Carry You Home (Carry Your Heart #2) (30 page)

I flinched and swallowed hard.

"Is she..." I murmured hoarsely. "Is she still at the house?"

"No, she's not," my mom answered simply and showed zero signs of offering any other information.

My mind immediately leapt to all the alternatives, of where she could be living or what she was doing. Part of me wouldn't be surprised if she'd just picked up and moved closer to campus. The truth was I'd been going a little crazy wondering if she was okay, if I'd been too cruel and impassive, if I'd done more damage than I'd intended and I just had to know. And although I'd pushed her away, I couldn't push away what I felt for her. That would always be there, trailing after me like a ghost until the day I died.

"Is she still in town?"

My mom eyed me carefully and leaned forward. "I'm not gonna tell you shit. I know what you want and right about now I'm not so sure you deserve it."

"Wow," I exhaled with a huff. "Thanks, Ma. Love you too."

"I never said I didn't love you," she shook her head ruefully. "You wanna know what I think?"

All I could do was stare. She was just going to tell me anyway.

"I get you didn't want to see her waiting for you, but I think you let your grief do your talking for you. It'd only been two weeks since you lost the baby," her voice caught on that last word and I pushed out a heavy sigh. "And neither of you had enough time to really process that, Caleb, to really deal with it together. That girl has done nothing but love you unconditionally and you bailed on her when she needed you the most. You walked away and left her to clean up your mess."

My head dropped forward, barely hanging on its hinges as her words washed over me. I knew all this already. But hearing it out loud—she might as well have just thrown a bucket of ice water over me.

When she finally had enough, murmured a quick goodbye, and left the table, I sat there alone, feeling like someone had just walked up behind me and shanked me right in the back. Even as a guard motioned for me to get moving, I still sat there stiffly, frozen to the metal bench underneath me.
 

It wasn't until I was back in my cell and sitting on my bed just as powerlessly and helplessly as before, that I finally did something about it. I didn't even know where to start. Didn't know how to even begin to tell her I'd made the biggest mistake of my life. All I knew was that I'd pushed away the best thing that ever happened to me and I'd get on my hands and knees every day of my life to beg if there was even a chance she could forgive me.

So because I had no other way to reach out, I grabbed some stray paper and a pencil and started to write:

Hey Iz...

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Isabelle

One Month Later

"Well," my dad put his hands on his hips and surveyed the small space. "I think that's everything."

My tiny one-bedroom apartment seemed even smaller filled with all these boxes, but I couldn't put a price on its biggest and most important highlights: it was only a half mile away from campus and it got me out of Claremont. I was sold before I even saw the place.

I'd spent the first week basically a walking zombie, barely sleeping, hardly eating, and not even really human. Getting off the couch long enough to go to the bathroom was difficult enough and my dad had to practically lock me in the bathroom just to get me to take a shower.

Somewhere between crying myself to sleep, waking up in the morning in tears, and wallowing in self-pity, I'd gotten angry. Pissed as hell was more like it. And then, after speeding over to the house and tearing apart our bedroom in a fit of blind, red-hot rage, I'd had the worst panic attack of my life with numb hands, shaking limbs, dry throat, feeling like the walls were rushing in on me—a million times worse than the one I'd had after the break-in.

Somewhere along the way, I'd settled on an epiphany: it was time for a fresh start.

I wouldn't give Caleb the satisfaction of acknowledging I was doing it because he'd told me to. There was nothing I could do about it anyway, considering that I'd been barred from visiting him in prison. Now I could see it for what it was: the final nail in the coffin of our relationship.

Still, I knew, the same way I knew I couldn't go a day without holding a paintbrush in my hand, that I would never be able to shake my feelings for him.

I could have kids with another man and wish Caleb was their father instead. I'd always wonder what my life would look like if I hadn't lost our baby, if he hadn't gone to prison, and I would be 90-years-old with an entire lifetime behind me and still know that the short year we'd spent together had been, regardless of what happened, the only time I'd truly been happy.

With a long exhale, I ran my left hand through my auburn locks and took in the small space that would be my home from now on. The hair color change had been the first of many changes I knew I needed to make to find some semblance of a life after Caleb. Right after my breakdown in our bedroom, I carefully set my engagement ring on the kitchen counter and hadn't stepped foot in the house since.

Ten minutes later, I'd hopped into a salon chair and made the most drastic change to my hair since, well, ever. I'd just needed to do
something
. Anything to have some control again. Anything to take a step towards normalcy and recovery.

That's all I really wanted at this point. Just to feel normal again. Just to feel human again.

"It's not as small as you said it was," my dad told me and, thankfully, interrupting my grim thoughts.

"It's not exactly all that great either," I cocked an eyebrow at him even as he leaned forward to look out the nearest window.

My dad glanced at me over his shoulder. "Nice view."

"Sure," I shrugged.

"You know," he turned around to face me again. "I'm going to miss having you at the house, but you're making the right choice here, Isabelle. You really are. I think this'll be exactly what you need. A change of scenery...a fresh start...I know it's not ideal, but you have to start somewhere."

I smiled sadly and sucked in a deep breath. "Thanks, Dad."

He reached out to squeeze my shoulder and then released it just as quickly.

In the four months since I'd shown up at his doorstep, he'd weathered the storm with me exactly the way I needed him to. Even though he'd already known about the baby, he hadn't pushed for the rest of the details and I'd told him enough to fill in the blanks.

And the most surprising part of all?

There were no "I told you so's" and no bad-mouthing of Caleb at all. Instead, he almost seemed impressed that Caleb made the decision he did and had been nothing but respectful of him the few times we talked about Caleb, even if all that did was piss me off even more. But he'd been a rock, a place I could hide from the tornado that had ripped through my life, and for the first time since my mom's death almost two years ago, I finally felt like I had my dad back again.

He shuffled over to my makeshift kitchen table—I'd left every single piece of furniture inside the house because I didn't even want to touch it—and swept a large manila envelope off the table.

"You left these at the house," he told me as he held the envelope out to me. "I'm sure you left them on purpose, but they've just been piling up on the kitchen counter and besides, some new ones came in the mail this week and I don't know. If you decide to read them, I think you should have them all. And this came in the mail yesterday. I wasn't sure if you'd want it or not—"

My eyes widened at the North Carolina Department of Corrections insignia on the envelope and snatched it out of his hands. This particular one was different than all the others I'd gotten from this address—
this
one was from the DOC directly. I tore it open and skimmed it as fast as my eyes would allow.

"
Inmate no. 32689, Caleb Sawyer, has requested your name to be added to his approved visitors list. Should you choose to visit, the correctional facility's visiting hours are Saturday and Sunday..."

A million thoughts ran through my mind at once: he was okay, he wasn't hurt or sick, but what the hell? Why now? After all his grandstanding about me needing to move on with my life and how he wasn't going to put me on the list, what the hell was his problem? Part of me wanted to crush the letter in my hand or at the very least, tear the thing to pieces so I didn't have to look at it anymore.

"What a dick," I muttered under my breath.

"Everything alright?" my dad asked me from over my shoulder.

"Yeah," I sighed. "He's fine. I guess."

Silence fell between us as my dad cocked an eyebrow at me and gestured to the letter in my hand with his head. "You sure?"

"He wants me to visit now. Can you believe that?"

My dad rubbed his mouth and winced a little. "Yeah, actually I can."

With another sigh, I crumpled the letter and tossed it into the closest garbage bag I could find.

"So I take it you're not planning on seeing him anytime soon?" his soft voice called out to me.

"No," I told him curtly. "I'm not. He can't keep jerking me around like this. It's so unfair it's not even funny."

He lifted a shoulder with a deep sigh and set the large manila envelope back on the table. "Well, I think you're well within your rights to feel that way. But someday, you might at least decide you're ready to read them, don't you think?"

I couldn't do or say anything except allow my eyes to rest dangerously on the large manila envelope on the table.

"You changed your address at the post office, didn't you?"

I nodded numbly.

"So," he shrugged. "They'll get forwarded here now. You can do what you want with them, Isabelle, but I think you'll regret it if you throw them out."

Maybe, but I couldn't let myself see him anymore than I could let myself read his letters.

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Four Months Later

Hey Iz,

Have you been getting my letters? I guess I just wish there was some way I could know for sure if they're even getting to the right place. I know you haven't been living at the house for a while and that's why I started sending them to your dad's. I just don't want them to get lost in case you really are reading them.

You're never going to believe this, but I've been doing a little reading. I know, I know. You probably thought I was illiterate or something (hey, I know big words too), but I can sort of read. My counselor told me I needed to occupy my time here in a 'positive way'. Whatever that means. Anyway, I figured, I got nothing but time, so why not give this reading thing a shot? So I went to the library, checked out some old-ass books, and started reading. I really don't have anything better to do when I'm not in the yard.

I started with Huck Finn. That was actually pretty good. Then I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the guy in the cell next to me started pounding on the wall because I was laughing so loud. Then I started reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I had no idea that guy was ever in prison and then I felt kind of stupid for not knowing that. Did you know he read tons of books and worked on his vocabulary when he was in prison? I didn't know that. Then I didn't feel like such an idiot about all this reading. I read a few books by Stephen King too. I really liked those, especially the one about those kids who follow the train tracks to find a dead body. I don't know why, but it kind of reminded me of when me and Dom were kids, getting dirty and getting in trouble, but not the kind of trouble that lands you in a place like this.

I don't know. I guess I picked things I thought you'd like to read too.

You want to know something else? I read some Shakespeare. Yeah. You can get off the floor now, Iz. One of the guys in the library told me to read Romeo and Juliet because it's one of the most famous stories ever or something like that. I didn't make it past Act 3. God, that was the most frustrating thing I've ever tried to read. I mean, why can't they all just speak English?

I got to the part where Romeo kills Juliet's brother (or was it her cousin? I can't remember) and then he gets banished and he's in the Friar's room crying like a little baby and that's when I threw it across my cell. It just felt too familiar, you know? The guy getting everything he wants and screwing it all up because he's a hot-headed asshole. There's this line, I think it went something like, 'what says my lady to our cancelled love?' and my hands started shaking when I read it. That's exactly how I feel, Iz.

I feel like everything we had just got cancelled, like it all just got ripped away from us. It was like Shakespeare wrote that picturing all the bullheaded, reckless, and completely stupid things I did as much as I don't like comparing myself to some sappy teenage tool.

Not to mention the fact that those losers kill themselves in the end. Who wants to read a love story that doesn't have a happy ending?

I guess my problem isn't really with Shakespeare, but you knew that already. I didn't realize reading can have this kind of impact, that I'd actually
feel
something, you know? It's weird. I'm going to keep reading though. I think I'll just stay away from Shakespeare for awhile.