncle.
” He flinches, and my chest cracks, but I don’t let it show.
Maybe I do, but I pretend that I don't. Sledge takes a step closer. “Iz, brother… talk to me...”
I shake my head once, stopping him again. I can’t cross that bridge right now. “There’s nothing to say.”
“Bullshit!”
My eyes shift to the floor, my lungs filling with the herby smoke.
Wishing it would just numb it all, wishing I could get so fucking high I could lose myself in the feel of it.
“What do you want me to say, Sledge? Everything is so fucked. Whatever future I thought I had… gone. Whatever family I thought I could have with Ronnie… gone.” I throw my hands in the air before punching my chest. “Gone before I even knew how to hold it.”
Silence spreads between us. Sledge doesn’t jump in, and he waits for me to continue. Waits for the words to leave me and rot in the air until I have no choice but to see them for what they are. My truth. My fucking reality.
“I’m having a baby with a woman who raped me,” I sigh, pinching the joint between my fingers while picturing Harry’s face, then squishing it between the pads of my index finger and thumb.
“I don’t know how to do this…” I rasp. “I don’t know how to be whole enough for anyone.
For her. For a kid I didn’t ask for, or even sure that I fucking want.
” Letting out an exhale. “I don’t know how to not fuck up everything I do. ”
Sledge’s expression softens. This time, he closes the distance. “Iz… you don’t have to.”
I lift my gaze to his, feeling the burn of the tears gathering. “But I do. It’s the right thing. I just don’t know how to not fuck it up.”
He sighs, realizing there’s no talking me out of the decision I’ve already made. I’ll be keeping the baby, raising it in my home. I just don’t know how to fucking do it. After a beat of silence, he opens his mouth to say, “No one knows. Not at first.”
It’s hard not to roll my eyes at his statement, because what the fuck does he know? What the fuck does anyone know? “She’s leaving.”
And by the look on his face, I gather he knows.
“I saw the letter, and I know in my heart that she’s leaving.”
“I know.”
“Figured you did,” I mutter before plopping onto the mattress.
I sigh. Not sure when I decided to pour my heart out to my best friend.
The bandage just ripped open, and the words just keep coming out of my mouth with an ease that’s terrifying.
“I should chase her. Fight for her. Beg if I have to. You know I want to. Fuckkkk do I want to.” My voice drops, and so does the small piece of the joint that remains.
“But all I keep thinking is… maybe letting her go is the only way I can love her right.”
For the first time since he walked in, Sledge looks shaken, lowering himself onto the mattress beside me.
“I wish I knew the right words to say right now, but I’m not good with them,” he says quietly.
“What you’re doing is honorable, brother.
You’re doing the right thing even though it’s the one that hurts the most.”
There’s a beat of silence before he clears his throat. “Alexa told me not to say anything, but we are a thing. I don’t know exactly what we are. I just don’t want to hide it from you.”
I blink at him, wondering what took him so long.
Alexa and I only became a thing because it was easy.
A routine of sorts. Sledge was always busy with women and making money.
Ronnie was doing her own thing. Blondie and I just kinda happened.
She liked me, and I couldn’t have what I wanted, so I gave in.
I hated being alone. “Took you long enough.”