Mud Vein

“Hello,” I say.

We stand looking at each other for a minute, before I break the silence. I wasn’t expecting to see her. It was stupid. An oversight. I didn’t come here to make her uncomfortable.

“I came to see—”

“I’ll get him for you,” she says, quickly. I am surprised. I watch as she turns on her heel and trots down the hallway. Maybe he didn’t tell her everything.

He won’t speak to the news stations either. My agent called me days after I got back, wanting to know if I could write a book detailing what happened to me—to us. The truth is I don’t know that I’ll ever write another book. And I’ll never tell about what happened in that house. It’s all mine.

When I see him I hurt. He looks great. Not the skeleton man I kissed goodbye. But there are more lines around his eyes. I hope I put a few there.

“Hello, Senna,” he says.

I want to cry and laugh.

“Hi.”

He motions for his office door. He has to open it with a key. Isaac steps inside first and turns on the light. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder before walking in to see if Daphne is lurking anywhere. Thankfully, she’s not. I can’t bear her burdens on top of the ones I’m already carrying.

We sit. It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not entirely tea and cookies either. Isaac sits behind his desk, but after a minute he comes and sits in the chair next to me.

“You’re back to work,” I say. “Couldn’t stay away.”

“I tried.” He shakes his head. “I went to Hawaii and saw a shrink.”

I sort of laugh at that one. “Brave.”

“I know,” he smiles. “The entire session was me trying not to tell her things that could get me kidnapped.”

We get serious.

“How are you?” he asks cautiously. I appreciate the way he’s tiptoeing around my feelings, but we are a little too crushed for such gentle sentiments. For the first time, I answer him.

“Shitty.”

The corner of his mouth turns up. Just one corner. It’s his trademark.

“That’s better than being closed off, I guess,” he says.

I feel emotion rush me—the intimacy, the awkwardness. I want to revolt against it, but I don’t. It takes an awful toll on a person to fight down everything they’re feeling. Elgin tried to tell me that once. The bitch.

“I heard about your prognosis…”

“I’m okay with it,” I say quickly. “It just … is.”

He looks like he has a million things to say, and he can’t.

“I wanted to come see you, Senna. I just didn’t know how.”

“You didn’t know how to come see me?” I ask, partially amused.

He looks at my eyes, in them. So sadly.

“It’s okay,” I say, slowly. “I get it.”

“What do we do now?” he asks. I don’t know if he’s asking how we are supposed to live, or how we are supposed to finish this conversation. I don’t ever know what to do.

“We live then we leave,” I say. “Do the best we can.”

He runs his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. It puffs out and settles back down. It reminds me of when you’re baking a cake and you open the oven too early. I toy with the jagged edges of my hair, glancing up at him every so often.

“Are things good? With you and Daphne?” I have no right to ask him, none at all. Especially considering that everything Elgin did was because of me.

“No,” he says. “How can they be?” He shakes his head. “She has been supportive. I can’t complain there, but it was like they gave me a month and then they wanted the old me back. They being my family,” he tells me. “But I don’t know how to be him. I’m different.”

Isaac was always so honest with his emotions. I wish I could be like that. I feel as if I need to say something.

“I don’t have anyone to disappoint,” I confess. “I don’t know if that makes it easier or harder.”

He looks startled. His black scrubs wrinkle as he leans toward me. “You’re loved,” he says.

Love is a possession; it’s something that you own from the layers of people in your life. But if my life were a cake it would be un-layered, unbaked, missing ingredients. I isolated myself too soundly to own anyone’s love.

“I love you,” says Isaac. “From the moment you ran out of the woods, I’ve loved you.”

I don’t believe him. He’s a nurturer by profession and by person. He saw something broken and needed to heal it. He loves the process.

As if reading my thoughts he says, “You have to believe someone sometime, Senna. When they tell you that. Otherwise you’ll never know what it feels like to be loved. And that’s a sad thing.”

“How do you know?” I ask, brimming with anger. “It’s a big deal to say those words. How do you know that you love me?”

He pauses for a long time. Then he says, “I was offered a way out.”

“A way out? A way out of what?” But I spit that out too soon. It’s like a stone that drops between us. I wait for the thud, but it never comes because my brain loses its footing and the room tips and turns.

“What do you mean?”

“On the morning after we opened the door, I found a note in the shed with sleeping pills and a syringe. It said that I could leave. All I had to do was put you to sleep, inject myself, and I would wake up at home. The stipulations were that I could never talk about you. Not to police, not to anyone. I had to tell them that I had an emotional breakdown and ran away. If I told anyone about you, she said she would kill you. If I left you there, I could go home. I threw them over the side of the cliff.”

“Oh my God.”

I stand but my legs can’t hold me. I sit again, burying my face in my hands. Saphira, what have you done?

When I look up, my soul is in my face, twisting my features. It’s angry and sad.

“Isaac. Why would you do that?” My voice cracks. I know why Saphira did it. She knew he wouldn’t leave me. She knew eventually he would tell me, and that in telling me, I would see everything clearly. I would see…

“Because I love you.”

My face goes slack.

“I didn’t leave you because I couldn’t. I’ve never been able to.” There is a pause and then, “Not unless you make me go. And if I’d known you better back then, I wouldn’t have left you. I thought it was what you needed. But you didn’t know yourself. I knew you. You needed me, and I let you push me out. And for that I’m very sorry.”