In Harmony(92)

“I love you too,” he said. “I’ve been saying it for weeks with someone else’s words.”

“You do?”

“Yeay, baby. I do.”

My chest felt warm and tears blurred my vision. “Say it again,” I whispered.

“I love you,” he said. “So much.” His hand slipped behind my neck and he brought my lips to his. Kissed me softly, then deeper. “I’m glad you woke me up. There’s something I wanted to tell you, too.”

“Better than ‘I love you’?”

“I hope so. I wanted to tell you… I started to tell you at the theater the other day but I ran out of time.” He smiled a little. “I got too busy with other things.”

“Other things were worth it.”

“But I wanted you to know that whatever life you want, that’s the life I want to give you. If you want to live in Harmony, I’ll live in Harmony. It won’t be the torture I always thought it would be. With you, I see it differently. I’m going to go and do something with my acting, to make you proud. To be worthy of you.”

I put my fingertips to his cheek, to the scar where his father had hit him. “You’d really stay here for me?”

“For us,” he said. “I want to do whatever it takes to make you happy. And besides, I hated the idea of leaving Martin and Brenda anyway. And not seeing Benny graduate.”

“It might not be forever,” I said. “I just want a little bit of quiet for a little while. I want to heal first. Here.”

He brushed the hair back from my face. “I want that for you too. More than anything. I love you, Willow.”

“I love you, Isaac,” I said.

We kissed until a small laugh burst from me, and I smiled against his lips.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Just happy.”

“Me too.”

I kissed him again and just as I settled my head against his chest to sleep, I heard it. A car coming down the quiet street. Isaac froze beneath me, his heart thumping in my ear. We listened as the car drew nearer, slowed, and the crunch of tires rolling into our driveway.

“Oh, God,” I breathed, tossing the covers off. “My parents.”





Willow



I flew to my window. Below, my parents were in the driveway, climbing out of my dad’s dark gray BMW.

“Oh fuck, they’re home. Why are they home?”

I spun around. Isaac was already putting his jeans on. “Fastest way out?”

“God, I don’t know,” I said. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, making it hard to think.

From outside, I heard loud voices. My clock radio read 3:30 in the morning but my parents were arguing, my mother’s shrill voice echoing across the quiet streets.

Isaac had his boots on now. “Willow?”

“Wait,” I said. “Hold on. They never come in here. We wait until they go to bed, and then I’ll take you out the back door.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded and opened my door a crack to listen. The security system beeped at the front door and my parents carried their argument into the house. My dad spoke in hushed tones, my mom at the top of her lungs, and both their voices carried easily through our cavernous house.

“When is it going to be enough?” Mom said. “When? When they relocate you to the North Pole?”

Isaac gave me a look. I shrugged, shook my head.

“I’m a senior vice president,” Dad said, sounding tired and strained. “It’s an emergency situation, so I need to be here.”

“And then? Canada, Daniel?”

“Look, Regina, if you wanted to stay in New York so badly, you should’ve stayed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Their voices roamed downstairs, from the kitchen into the den. I shut the door.

Isaac ran a hand through his hair. “They won’t come in here?”

“They never have before.”

“Canada?” he asked.

“I don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Footsteps came up the stairs. I could hear my mother muttering to herself between deep sniffs. We held our breaths as she went past my room and slammed the door to the master bedroom.

“That means Dad’s sleeping in the den,” I whispered.

We waited for a nerve-wracking forty-five minutes, to ensure my dad was asleep, then I snuck downstairs to make sure the coast was clear. The den door was closed. The silvery-green light of a TV on in a dark room glowed along the crack beneath.

I crept back upstairs to take Isaac by the hand and lead him down. We hurried on silent feet through the dark house, not daring to breathe. At the back door of the kitchen, I kissed him quickly.

“I love you,” I whispered, disarming the security system.

“I love you,” he whispered back. “Never doubt.”

“Never.”

He slipped into the darkness, an inky shadow moving across the backyard. I shut the door, rearmed the security panel, then rested my head against the cool glass pane. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“What are you doing?”

A little scream burst out of me on a current of heart-stopping fear. I spun around to face my father, in an undershirt and slacks looking tired. A glass in his hand, something amber with two ice cubes floating in it. His drawn, tired face morphed from confusion to dawning realization to anger, like a spectrum.