Off the Deep End (22)
“Are you sure? You’re not mad? You’re going to be okay?” Her green eyes were wide with concern and filled with compassion. How did I get such great kids?
“I am.” I nodded to emphasize the point. “Let Grandma bake cookies for you and spoil you rotten all day. Try to forget about things for a while.”
“I love you, Mom,” she said just as Mark walked into the living room. At the sound of her voice, he grabbed the phone out of my hand.
“I love you, honey.” He perked up, pulling it together for her.
“Love you too, Dad. I’m staying at Grandma’s again today.”
Mark shot me a glance, and I nodded back, signaling I was okay with it. “Sounds good,” he said to her. “Let’s chat later.” He blew her a kiss and ended the call.
He handed me my phone. I reached for it slowly, studying his face to see where he was at emotionally this morning. I knew he’d slept because I’d heard the sounds of his snores all night long, but he didn’t look like it. He looked worse than he did yesterday. At least he’d finally changed clothes, but he still hadn’t showered.
“Detective Hawkins just texted me. He said he’d be over around ten,” Mark announced. The night shift was still out in the garage, and the regular crew wasn’t here yet, but they would be soon. They came at eight and waited with us all day long, for our phones to ring or contact to be made in some way. That’s all we did.
Wait.
And wait.
Our kitchen had turned into a command center that looked straight out of CSI. I used to be a true-crime junkie. I wouldn’t be after this.
“At least now that the police have Isaac’s phone, they’ll be able to see what we mean about those awful texts he was getting.” I tested the waters, treading carefully. It was an upsetting topic, but at least one we agreed on.
“You mean they can see how messed up and cruel kids are these days?” he asked. The corners of his mouth instantly pulled into an angry frown.
I had hesitated telling him about the texts back when I’d discovered them because I was hoping that whoever had sent them would stop. That it would be only a temporary situation so I could spare Mark the agony that had stolen my breath and crushed my heart when I’d read them. It was one of those moments seared into my brain in a way I would never forget.
I’d suspected Isaac was having a bad day since it’d been hours since he’d left his room, and I’d learned to predict his new patterns. There’d been no movement or sounds of him playing video games, which meant he was either crying or lying on his bed staring lifelessly at the ceiling. My gut was screaming at me that he was in trouble again too. It just hit me out of nowhere, like it had before. Every time I’d had the feeling, I’d gone to him immediately and found him distraught on his bed. I’d walked into his room that day expecting it to be one of those times.
He was on his side in the fetal position, curled up tightly like he was trying to disappear inside himself and take up as little space as possible. His face was tear streaked and his shirt drenched in sweat. All the lights in his room were turned off.
His phone lay next to him. I pushed it aside so that I could sit down, and something compelled me to look at it. I swiped the screen and quickly typed in his passcode. His recent text thread opened in front of me:
It should’ve been you.
It was a sucker punch to my gut, knocking all the air from my lungs, followed by white-hot fury shooting through my veins. What kind of a monster would send something like that? I scrolled up. There were hundreds of them. The vilest, most awful things you could say to another human being piled on top of each other manically:
I hope you die.
I wish you would’ve drowned in the lake.
Why’d you steal his life?
All this time I’d thought his torment came from inside himself, but it was so much more than that. Someone had been torturing him since the day after the funeral. Who would do such a thing? And why? I just didn’t understand. Debilitating nausea flooded my body, and my protein bar from breakfast lurched up my throat. I shoved it back down.
Why were kids so cruel?
They always had been—making fun of his clothes, teasing him about how long it took him to take tests, and laughing at him for being shy—but this was a new low. As if Isaac hadn’t been through enough. All I did was apologize to him over and over again while I rubbed his back. I’d never felt so powerless to help him. Or so angry.
I shifted my thoughts back to the present moment. I couldn’t change the past. Nothing was going to change how we’d handled things. I threw the blanket off me and headed toward the kitchen to get coffee going before everyone started showing up. Mark followed behind me.
I turned around and placed my hand on his shoulder. I did my best to look kind. I didn’t have enough energy for this if he wasn’t on my side. “Look, I know we got into it again the other night, and I’m sorry, but can we just try to be friends today? I mean, if I have to battle against you on top of all this, I’m not sure how much more I can take. I just—”
He pulled away. “Will you just listen to yourself speak? Everything is about you. I this and I that. How much more you can take?” He glared at me. “Don’t you mean how much more I can take?”
I slammed the coffee mug down on the counter. The resolve to get along and be friends gone that quickly. “What are you talking about? What are you going through that’s just so much greater than what I’m going through?”