He did that already. The hot blush in my face was kind of standard around Isaac Mayfair.
“I had a dream about you last night,” he said.
“Oh?” I felt a nervous twinge in my gut. “What about?”
Isaac smiled over at me and shook his head. “Don’t worry,” he said, detecting the hesitation in my voice. “It wasn’t anything like that.”
We pulled away from my house. I hated how dreary everything was; only adding to the misery of the cold. The sky was gray, blanketed by thick depressing clouds with moving specks of black as crows flew over. The trees had already lost most of their leaves. Just looking at it all made me colder.
“Well, go ahead,” I urged him; “you got me all curious now.”
Isaac pressed the Power button on the radio and shut it off even though the volume was so low it was hardly a distraction.
After a long hesitation, he began. “You were sitting at the edge of a creek and had your shoes off and your feet in the water. You were singing and I was leaning against a tree, watching you.”
I snickered, interrupting him. “Proof there’s no truth to dreams,” I said. “My singing is awful!”
“Well, I didn’t say the singing was good,” he said, grinning.
My mouth fell open halfway with an unbelieving spat of air.
Isaac laughed and pulled me closer, resting his hand between my thighs.
“Anyway,” he went on; “you kept looking all around until finally you saw me. At least, I thought it was me you saw.”
“It wasn’t you?”
“No,” he said, “I got the feeling you were staring right through me instead. Then you stood up, slipped your shoes on and walked away.”
“That’s not what I would’ve done if that really happened,” I said.
No, I would’ve drawn it out like an overly dramatic run-toward-each other scene. There would have been butterflies and sparkling water. Slow-motion. My hair like a feather in the wind. Okay, so maybe it would’ve been cheesy, but it was better than walking away from him.
“That was it?” I said.
Isaac turned too early onto Litchfield rather than going on toward my school. I was too interested in Isaac’s dream to ask where we were going yet.
“No, I must’ve followed you to your house,” he went on. “You still knew someone was watching, but you were afraid of me. I think I was a ghost.”
My enthusiasm for his dream began to diminish. I wanted to comment about how I didn’t like where it was going, but I thought I had interrupted him enough already.
“You stood near a fireplace then,” he said, “gazing out a window with your arms crossed. I reached out to touch your face and...”
I waited, eagerly.
“...And what?”
I heard Isaac sigh.
“I woke up.”
I felt gipped. It was such a crappy ending. Then I realized most dreams have crappy endings.
“Well, at least I was in the dream,” I said, laying my head against his shoulder. “That’s a good sign.”
“Yes, that’s a good sign,” he said with less optimism than I thought he should have.
Raising my head to look at him, I saw the sadness disappear from his face. He had been hiding something.
The car drove far past everything I knew in Hallowell and then past things I had never seen before.
“Where are we going?”
Isaac slowly pushed on the brakes. His gaze was harsh as he stared out the windshield, one hand gripping the steering wheel.
“Isaac?”
He stopped the car completely, pulled forward on the road, and made a sharp U-turn.
“I think it’s best you get your Uncle to drive you to school tomorrow,” he said regretfully. “And next week.”
Anxiety built up inside me quickly, and at first, I took it all wrong. I was just glad I caught myself before accusing him of dumping me.
“Isaac, what’s wrong?” I practically turned around to face him enough my back was almost pressed into to the dashboard. “Did something happen?”
“Not yet,” he said finally making eye contact, “but it will.”
I had a feeling then what his strange attitude was all about. “A week before a full moon?” I said simply.
“Yes,” he answered. A sort of pain lay exposed in his face. “I hate not being in control, Adria.”
A truck sped by in the opposite direction and Isaac wasn’t exactly staying on his side of the road.
I tried not to pay attention to us narrowly avoiding a head-on collision.
“But you are in control,” I said. “You saved me from Sibyl that night in the barn. You knew what you were doing.”
Isaac sighed miserably. “Most of the time I know what I’m doing, but even just a second can be the worst second of my life.” He added, “And you see how clouded my mind gets; I could have driven to Portland if you had not said something.”
Hard lines appeared around Isaac’s eyes. He kept his attention on the road, but I began to worry about where his mind was. He seemed deep in thought, frustrated with himself. Both of his hands gripped the steering wheel so tight.
I covered his right hand with my left and said softly, “Isaac, pull over up there.”
He glanced over at me. I let the softness of my voice show in my face. He needed to understand that I was not afraid of him. At least…he needed to believe that I wasn’t. The truth was that I couldn’t be more afraid. I knew it was reckless of me to put so much faith in him when he didn’t have much in himself. I knew that he could very possibly kill me, but I wanted to believe in my heart that somehow he could overcome this. And I never wanted him to feel ashamed that I was afraid, or fragile.
Reluctantly, Isaac pulled off the road into a makeshift parking lot.
I reached over, turned the car off and pulled the keys from the ignition.
“What was the real reason you told me about the dream?” I said.
His cheeks blew up with air and he let it all out at once. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”
I smiled, leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek; his skin was so warm and soft against my lips. “It was kind of obvious,” I said. “Now tell me.”
Isaac’s long face turned into a smirk suddenly. “You’re real demanding for, what, one hundred twenty pounds of human girl?”
My mouth fell open. I would’ve put my hands on my hips, but it was awkward to do sitting down. I settled for crossing my arms. “One-twenty?”
Of course, I loved every minute of this.
“Am I wrong?”
“No, but most guys don’t go around guessing a girl’s weight. It’s dangerous; don’t you know?”
“Well, I’m not most guys.”
“How’d I know you were going to say that?” I laughed. “Oh well; I guess a werewolf doesn’t have anything to be afraid of anyway, let alone someone like me.”
The playful tone faded from his face. “That’s not true, Adria.”
The wind began to pick up; a gust hit the side of the car and shook it just a little. Fallen leaves scattered all around us.
“What are you afraid of then?”
Isaac just sat there, staring intensely out ahead. His hands gripping the steering wheel as if he were still driving. His posture was rigid, his gaze, unbreakable. “I’m afraid of losing control. I fear emotion,” he said. “Most of all, I fear you.”
My heart wrenched a tiny bit in my chest. It’s a funny thing how one’s heart can react to words and emotions as though it has a mind of its own.
Still facing forward, Isaac went on:
“Do you remember when Cara brought up my last girlfriend?”
That detail wasn’t something a girl forgets easily, but I pretended to have to think about it for a moment. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I remember.”
Finally, Isaac rested his back into the seat, letting his fingers fall from the steering wheel and then he turned to me.
“She was just a girlfriend,” he said. “I don’t mean to put her down and I’m not telling you these things because you’re here and she’s not; she was a decent girl, but I didn’t love her.”
That should’ve made me feel better. It probably should’ve even made me gloat a little inside, but it didn’t. The pain in his face was devastating and I just wanted to make it go away.
I listened.
He took a mild breath. “She was human too,” he said. “And she was terrified of me.”
“Really?” I said, more decided now about keeping my own fears secret. “How did she know what you were?”
“Her mother was Turned by an Unknown,” he paused. “None of that’s important. What’s important is that you know I hurt her. I hurt her really bad.”
My palms began to sweat, or maybe the moisture had been there all along and only now did I realize it. A million different kinds of ‘hurt’ went through my mind, including the worst kind of all: death.
The wind blew against the car again, with more force this time. I could feel a cool draft of air coming in from somewhere near me, nipping at the back of my neck.
“Adria,” he said, detecting the edge in my posture. “You have to know everything about me.”
Now I wondered how could I make him believe I didn’t fear him, especially now that I looked every bit of afraid? I could sense his despair, his regret, the hatred he felt for the part of him that could not be tamed. Sometimes the look of fear and anguish are not so different.
“I know you didn’t mean to,” I said.
Once I said it, Isaac’s posture hardened.
He went back to the subject of the dream quickly.
“Dreams are just subconscious metaphors,” Isaac began, “They’re Life’s way of warning us of future events, explaining the past and deciphering the present.”
“You think your dream was warning you?”
He nodded slowly.
“Wait a second,” I said, “but you said you were a ghost in that dream.” I couldn’t believe I was even entertaining Isaac’s dream theory—I refused to accept him being dead. That part had to be the metaphor....
“Yes,” he said, “and I think it represents my need to protect you without being in your life.”
All of my organs stopped working in that moment. So, maybe this was about him breaking up with me, after all.
Like his death, I refused to accept that, too.
“Look at me, Adria.”
I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to see me cry and I was going to if this was heading in the direction I feared the most.
“But in one way like my father,” he went on, “I’ll ignore that need and I’ll ignore the warning. As much as I know I’m a danger to you, I’m also selfish. My heart will go against everything my mind tells me.” He sighed and said almost in a whisper, “And later on, I’ll regret it....”
I started to cry anyway.
Wiping away the tears, I turned to him. The topic of his last girlfriend, I wasn’t going to let him avoid. I needed to know the truth. “How did you hurt her?”