by K. Ryan
That didn't make me a criminal even though I knew she wouldn't hesitate to use that as an excuse to smother me a little more. Sure, she was worried. I got that. I wanted to move on and forget just as much as anybody, but that didn't make it any less complicated. This crash-course in heartbreak really drove that point home.
Forgetting, moving on, and living was a hell of a lot easier said than done.
Suddenly, my mom was wrapping me up in a warm embrace and it took all my remaining willpower not to struggle right out of it.
"I just can't stand seeing you like this...looking like you haven't really eaten or showered in a week," she whispered into my ear. "I love you and all I want is to see you come out of the other side of this."
"I will, Ma. I will."
I didn't know who I was trying to convince more.
"I know, baby," she smiled, touching a hand to my cheek. "Why don't you head outside for a few minutes? You know, have a smoke or something, clear your head. The shop is pretty slow right now anyways and I think everyone else can handle it without you a little longer."
I nodded and forced a weak smirk on my face. Even if I didn't believe all the bullshit I'd just spat left and right, it was absolutely necessary that my mother did because she'd never leave me alone if she didn't.
She pushed me gently towards the door and I had to admit, taking a breather was a welcome distraction. The sudden ambush the second I stepped foot in the office wasn't really that big of a surprise. It was in her nature to meddle, but I liked to believe I was doing at least an okay job of hiding everything rattling my brain right now.
Guess I needed to work on that.
. . .
The warm North Carolina sun enveloped my face and now I could finally take a breath. If my dorm felt smaller, the office was like a closet. My feet padded out towards the usual picnic table only to find it already occupied.
A light smile curved my lips as I took in Isabelle, who was facing me but too busy hunched over the table to notice, and what was she...was she writing in a notebook or something? Curiosity getting the better of me, I edged closer to the table until I could see that she wasn't writing, but drawing in the notebook.
Huh.
This was new.
As I shuffled over to the bench, Isabelle looked up sharply, snapped the notebook shut and shoved into her purse.
"How's it goin', Isabelle?" I called over to her. "Alright if I sit?"
This seemed to be our routine lately. One of us would get there first and then the other would ask if it was okay to sit down. At this point, we both had to know it was perfectly acceptable to share a table, but courtesy was pretty much the only thing keeping the formality going.
Isabelle stretched her arms out wide and leaned back into the empty space behind her. "Free country, Caleb."
I chuckled softly and plopped down across from her, jutting my chin out towards her purse. "What were you doin' over there? Anything you wanna show me?"
When her expression shifted from mere confusion to wide with awareness and then flushed with embarrassment, a sly grin slipped across my face. It felt so good to just feel something again. The emotion didn't quite have a name, but it was there and I guessed that was all that mattered.
"Um, no."
If I didn't know any better, I thought I detected a little playfulness underneath that prissy exterior.
I held my hands out in defense, the smile still lingering on my lips. "Don't you worry. I'd never try to steal that notebook you were drawin' in or anything."
"Shut up, you jerk. And I'm not drawing. I'm sketching. Drawing is for two-year-olds. If you're gonna make fun of me, at least make sure you know what you're talking about."
My eyebrows shot up in amusement and I liked this little game we were playing. This time, the sarcasm and good-natured grin on her face was unmistakable. Seeing her doing something in a notebook, let alone sketching, was a fascinating little kernel of intel and this might be the only opportunity I would ever get.
"Sorry, okay? Thanks for the vocabulary lesson. Jesus," I laughed, holding my hands up one last time. "So, maybe you could show me just one sketch?"
Her blue eyes sparked and I hoped it was because I'd gotten the terminology right this time. A moment later, she shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Why do you want to see my sketches so bad?"
"I don't know," I admitted. At this point, I was really itching for a cigarette, but I'd learned my lesson about smoking around her the hard way. "Just curious is all. I didn't mean to pry or anything."
She shifted anxiously in her seat, like she was waging some sort of mental battle with herself and again, I found myself grinning as a knee-jerk reaction. The truth was, ever since she'd spilled out all the dirty details surrounding her current residence in Claremont, I'd looked at her a little differently.
In fact, Isabelle had become about twenty times more interesting and a thousand times more complicated all at once. Half the time, I sat across from her at our picnic table just wondering what she was going to say next. And when she'd sat right where she was now, brimming with tears, and still finding the strength to say the words that must've felt like a sucker punch to the gut, I'd felt a spike of something vaguely familiar.
I'd had the sudden urge to call her Iz then too, but not because I wanted to piss her off.
That had been the start.
On the other hand, I couldn't help but wonder why she'd chosen me of all people. There was no doubt in my mind she'd never told that story like that for anyone else before and I just couldn't wrap my head around it. I just couldn't imagine a situation right now that would ever put me in a position to be a friend to anyone, let alone a good one.
But she'd still chosen me. Even if the only reason was because I was there and she was finally ready to talk, the conversation brought me another millimeter closer to feeling like a human being again.
Some soft ruffling in front of me yanked me out of my reverie and my eyes widened when I realized Isabelle was sliding the notebook across the picnic table.
Before I could say anything or protest her decision, she quickly shook her head, like she could read my mind.
"Just don't look at the pages in the front. That's, um, that's private," she flipped open the notebook and pointed down at a page. "Start here, okay?"
I nodded, groping aimlessly for the protocol in a situation like this and came up empty. This wasn't exactly the first time I'd been in this position with her, but this felt different. She wasn't trying to fill an empty silence—she was just...I didn't know what this was. So I just swallowed tightly and slid the notebook closer, peering down at the page.
Delicate black lines outlining an image of her Trans Am stared up at me. At first, the subject itself caught me off guard but then, as my eyes studied each stroke of her pencil, each curve and shape of shading—it was like I was seeing the same car she drove to work in everyday for the first time. It was somehow more beautiful, more captivating on paper than it was in person and the fact that it had come from her, from her pencil and her creativity made me feel like she'd just shared something with me that most people, if any, didn't get to see.
That's what this was. That's what she was doing. The problem was I just didn't know what I could give back, what I had to offer in return.
"Wow," I exhaled, turning the notebook a little to see it from a different angle. "This is...I don't even know what to say here, Isabelle. This is so amazing."
"Thanks," she murmured softly with a hint of anxiousness.
"You know, I've been meaning to ask you," my eyes didn't leave the page as I spoke.
"Where did you get that little beauty anyways?"
"It was my mom's."
My eyes jumped back up to her in apology and she laughed nervously.
"Well, technically, it was my grandpa's, who gave it to my mom, who left it to me."
That made sense. And that definitely explained her dedication in committing the image to paper. Nothing I could come up with seeme
d good enough—there really wasn't a response that matched everything she'd just shared with me. So instead, I just nodded and hoped that was enough.
It probably wasn't enough.
A soft smile played across Isabelle's lips and she gestured back to the notebook. "You can turn the page. It's really okay."
I took the direction and flipped the page. And then another and another. Each new page pushed me deeper into awestruck fascination. There was a couple embracing in the shop's parking lot, a pair of wrinkled hands, a figure standing off into the shadows, a mother walking hand-in-hand with her child, a twinkling Christmas tree, a wave-filled beach, the inside of my mom's immaculate office, and a pair of intertwined hands.
Snapshots of life captured perfectly on the page.
I wished I could step inside one of those pages so I could remember what that felt like.
"Wow, Isabelle," I murmured, finally drawing my eyes back to her. "These are just...you're an amazing artist, you know that, right?"
"Oh no," she laughed lightly. "I wouldn't exactly say that."
"I would."
"Okay, well," she laughed again. "If you say so."
I nodded firmly before carefully closing the notebook and sliding it back across the table. She swept it off the top and promptly shoved it back into her purse. We sat there in complete silence for a few moments, her playing nervously with her cell phone and me staring a hole into the table.
The problem was that there just wasn't anything I could really say that would accurately explain what I was feeling. The fact that I was feeling at all was enough to completely destroy this carefully constructed mask of indifference I pulled on lately whenever people were around. That mask wouldn't help me now because I had a feeling she could see right through it.
So I just blurted out the first stupid thing that popped into my head.
"So you comin' to the clubhouse tonight?"
Isabelle hid her surprise pretty well, her eyebrows just jumping up into her forehead. "What?"
"Well, you've been comin' the last few times with Becca, right?" I recovered quickly, wanting to smack myself in the face even as I spoke. "I just figured you'd be comin' tonight too."
I wasn't even sure why this was worth bringing up in the first place. In fact, I could only vaguely remember seeing her at the clubhouse over the past few weeks. Those nights, when I got completely, numbingly shit-faced, were hazy at best.
"I don't know," she replied quickly, her brow still furrowed into a confused frown. "I'm not really sure what I'm doing tonight."
"Okay," I nodded.
Even after she waved goodbye and headed back into the office, I was still shaking my head. Of all the things I could've said to her after she once again shared something so incredibly personal, asking her if she was going to another debauchery-filled night at the clubhouse probably should've been on the bottom of that list.
That was not an appropriate response to this situation. And now I'd heard my mother's voice in my head, which was bad for me on pretty much every level.
Well, maybe there was one good thing about sitting alone at the picnic table.
At least now I could finally have a cigarette.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Karma
Isabelle
Despite my better judgment, I found myself dutifully following Becca inside the smoky, alcohol-drenched clubhouse. Not like I was really in the mood for yet another round of depraved revelry, but it was getting more and more difficult to come up with arguments.
It was, however, getting a little bit easier to dress for the environment. A few trips to the clubhouse and my inner party-girl was slowly crawling her way out. High heels were a little bit easier to throw on and I didn't mind showing a little bit more cleavage than I would just about anywhere else.
The jury was still out on whether or not that was a good thing.
In general¸ though, the inside of the clubhouse was getting easier to manage. My senses were no longer immediately assaulted and I didn't exactly feel the need to cover my ears anymore at the attack of crashing heavy-metal music. Not that I was running out to download an entire library of Metallica or Black Sabbath on my iPod, but it was becoming tolerable, to say the least.
As we rounded the corner to sidle up to the bar, we came face to face with a club member planted face first under the skirt of some random girl. While I wasn't quite sure on his name—Casey, maybe...it was difficult to keep track sometimes with all the comings and goings around here, my stomach churned at the display right next to me.
I didn't want to see that, especially not on a regular basis. Okay, so maybe I wasn't acclimating as well as I wanted to, but seriously, the average person does not see all this everyday and honestly? The average person really shouldn't have to, but then again, average wasn't exactly a word thrown around the clubhouse, or even the shop, very often.
Still, it was difficult not to stare. The girl looked like she was having the time of her life—never mind that the entire clubhouse was around to witness it.
Becca nudged me in the side with a sly grin. "Party's started without us, huh? Just pretend like they're not there. Let's get a drink."
Once I had a drink in hand and a little bit of necessary liquid courage, my body started to feel less rigid and more relaxed. I was even bobbing my head a little to the music. Somewhere along the way, Becca cozied herself up to Eli and I was the third wheel—again.
That was my cue to leave them alone because they were bound to end up in a dark hallway sometime tonight and Becca would've long forgotten about me by then anyways. Not that I could really blame her though; Eli was hot and being part of an MC gave him a dangerous edge I think Becca had always secretly craved.
A few more nights like this and I might find myself in a dark hallway somewhere, too.
Who was I kidding?
I didn't have the balls, figuratively, of course, to be that brazen, that uninhibited, that spontaneous and impulsive. The fact that I worked with these people was always bubbling up to the surface of my mind.
Never crap where you eat. That was a pretty big argument against doing anything remotely humiliating, let alone potentially self-destructive, at my workplace.
So when Becca predictably disappeared, casting me a quick apologetic glance as Eli pulled her away, I had to stand there, like an idiot without a cause, until my savior came sauntering through with her growing baby bump leading the way. I was almost immediately drawn into a tight embrace and now, maybe I'd finally found an ally in the midst of all this chaos.
"Hey, Isabelle!" Lexie had to practically shout to be heard over the ear-splitting beat of the song screaming from the sound system. "I'm so glad you're here. For some reason, this place is particularly annoying tonight."
"Must be the music," I replied just as loudly and pointed up in the air.
"You're right. That's gotta be it," she laughed over the music and took a quick sip from her water bottle. "It's really goddamn stuffy in here."
"Where's Dom?" I asked. He was around here somewhere; of all the times I'd been to the clubhouse, Dominic and Lexie were never too far apart from each other.
Lexie shrugged and glanced around a few times before her eyes lit up, signaling she had found what she was looking for. "He's just playing some pool over there."
There was something about the way Dominic and Lexie looked at each other, like each was the axis the other's entire world spun around, that made me a little jealous. It was the kind of unconditional, all-encompassing love that inspired poets like Keats and my personal favorite, ee cummings. It wasn't something you came across everyday, not even in passing.
On occasion, Nick had looked at me like his world would crumble without me in it, but there was nothing either of us could do to force me to feel the same way. Seeing the real thing in such close proximity just ignited a long-dormant yearning for that kind of mutual commitment and devotion.
"You don't mind just kinda hanging out here by yourself?" I asked her now.<
br />
When Lexie just shrugged again, I figured I hadn't hit on a sore subject.
"Nah, it's fine. I honestly don't mind it all that much anymore. I guess I'm just sort of used to it by now. If Dom and I were just starting out, then maybe it would be a different story," she gestured towards the bar, where two scantily-clad girls were currently grinding together on top of it. "I guess nothing really shocks me anymore. Once you've been here a few times, you've seen it all, you know?"
"Yeah," I nodded. "I guess I can see how you'd feel that way."
"It just comes with the territory," Lexie continued, waving her hand in the air dismissively. "It does help to have someone to hang out with, especially when you're new to all this."
Just when I was about to open my mouth to ask who Lexie had had with her when she was new to the clubhouse, I snapped it shut. The answer was obvious. Ariel. Of course it was Ariel. But speaking that name around here right now seemed like a pretty ill-advised idea.
As if on cue, a familiar blonde head weaved its way in and out of the crowd and suddenly, I felt like an even bigger idiot for being there. I didn't know what his motive was for asking me if I was going to be here tonight, but giving him such a tentative 'I don't know' was awkward.
I didn't want him to think I'd shown up because I'd misinterpreted our conversation earlier today at our picnic table. But, on second thought, what were the odds he was really thinking about anything right now, let alone even realized I was standing on the other side of the clubhouse? His attention was currently preoccupied by the redhead and brunette flanking both sides of him, so I guess the answer was in the question.
Lexie's heavy sigh next to me jerked me from that thought. When I turned back to face her, Lexie's entire demeanor had completely changed on a dime. Gone was the relaxed, perpetually good-natured, and suspiciously cheerful pregnant woman and in her place was a troubled, almost disturbed, sad one instead.
That reaction was probably about right.
Lexie and Caleb had known each other for years. She was getting married to his best friend and I'd had heard, through Skyler, that Dominic and Lexie already asked Caleb to be the godfather of their unborn child. Lexie had every right and every cause to be more than concerned for the guy currently hooking an arm over not one but two different women she'd never seen before.
