The music swallows me up, and I close my eyes while Sia sings ‘Elastic Heart,’ the movements I make are emotion filled, and I want to cry. I want to believe him… but how can I? Spinning, I suddenly lose my footing and fall.
“Liv!” Toby shouts, rushing from the bench he was sitting on across the room. “Shit, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say standing up and brushing myself down.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he urges, grabbing my wrist.
“You know what,” I say ripping my arm free.
“Isaac?”
“Obviously,” I snark.
“You know he’s back for good, right?” he states.
My breath catches and my chest aches. “No, I didn’t.”
“Did you ask him?”
I shake my head looking away from the judgement shining in his eyes.
“Did you ask him anything?”
“No,” I groan.
“Oh, Liv. He told you to ask whatever you wanted and yet you’ve not had one question?”
I sink back down to the floor and cross my legs like a school child. “I didn’t want to wonder if he was going to be honest or not. He’s broken my heart twice now, Toby. I won’t survive a third time,” I admit.
“I get it,” he says, and I look up as he lowers himself to sit opposite me, his legs out straight in front of him. “I do, honestly.”
I smile sadly but say no more. Since I’ve seen Isaac, he’s been the only thing on my mind. This visit hasn’t left room in my head for processing much else, not even enough to text him one single damn question.
“Ask me.”
“Huh?” I rub my eyes, deflation making my body droop.
“What do you want to know? I’ll try and answer if I can. But I have to let you know that I will tell Isaac later. I’m not giving you answers to drop him in it. I’m giving them so you can hopefully see how much he loves you.”
“He loves me?”
“Oh, come on, Liv, you know he does.”
I nod. “Okay, what I mean is, he loves me enough?”
“Enough for what?” he questions, a frown appearing across his forehead.
“To be honest? With me, with our family… with himself?”
“Yep.”
“Okay.” I want to believe it to be true, but Isaac has never been keen to talk to our family about the two of us, and on top of that, it took him years to admit how he felt about me.
Toby sighs. “I can’t make you see the truth, you just have to have a little faith… you have to believe in him.”
His words hit home. I once believed his words. For years he could have told me the sky was animated—put there to convince us of our earthly existence—and I would have taken his words as gospel. He broke my faith and my trust, and now I don’t even know if I can even believe in myself.
“What’s really going on with Shelly and him?”
Toby’s face changes, jealousy clouds his eyes, and I frown. “He loves her like a little sister. She has no family, and she’s been one of his team members for years.”
“Team members,” I murmur, pinching my bottom lip between my finger and thumb.
“Yeah. You know he was Black Ops, right?” The confusion must be obvious because Toby sighs. “Okay, let me start from the beginning. I pray that Isaac doesn’t break my neck for this.”
Pulling my arms around myself, I hold my body, needing a little comfort.
“When Isaac beat up Charlie, your old boyfriend, he went to prison.”
I nod, knowing that story well.
“He was offered a place on a Black Ops team. It was a deal he was given.”
“A deal?” I question.
“That’s right. You see he came back for your birthday, but he was going to join Black Ops anyway. When he got charged and arrested, it put a spanner in the works. Your boyfriend, Charlie, the one going to the local university and seemingly living normally with three other guys in that house… yeah, not only was he a little prick, but he was the son of a bigger prick, some foreign dignitary.”
“Oh my God!” I gasp, my hand automatically shooting to cover my mouth. “He never talked about his family,” I mumble through my fingers.
Toby shrugs. “Isaac signed up like he had always planned, they had headhunted him so no matter what he had done, they still wanted him. But there were two conditions.”
“Which were?”
Toby rubs his forehead and sighs. “He had to go overseas, away from his family and commit completely to his team and his handler,” he pauses and stares at me, looking for something—a crack maybe?
“And two?” I push.
“He wasn’t allowed to have any contact with you. None.”
All the air leaves my lungs, and I choke and cough trying to breathe. It’s like someone has poked me with a cattle prod, and at the same time, I feel like I’m in a beautiful dream.
He never hated me.
He never hated me.
I can’t stop the tears as the swell of emotion attacks me.
“Why?” I brokenly ask.
“Charlie was a dick, even after Isaac nearly killed him. He was threatening to come back, to force himself into your life again. Isaac had only one demand of his own before joining the team, which was your safety. Charlie had to stay away, but in turn, Charlie insisted that the only way he would agree, was if Isaac had no contact with you either. It was spiteful, but I guess lying in traction unable to move can make a guy bitter. So he communicated that little nugget. His dad made it so.”
My shoulders shake as the rest of my body trembles.
“He wasn’t avoiding me?”
“No, sweetheart. He wasn’t avoiding you. He made me keep him up to date with everything that was
