It’s about me scampering off to the ends of the earth like a dog with its tail between its legs after she beat the ever-loving shit out of me.
It’s about me having to lick my wounds in total solitude, and being expected to simply stand back up, and dust myself off, and carry on with my responsibilities, while her daddy bailed her out for doing so many unthinkable things that he couldn’t even get the whole story.
It’s about her destroying everything I loved the most, and the fact that I put all of that aside to uphold a vow I had made to her since we were children.
It’s about the fact that I hate myself almost as much as I hate her for allowing this poorly-thought-out pregnancy to chip away at my armor and become glaring evidence of the fact that hate is often far from the absence of love. That hate is often a symptom of love so deep and permanent that it can’t and won’t ever die.
That I hate her because I still love her and never stopped.
That I hate her because of what she turned me into.
That I hate her because she’s still right here, and she’s not going anywhere—and I don’t mean in my arms, or at my side, or in my home.
In my heart, where she’s always been, and where she always will be.
World without end. Beyond my last breath.
A promise. A vow. A curse.
I end the kiss, remove my lips from hers, rub her arm, and let her believe that it’s all part of the same ruse we’ve been putting on since the day we wed.
But the true ruse is that it’s not, and it probably never was.
ELEVEN
ISLA
Present
THE WEEKS BETWEEN CHRISTMAS and the New Year have been rough. I forgot how awful being pregnant can make you feel. I’m sick, and sore, and tired, and wildly emotional. Because of that—and because of Malachi’s insistence upon me staying in my room—I haven’t done much besides lying in bed, reading through emails from long ago.
I started at the very beginning of the correspondence between Malachi and me and quickly became sucked into the language of how we used to speak to each other. It’s both heartwarming and heartbreaking to see how innocent and flirtatious we were. I can’t tell if it’s doing more harm than good, as it feels like I’m drowning myself in the way things were long before everything fell apart in the aftermath of what I did.
At the very beginning of the emails that went back and forth between us, there was obviously no evidence of what happened. And as the dates on the emails became more recent, the fewer there were, a natural side effect of us having switched to the immediate communication of texting and video chats using our phones. Most of the emails consist of quick bits of information.
To: Isla Reyes <[email protected]>
From: Malachi Sterling <[email protected]>
Subject Line: Fwd: Travel Itinerary 20MAY08
Date: 17 April 2008
Hey baby girl,
Here’s my flight times. I’m so ready for our nice, looong summer break. This year has been such a beating. I kinda hate college. I’m really glad I only have two years of this crap rather than four. So ready to see you. Miss you, love you, etc. Talk to you in a couple of hours.
xx
M.
To: Malachi Sterling <[email protected]>
From: Isla Reyes <[email protected]>
Subject Line: Re: Fwd: Travel Itinerary 20MAY08
Date: 17 April 2008
Thank you, amor. Try not to hate college too much. It’ll all be over before we know it, and in only a few weeks, it’ll be nothing but sun and beach and kisses and lots of alone time. Think of the alone time and all the ways I’m going to show you how much I’ve missed you. ;)
xx times infinity
Isla
To: Malachi Sterling <[email protected]>
From: Isla Reyes <[email protected]>
Subject Line: Fwd: Reyes Family Annual Christmas Ball 2009 - Suggested Dress Code
Date: 02 December 2009
Amor,
Mamá has lost her damn mind this year and wants to do an all white theme for the party. Look at the dress code “suggestions” (quotation marks because when does Mamá ever just **suggest** things like this?). I miraculously didn’t laugh out loud when she mentioned it to me.
Can’t wait to see you in an all white tux! LMAO (and then take it off of you)
xx and my whole heart forever
Isla
To: Isla Reyes <[email protected]>
From: Malachi Sterling <[email protected]>
Subject Line: Re: Fwd: Reyes Family Annual Christmas Ball 2009 - Suggested Dress Code
Date: 02 December 2009
Baby girl,
You know I love your Mamá, but… seriously? White tuxedos? Prepare for my best impersonation of John Travolta in Staying Alive. And then prepare for me to help you remove said white tuxedo before we burn it. JFC and SMDH.
I love you always.
xx
M.
The lighthearted, yet sparse emails continued all the way up until September of 2010. At that point, they began to include information about Malachi’s upcoming graduation celebration and his itinerary for permanently relocating to his family’s summer estate in Southampton, as well as condos he was looking at in Manhattan for when I returned to Columbia for the Spring semester of my freshman year. And that’s when they completely dried up.
And it was in October that essentially all the personal emails dried up completely, aside from one cryptic email from my friend, Elise, which hadn’t even been opened.
To: Isla Reyes <[email protected]>
From: Elise Rutherford <[email protected]>
Subject Line: Hope you’re okay!
Date: 16 October 2010
Hey girl,
I went by your dorm and saw you’d left already. I hope you’re resting. Give me a call when you’re feeling better. I’ll be happy to come visit if you need some company or anything, but I totally understand if you need some alone time.
I’m here for you, hon! Hang in there!
Elise
When I’m feeling better.
She figured I needed “alone time.”
Based what I’d heard from my parents, it’s possible whatever was going on that prompted Elise to check on me via email might have been related to the trouble I’d gotten into that year. But her email is vague enough that I can’t draw any hard conclusions.
After that, there was nothing but warnings and notices from my professors and the university about missing classes, and concerned chastisements about how this was unlike me, and what was going on, and so on and so forth.
Prior to the warnings and notices and chastisements, as well as the cryptic one from Elise, there was one nondescript email that was completely out of place and that hadn’t been opened either. It also didn’t make sense given the knowledge I was provided by my parents about what had caused me to suddenly be absent from school.