|
There have been many nights like this, since we learned about our destiny. I feel restless a lot, and sometimes, it's just easier to stay awake. I don't have to dream, then. I used to spend a lot of time thinking about Liz, at least at first, wondering what could have been between us. But I have changed. I tried to keep something of what we had for a while, but when I touched her it felt like she could break under my fingers. She didn't understand what was happening. I didn't understand, either. After a while I think she started resenting it, resenting me, resenting the change, though she would never admit it. I stopped seeing her then. I didn't want to hurt her anymore. I couldn't be with Tess, though. She knew it, on some level, though she tried hard to get me to change my mind. I actually came to like her, after a while. She's smart and fearless and capable. But she's not who I want to be with, and no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't make it work in my head. Something has shifted inside me. I'm afraid, afraid that something isn't working right, at least, not the way it was apparently intended to work. And then I started dreaming again. I dreamed about a place I have never seen before, I think, though it was all very vague. There was someone there, a girl. She would beckon to me from the distance, and I would feel a strong urge to go to her, but I couldn't move, and I would wake up, feeling uneasy and wondering who she was, and why she felt familiar. I don't understand what's happening to me. Now I stay in my room a lot and try to hold it together. Michael and Isabel and Tess look to me to lead them, and I thought for a while that I didn't have any idea how to do that. But when I started making decisions, they seemed to come naturally. I have asked them to lay low for a while, though, and Michael doesn't like it. He's not one to lay low. And, though he and Isabel are supposed to be together, according to the destiny we were all given, it doesn't seem to be working out. I saw them fighting last night. Isabel's eyes were downcast, Michael was glaring at her in frustration. I think she has decided to reject her destiny, too. But that's not what Michael wants. I worry about what is going to happen with them. I worry about what Michael might do. It's late, but I can hear Isabel is still awake. It feels like I have been listening to her for a long time; she doesn't seem to sleep much, either. And then I hear her leave her room. I wonder where she is going. She had been so withdrawn lately, and won't tell me what's wrong. I've been worried about her. I felt her pull away from me, from all of us. She won't even look at me anymore, and I don't know why. Something tells me I should, though. Before I realize what I'm doing, I get up and follow, quietly slipping from my room and walking softly down the stairs. *** She hasn't gone far. I lean against the doorway and watch her as she stands outside on the porch, shivering in her thin pajamas. I feel the corners of my mouth twitch as I watch her. Isabel, tall and polished during the day, so perfect, but at night she wears baggy flannel, and she is tousled and vulnerable. I like the fact that I am the only one who knows her this way. But tonight she looks so forlorn. I suddenly just want to walk up behind her and keep her warm. I just want to feel her smile at me again. I watch her sigh, shiver again and hold herself, flannel pulling tight across her hips, and for some reason, my breath catches in my throat. I feel tears stinging in my eyes, threatening to fill them. I say her name softly and for a moment she doesn't react, but then she turns, and doesn't look at me, but walks straight into my arms. It's as though she knew I was there. I hold her, and it feels so good, like the way it used to be, before all this happened. I realize how much I have missed her. But she is crying on my shoulder and her sobs are so broken and sad my heart ached for her, and I don't know what to do to help her. I stroke her hair and murmur soothingly, trying to give her what she needs, but I don't know what that is. It has been so long since she has even looked at me, let alone reached out to me like this, that suddenly I'm crying too. I can't remember the last time I cried. Not since I was a child. It feels strange. But suddenly something is happening, and I don't understand it. There is a heat rising in my body, I can feel it flush under my bare skin. I stiffen, and Isabel feels me react and pulls back to look at me, and I am caught by the stricken look in her eyes. I expect to see a question there, but it's as though she knows exactly what is going on, and suddenly I feel myself pulled into her eyes, into her. Faintly above the sudden roar in my ears I hear her gasp, I hear her say something, and then her mouth is on mine and I see something, inside her. And then everything disappears. But for an instant I saw me. Inside her. And when I can see again, I am inside her, panting above her, and our bodies are slick with sweat, and I am reaching down between us and touching her the way I know somehow only I can touch her and I watch her gasp, I feel her shiver, I hear her moan. I am inside her and it feels so good. It feels so good. I'm so sorry, I whisper, as I touch her and she comes, her body convulsing underneath mine. I watch her face as our bodies move together, and then I close my eyes and slide down her body and touch her again, and then later, she touches me, and I surrender to it willingly, unresisting, gasping into her mouth and losing myself inside her. *** It happened in an instant, and I should have seen it coming. I should have seen it. I don't know what will happen now. I awakened, enveloped in the warm, musky scent of us, of what we had done, my cheek resting on the soft inside of her thigh, my body curled around her hips. Her limp form was sprawled wantonly across her bed, her arm flung over the edge, her face turned toward me. I wondered if the last sight she had was of me, sleeping between her thighs. Her other leg was thrown over my hips. I tried to extricate myself without waking her, but her eyes opened as I slid away from her and she looked at me. She looked at me, and I saw the truth in her, more naked that her body lying before me, and suddenly I couldn't meet her gaze. Her eyes were pleading with me but I didn't know what she wanted and I guess I didn't want to know. I backed away slowly, trying to say something, anything, and then I turned and ran. Oh god, Isabel, I'm so sorry I ran. I'm so sorry I didn't want to know. I came back inside after retching on the lawn, the gray dawn creeping across my shoulders, the grass cold and wet under my hands, and I heard her in the shower. I stood silently in the hall and imagined her scrubbing me away, and then I went to my room and crept into my bed and cried. I listened to her under the hot water, until long after I knew there was no hot water left. I listened and cried. *** It just gets worse. I stand in her doorway and I watch her. I know she's not asleep, I can feel her fear, and it's the only thing that keeps me at bay. I feel her fear and I want to die inside, every night. She's afraid of me, and of herself, of what we have become. But I also feel her heat, and that is what brings me here to her doorway, to her bed. I know she feels mine, too. Sometimes I get close enough to touch her, and run my hands along her body, just above her skin, and feel the warmth beckoning me. And it just gets worse. Tonight I can't turn away and I wait for her to move, I wait for a sign. With a choked sob she finally gives it to me, and I walk over to her bed and move over her and lose myself in her for a while. We are mostly silent now, just wordless whispers and stifled cries. Sometimes I whimper as I sink into her. Sometimes she cries when I leave. But other nights I can resist. I turn away from her doorway and go back to my room, and there I pace back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until I realize I have stopped, my hands resting on the wall that divides us, feeling the cool paint under my fingertips, wishing I were touching her. It feels better to punch the wall sometimes and bleed for a while than stay still. And sometimes it feels better to do other things. Sometimes then I can get to sleep afterwards. And dream about her, standing far away, beckoning to me. *** I don't know what to do about Michael and Tess. They can't know about this. They won't understand. But I can feel Michael's eyes on Isabel, and I know he still wants her. I can feel his eyes on me sometimes, suspicious and resentful. Now, we argue more and more over the decisions I make, and he seems increasingly dissatisfied with my answers. He watches me more and more. I can't look back at him most of the time; I'm afraid he will see the truth in my eyes. But sometimes I catch his gaze and see bewilderment there, and fear, and I wonder what has happened to both of us. But he never says a word, and when he sees me looking, he turns away. I guess we have been circling around each other for a while. *** We are all in the Crashdown and the tension is thick and shimmering between us. I slide in next to Isabel and I can feel her staring at me, but I can't look at her face. I don't sense her sudden fear as I inadvertently trap her in the booth. But as my thigh brushes hers she gasps, and my head snaps up, and I realize that we are all looking at her and the panic in her eyes is shocking, unmistakable, an announcement to the world. And then it's like the lens narrows until it is just the four of us sitting there, staring at each other, not breathing. Tess gets it first. She looks at Isabel, and then at me, and then she quietly slides from the booth. I can see her steps wavering as she heads for the door, but my attention is focused on Michael. I sit frozen, barely breathing, and watch his eyes widen, and then narrow, and then his nostrils flare, like he can smell us. I start as Isabel makes a small sound in her throat, staring at Michael out of her shadowed eyes, slowly shaking her head back and forth. I suddenly realized she is terrified of both of us and a flood of shame overwhelms me. I drop my eyes and stand up and back away from her to give her room to walk past. She stands up, uncertain, swaying, and then she looks at me. I see her anguish and fear and I know it mirrors my own. Suddenly it's as though no one else is there, only the two of us, and I try to tell her without words that I don't mean to scare her, that I won't let anything hurt her. I try to tell her how sorry I am. But despite the fear I see in her eyes, my body aches to touch her, and I feel the heat rise again between us, watch it flush under her skin, see her eyes darken and change. She looks at me, and then she looks at Michael, and then she whirls and runs. Michael makes a noise deep in his throat and stands quickly, as though to follow her, and before I realize what I am doing I stand in his way, quietly. But all of my energy, fierce and dominant, is focused on him, a threat hanging silent between us. He stares at me and suddenly there is an anguished tangle of fear and anger and bewilderment in his eyes. He falters, looks at me again, and says the words that have been haunting me for months. What is happening to us, Max? And I have no answer. And then all I can hear is my breathing and my heart, the blood pounding in my ears, as we circle around each other in the empty restaurant, staking out the territory between us. END |