Off the Deep End (75)

“Go away, Amber,” Jules’s voice cut in. “I’ve got this.”

I whirled around to face her. Who did she think she was? She’d destroyed him. “You’ve got this? You stay the hell away from my son.” I lunged for her, and Mark yanked me back.

“Knock it off,” he ordered without looking at me. He focused his attention on Isaac. He didn’t care about Jules. He never had. “You’re going to be okay, Isaac. Everything’s going to be okay,” he said in his most soothing voice. His breath came in thick wispy puffs like smoke.

“Okay?” Isaac laughed. “You think things are going to be okay? I just shot up my school, Dad. We’re way past that, and besides, it doesn’t even matter because you know why?” His voice cracked. He wore a tortured expression. “I can’t remember the last time that I was okay. Did you know that? Like, I’m not joking. I’m being serious. I can’t remember. It’s like nothing that happened before we went into this stupid lake ever happened.” He motioned behind him with his other hand. “All of it’s gone. That life. Whoever that boy was. Gone. All of it. All of him. And it’s never coming back. I’m never coming back, and it’s because I’m not supposed to be here.”

“I know this is hard, Isaac, I do. But you can get through it,” Mark encouraged him, and I nodded in agreement even though I saw no way out of this tragedy, either, but we’d find one. We had to. It couldn’t end like this. It just couldn’t.

“Stop saying that!” he said, baring his teeth like an angry dog. “Please just stop saying that, Dad. You can’t outrun the universe. You just can’t. I should’ve died in the lake that night. It should’ve been me. Everybody knows that.”

“Isaac, please stop,” I cried. “How many times have we been through this? You don’t have to feel guilty that Gabe died and you lived. I feel awful about his death, too, I do, but you have to find a way to move past it. You can’t—”

“Oh my God, Mom! You drive me insane, you know that? Please stop pretending. I can’t stand the pretending.” He scrunched up his face like he was going to break down sobbing, but he pulled it back together quickly. His anger returned, twisting his face into someone I didn’t recognize. “You don’t understand. Nothing feels right inside me anymore. Nothing! Do you get that?” he yelled at me. “There’s no getting away from the feeling that you’re not supposed to be here.”

“Isaac.” I forced myself to keep my hands at my sides when all I wanted to do was reach for him. “You can’t keep blaming yourself. You just can’t. It was random.”

“But that’s the thing, Mom, it wasn’t.” His voice cracked again, and for just a split second, he sounded like he did when he was a little boy—sweet, innocent, scared. He didn’t know what he was doing or how he was feeling. He was totally lost. My little boy was lost, and I didn’t know how to bring him home.

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you have to do, but you’ve got to quit thinking that way. You’ve got to take those kinds of thoughts and not let them have any space in your head.”

“Tell her it’s true.” He ignored what I’d said and turned his attention back to Jules. “Tell her I’m not supposed to be here.”

“I can tell her?” She looked surprised, and I hated that they had secrets.

He nodded, giving her his permission.

“On the night that I picked up the boys, Gabe got into the passenger seat in the car, and Isaac got into the back. But Isaac looked carsick, and I was afraid he’d puke in the car, so I made the two of them switch seats,” she explained, shifting her gaze back and forth between Mark and me as she spoke. We waited for her to say more, but she didn’t.

“Still . . . so what? I mean, does it really make that big of a difference?” Mark asked. He looked as confused as I felt.

“It does when Gabe forgot to put his seat belt on when he got back there. Gabe was thrown from the car when we crashed. He was dragged fifty feet underneath the ice. He never stood a chance.” Tears filled her eyes, and her lower lip quivered. “Our seat belts saved our lives, and originally Gabe was wearing his seat belt. I was the one who clicked it off for him to get in the back seat.”

“So, you’re responsible for Gabe’s death then?” I flung at her. It was an awful thing to say, and it came out without thinking, but if we were going with their logic, then it was her actions that had set the chain of events in motion.

“But don’t you see, Mom?” Isaac asked desperately. “Gabe wasn’t supposed to die. He never was. There was this split second where I knew I wasn’t supposed to be switching seats with him. I didn’t even want to sit up front. I didn’t feel sick. I really didn’t. It was supposed to be me. It was always supposed to be me.”

“Then be mad at her. Or be mad at someone else. Just, please, let’s go home,” Mark begged as if that was a possibility. Where did we go from here? What would happen to Isaac when we left? It was probably only a few more minutes before the police showed up too. What would they do when they saw he was armed? Panic gripped me. We had to hurry.

“It’s not safe anywhere. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Isaac shook his head. “This thing—death—it’s attached itself to me, and it’s not getting off. Not until I give it what it wants. What it’s always wanted.” He raised the gun and pointed it underneath his chin.