After a few moments, I raised my head to meet his eyes. “This isn’t an act, is it? This is you?”
Isaac opened his mouth, looking as if he might protest or deny. Then he nodded. “I didn’t plan this, but… Yeah. This is me.” He raised a hand to cup my cheek, his thumb brushing aside my tears. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I rested my head back on his chest. “Right now, everything’s perfect.”
He said nothing but I felt him nod. His cheek rested against my hair. This was exactly what I needed.
Maybe he needed this too.
The song ended and a used car commercial came on. We stayed in each other’s arms, with all of Harmony laid out below us. The real Harmony, with the HCT where we met and the amphitheater where Isaac touched my hands for the first time. Not the neighborhood behind us where my parents lived in a cold white house.
“I have to go back,” I said, finally. “They’ll start looking for me. The longer I stay out the worse it’ll be.” I glanced down at my bloodied knees. “It’s already going to be bad.”
“How bad?”
I reached up to gently touch the swelling under his eye. “Not like this. I’ll be okay, I promise.”
Reluctantly, he broke our protective circle and helped me to his truck. We drove back to my street and
I told him to slow down a few houses from my own. Justin’s limo was parked in front.
“Shit,” I said. “Justin is there. Maybe my friends too.”
“I hate letting you walk in there alone.”
“You have to,” I said.
“Do they know?” Isaac asked in a low voice. He reached over and gently took my arm again and turned it over to reveal the X. “Do they know what this means?”
“No,” I said. “No one does.”
I realized that wasn’t entirely true. Xavier would know what it meant. He owned every single one of them. He’d marked me, maybe forever.
“I have to go,” I said. “Thank you for the ride and the dance and for…just being there.”
I slipped out of the car before anything else could happen and limped with my shoes in my hand to my house. In the driveway, I turned. Isaac hadn’t moved his truck yet. I gave him a small wave and stepped inside.
Justin was in the living room with my parents. They all turned to look when I came in and the men bolted to their feet. My mother’s hand flew to her mouth with a gasp, her other clutching a glass of wine.
“What happened to you?”
“Where did you go?”
“We’ve been worried sick.”
“I’m here. I’m fine,” I said. I looked at Justin. “I’m sorry I left. I had a…panic attack and I ran outside to get some air—”
“You had a panic attack?” Mom asked from the couch. “Since when do you get panic attacks?”
Since last summer…
“I don’t know, it just…happened. I ran outside and fell. The gym door was locked from the outside and I was a mess and embarrassed, so I decided to walk home. I didn’t have my phone or I would’ve called you.” A thought jolted me. “Where is my phone?”
“Justin had it,” Dad said, “along with your purse.”
He held up my phone and the blood drained out of my face. I suddenly felt as naked as I had when I sent Xavier those photos. My personal property and thoughts and content out of my control again. Dad had scrolled through my phone tonight, I knew he had. I wasn’t allowed to keep the passcode a secret from my parents—part of the conditions since I’d turned ‘uncontrollable’ last summer.
I mentally raced through every message Angie and I had ever sent. I couldn’t remember if we’d texted about Isaac.