Mud Vein(55)

My eyes go to his other arm.

Save to Die

“What does that mean?”

Isaac looked at me closely, like he didn’t know if he should tell me.

“A part of me had to die in order to save myself.” My eyes move to his left arm.

Save to Die

He saved lives to die to himself. To keep the bad part dead he had to be constantly reminded of the frailty of life. Being a doctor was Isaac’s only salvation.

God.

“What’s the difference?” I asked him. “Between the love of your life, and your soulmate?”

“One is a choice, and one is not.”

I’d never thought of love as a choice. Rather, it seemed like the un-choice. But if you stayed with someone who was self-destructing and chose to keep loving, I suppose it could be a choice.

I waited for him to go on. To explain how I fit in.

“There is a string that connects us that is not visible to the eye,” he said. “Maybe every person has more than one soul they are connected to, and all over the world there are these invisible strings.” As if to make his point, his finger traced a black ribbon that ran through my horse’s mane. “Maybe the chances that you’ll find each and every one of your soulmates is slim. But sometimes you’re lucky enough to stumble across one. And you feel a tug. And it’s not so much a choice to love them through their flaws and through your differences, but rather you love them without even trying. You love their flaws.”

He was talking about soulmate polygamy. How could you take something like that seriously?

“You’re a fool,” I breathed. “You don’t make any sense.”

I felt angry with him. I wanted to lash out and make him see how stupid he was for believing in such flimsy ideals.

“I make too much sense for you,” he said.

I shoved him. He wasn’t expecting it. The distance between us grew for just a second as his left foot took a step backward to keep his balance. Then I launched myself at him, throwing him against the painted horse at his back. Fury in fists. I pounded at his chest and slapped at his face while he stood and let me. How dare he. How dare he.

Every blow I delivered set my anger to a lower simmer. I hit him until it was gone and I was mostly spent. Then I slid down, my hands touching the metal diamonds of the carousel floor as my back rested against the hooves of the horse I’d ridden.

“You can’t fix me,” I said, looking at his knees.

“I don’t want to.”

“I’m mangled,” I said. “On the inside and the outside.”

“And yet I love you.”

He leaned down and I felt his hands on my wrists. I let him pull me up. I was wearing a black fleece that had a zipper down the length of it. Isaac reached for my neck; grabbing the top of the zipper, he pulled it down to my waist. I was so shocked I didn’t have time to react. Minutes ago he had been bare-chested, now I was. If I had nipples they would have peaked in the frigid air. If.

I am just scars and pieces of a woman. Isaac has seen me like this. In a sense he made me like this, with his scalpel and steady hands, but I still reached up to cover my chest. He stopped me. Reaching for my waist he lifted me up until I was sitting sideways in the saddle of my pierced horse. He opened my fleece the rest of the way, then he kissed the skin where my breasts used to be. He kissed softly, over the scars. My heart—surely he could feel my pounding heart. My nerve endings had been damaged, but I felt his warm lips and his breath move across my skin. I made a sound. It wasn’t a real sound. It was air and relief. Every breath I’d ever caught came whooshing out of me at once.

Isaac kissed up my neck, behind my ear, my chin, the corner of my mouth. I turned my head when he tried to kiss the other corner, and we met in the middle. Soft lips and his smell. He’d kissed me once before in the foyer of my house, it had been a drumbeat. This kiss was a sigh. It was relief and we were so drunk from it that we clung to each other like we’d been waiting for a kiss like this our whole, entire lives. His hands wrapped around my ribcage, inside of my fleece. Mine were holding his face. He pulled me off the horse. I steered him toward the only bench on the carousel. It was a chariot, curved with a leather seat. Isaac sat. I sat on his lap.

“Don’t ask me if I’m sure,” I said. I pulled down the zipper on his pants. I was determined. I was sure. He didn’t move his hands from my waist. He didn’t speak. He waited as I lifted myself up, pulling off my jeans and climbing back onto his lap. I left my panties on. His pants were pushed mid thigh. We were clothed and we were not. Isaac let me do everything, and that’s the way I needed it to be; half concealed, in the cold air, with the ability to climb off and leave if I wanted to. I felt less than I thought I would. I also felt more. There was no fear, just the vibrations of something loud that I didn’t quite understand. He kissed me while we moved. Then once, when it was over. The old man never came back. We zipped our clothes, and walked back up the hill chilled and in a daze. There were no more words between us. The next day I filed a restraining order against him.

And that was the last of Isaac Asterholder and me.

I try to remember sometimes what his last words to me had been. If he said something as we walked up that hill, or on the car ride home. But all I remember was his presence and his silence. And the slight echo of, and yet I love you.