Is that what she means by revenge? Is that what she will do to make me pay for breaking her heart?
When I get back inside, the rain intensifies and Isabelle is trying to dry the clothes that she was wearing earlier in the day.
It has been hours since we met on that bench but hanging all the time in the bathroom has not depleted much of the dampness.
“How are you?” I ask, standing in the doorway. “How’s your back?”
“I'm fine,” she says, but by the tone of her voice, I can tell that this is not exactly a scene that she wanted to be involved in.
I try to put my hand around her waist, but she pushes me away.
“Why didn't you tell me that you have a girlfriend?”
“Because it's not true,” I say. “I caught her cheating on me. I saw the messages a few days ago. We broke up that night.”
“She doesn't seem to think so.”
“I'm telling you the truth Isabelle. I told her that it was over.”
She shakes her head and tries to squeeze some more of the water out of her shirt.
“I just wonder what you would have said if she hadn’t cheated on you. Would you tell me then?”
“Yes,” I say quickly. It's not a lie or even an exaggeration.
“I'm not so sure,” she says with a shrug.
“I know that you don't want to believe me, but I would never do that to you or to her. I'm an honest person.”
She turns her head toward me.
“Really?” she asked skeptically.
“Okay, aside from this whole identity situation, I'm an honest person. I would never lie about having a girlfriend if I still had one. No matter how much I might have wanted you.”
She shakes her head and continues to face the mirror. I see her hair fall in her face and the tiredness around her eyes.
“I guess this will have to do,” she says, pulling at her clothes.
They are nowhere near dry, but I don't have a dryer nor even a hairdryer here. “This is going to be fine. It's raining anyway. I'm bound to get wet again.”
“You’re not staying?” I ask.
She shakes her head, but I can tell that she is hesitating.
“Don't leave,” I say, walking over and wrapping my arm around her waist.
She starts to protest but I hold her tighter and after a moment she lets go.
When I spin her around to face me, I can tell that there are tears in her eyes.
“You are crying. Why?”
“I don't know,” she says, wiping a tear. “This whole thing has just been very overwhelming.”
“Why don’t we relax? Let's order some food and just hang out.”
I watch her consider the proposal and I hope that she says yes.
After a long pause, she finally nods.
She walks back into the main cabin and climbs behind the dining room table. She pulls her knees up to her chest and grabs her bag, pulling out her phone.
“What do you want?” I ask.
She shakes her head and says, “I don't want to make any decisions right now. I just want to space out for a little bit. Can you just decide for me?”
I nod, understanding.
She has been through a lot.
She just got on the plane last night and now she's here in my arms and in my home.
After I order some Thai food, I take a seat on the couch across from her and close my eyes. I enjoy the silence with her in the same room. It's relaxing and utterly peaceful.
Suddenly, I don't have the need to talk to fill the air with pleasantries. I regret the fact that I never told her about Rachel, but the truth was that there was no time.
I was angry at her. We got into a fight. Then we kissed and did everything else that happened afterward, then we slept and did it all over again.
Perhaps I should've told her more about myself, but it didn't feel right. Actually, I don’t think about Rachel at all. I broke up with her that night and we were done. I thought that she was on board for that. In fact, I thought that she was relieved. At least now she can go be with her ex-boyfriend again.
I guess not, though. Rachel can do a lot of damage to me simply by lying. She knows the truth about this place and she knows that I never tricked Mr. Elliott into selling it to me, but that doesn't mean that she wouldn’t testify against me if she were angry enough.
I wonder if I should try to see her again to try to smooth things over or would that just make it worse?
When the food arrives, Isabelle and I eat together, devouring it and not saying much. After both of our bellies are full and we feel satiated, she finally looks up at me and says that she believes me.
“I hope that this is not a mistake,” she says. “I hope that you’re not just misleading me about what happened between you two.”
“I'm not. I would never do that. I have never cheated on anyone and I will never cheat on anyone. That's the coward's way out.”
“So, if you ever not want to be with me, you'll tell me?”
“Yes, I'll tell you everything. I promise.”
We talk a lot over the next few hours. I asked her what she has been up to and about her work.
She tells me about getting fired and starting her own business teaching little kids how to talk. Her whole face lights up when she talks about them and I know how much she enjoys her work.
“This little boy, Loki,” she says, “he finally managed to round his lips like this and make an O sound last week. I was so happy.”
“How did you actually do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how can you make him make that sound if his mom can't?”
“I don't know. It works better with a stranger, to some degree, but I also know how to manipulate his toys. He likes trucks so I hold one that he wants and he has to ask me for it. Then he has to make some sounds. I praise him afterward, but that's how we make progress. A little bit at each session goes a long way. He's making incredible progress.”
“I'm really proud of you,” I say, sitting back at the dining room table.
“You are? Why?”
“I'm just proud of the fact that you picked yourself up like that and started your own practice.”
“It wasn't exactly easy,” she says, tossing her hair from one shoulder to another.
“Nothing worth doing really is.”
She raises one eyebrow, looks at me, and says, “You know, people say that, but I'm not sure that's exactly true.”
“You don't think so?” I ask.
“Nope,” she shakes her head. “There are lots of things that’re fun to do and that's what makes it worth doing. It doesn't have to be hard.”
I tilt my head to one side and prop it up with my hand. A smile forms at the corner of my lips.
“Okay, you got me there. Are we playing semantics here?”
“I just think that it's good to be precise, especially when making blanket statements.”
I laugh.
“You get it, right? Being precise with blanket statements, not exactly possible.”
“Yes, I get it,” I say, nodding my head with great exaggeration.
“I like talking to you,” she says after a long pause. “It's so easy and comfortable.”