“No,” I said, coming close to admitting what had pushed me and Isaac together, but that would bring Trent’s obnoxious behavior front and center right at a crucial time for the Voting Rights Act. “No, I couldn’t be with anything but a good man.” I paused, turning to face my brother and he glanced at me, his face relaxing when I smiled. “He… he makes me feel safe, Ryan. He makes me, just so damn happy.”
I didn’t have the words to explain to my brother the thousand small things that Isaac did that made me laugh, made me think. I only knew that our conversations went on for hours, even before he first kissed me. I only knew that he asked me what I thought about issues and actually listened to my answers, that he would tell me what he honestly thought, and didn’t try to change my mind when our opinions differed. We read together at the library when there was no one around. Sometimes he read pages and pages with that rich, booming voice and it sounded like heaven to me. Isaac liked to hold my hand even when we walked down the street, even when his pinky curled around mine drew the attention of total strangers. He made me laugh, he made me think, and I liked to believe I did the same to him. But Ryan didn’t seem to need to know any of that. Ryan loved me. He was my best friend in the whole world and he likely could see that I was truly happy. The rush of it colored my face.
“Well then,” he finally said, smile wide, eyes brightened with laughter again. “That’s all that matters, isn’t it?” The pigeons flew off and my brother ignored them, took to shaking his head as though the questions he had didn’t matter in the least. Ryan nudged my arm, a playful gesture he’d always done when he wanted to tease me. “Imagine that, my kid sister in love. Wonders never cease.”
“Very funny.” He stood, lead me away from the bench and past the fountains. “You never know, maybe you’ll luck up and find someone someday,” I quipped.
“No way, sis. One O’Bryant in love is more than this city can handle.”
The phone had not stopped ringing for a solid week. The summer still moved on, but Trent hadn't moved on with it. As August approached, word was the President was about to sign the Voting Rights Act. Trent would lose the leverage that kept me from announcing to my family, and the world, the reasons why we broke up. It had been nearly a month since he'd hit me. A month since the first time Isaac kissed me. It made no sense for Trent to be so relentless, but then, Trent wasn’t used to being denied anything. His image was more important to him than anything, and like most bullies, he didn't mind who got hurt as long as he got his way. I very well might have been the only one who’d ever told him ‘no’, and I was pretty sure his vanity hadn't accepted it, even a month later.
“I’m going to take the phone off the hook,” I threatened Trent when I finally answered the phone. An hour had passed and he kept calling with no let-up. I didn’t much worry about him coming to my dorm; Mr. Thomas, an older Texan around my father’s age who took shrapnel to the knee in Japan during the war took his security guard duties seriously. He wouldn’t even let Ryan sit for too long in the lobby unless I was with him.
“You’re being a little ridiculous, Riley. This childish behavior of yours has gone on too long and Senator Mansfield is sponsoring an important dinner. I’m sure your father has mentioned it.”
“He might have.”
“Of course he has.” There was a confident ease to his tone that made him sound too familiar, too sure of himself. “I’ll need you to accompany me. My father doesn’t know that you and I have quarreled and he’ll expect you there with me.”
“You and your father can expect all you want, Trent. I'll be there, but I won’t be with you.”
I hung up before he could make a complaint, in a hurry to meet Isaac at the library after his shift. He’d gone to see his sister, up from Atlanta, in Richmond while she visited friends and I hadn’t seen him in nearly two days. My fingertips tingled the closer I came to the library. I’d missed touching him, kissing him. I missed everything that only Isaac could make me feel.
It seemed like the silence was exceptionally heavy around the library when I entered, though I wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with Trent’s call or just my missing Isaac.
We’d spent almost every day together over the past month—at the library, necking in the stacks, sometimes taking Lenny’s Bel Air to New York to attend poetry slams or hear really good jazz. Isaac came alive in New York where there wasn’t nearly as much attention given to us. We were one couple among many that looked a little out of place, who came and went as they pleased regardless of their surroundings.
Now, though, something odd and unsettling buzzed around my stomach as I moved through the silent lobby. I spotted Mr. Welis reading a paper as he leaned against the front desk, a small mug of coffee on the desk top.
“Miss O’Bryant, good evening.”
“Hi, Mr. Welis.” We rarely spoke, Mr. Welis and me, only a handful of times when he’d ask what I thought of Isaac’s chances of getting into Lincoln. The older man wasn’t a stranger. To my surprise, the older man never glared at me the way Lenny did sometimes.
“You looking for someone, Miss Riley?” He had a nice smile and beautiful eyes, nearly green, which looked nice against the dark complexion of his skin. He was lighter than Lenny, but not as light-skinned as Isaac, and handsome for an older gentleman.
The question threw me off a bit. Generally, Mr. Welis would smile a little when he spotted me and Isaac together. Mostly, though, he just ignored us altogether.
“Uh… no,” I said, listening to my gut to keep Isaac’s name out of our conversation. “Just going to study a little before the library closes.”
He nodded, his smile a little bigger than I thought it should be but before I could give it any consideration at all, he turned back to his paper like we hadn’t spoken.
I moved further into the library, expecting to hear some noise, anything to lead me to wherever Isaac was, but all was quiet. Lenny mopped the second-floor tiles but he didn’t hum or whistle like he normally did while he worked. And Isaac wasn’t anywhere to be found—not on the first-floor kitchenette or by the elevators where he usually met me when I arrived.
Something felt wrong, off somehow. For the first time since I’d begun hiding out at the Lincoln University library, it didn’t feel like home. As I moved back toward the sound of Lenny's mop moving, I realized the reason the place didn’t feel like home was because Isaac wasn’t there.
“Lenny?”
He didn’t stop his work, instead focusing even more intently on the movement of the thick mop head smearing water and foam across the marble tiles. His back was facing me and I noticed for the first time that there was a long scar that ran down his neck and disappeared into the starched collar of his blue button-up. There was no telling how he’d gotten it. Isaac had told me the most awful stories about his childhood in Georgia—how he and Lenny had both struggled growing up in the south.
“Lenny?” I tried again, this time loud enough that my voice bounced on that marble and back against the floor to ceiling windows around us. He turned, frowning a little before he forced a nod in my direction. “Where’s Isaac?”