Tide

Chapter 55

At dinner, I introduced Isaac to Axel and Anne. Isaac didn't really say anything the entire time; he just kept his shoulders hunched over and stared down at the table while picking at his food. Anne observed him for a while, eventually asking him a couple of questions. He replied with one-word answers and shrugs. I noticed changes in him with each minute that passed, like the way he looked around and fidgeted, or how he constantly chewed his nails and barely spoke. I worried about him, remembering the call he'd made a while back, and how quiet he seemed now. He wasn't the same person I'd met the first time in Thailand, with a bright smile that could lighten things up a dark situation. He was in pain.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah." He nodded, pressing his lips together and avoiding eye-contact.

"Are you sure?"

He nodded once more. "I'm fine."

And then he stayed like that for the rest of dinner. He just sat quietly, sticking close to me without saying a word.

--

That night, I found Isaac sitting outside, underneath a bed of stars.

"Isaac," I said.

He flinched and looked over his shoulder, then looked back towards the sky and didn't say anything. I sat down next to him. "What are you doing?"

He shrugged.

I sighed, looked up, and caught a glimpse of the stars. They were bright, illuminating the sky and staring down at us.

"The kids are adorable, aren't they?" I said.

Isaac nodded. "Kasem and Weera are pretty funny."

"Do you want kids someday?" 

"Mhm. I'm thinking minimum one, maximum ten."

"Interesting," I laughed. "Ten, huh? I feel bad for your future wife."

"I said maximum," he chuckled.

"One is kind of boring too, for the kid I mean. I've been an only child for the majority of my life, and it's always better to have a sibling to hang out with, you know?"

"Again, minimum. Keywords, Ava."

"Hey, Isaac?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you..." I trailed off for a second, the memories pouring back into my mind. "Do you remember that time I thought I saw a shooting star? The last time we were in Thailand?"

"Yes."

I rested my head on his shoulder and let out a deep breath. "This kind of reminds me of that."

There was a long pause, and so I just kept staring at the sky. When I was younger and with my family down at our cottage, I used to lay on the docks and watch the stars and just talk. My father had said that when he was a kid, he thought of the night sky as a long, dark sheet that had been poked by a needle too many times, and now the light was just shining through it.

"Ava?" Isaac murmured.

"Yes?"

He hesitated. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For hanging up on you, and ignoring you, and scaring you, and I know it probably hurt you it's just that I'm messed up, Ava. I don't even know what happened to me. I wish -- I wish I could just --"

"Shh, Isaac," I whispered. I took his hand and felt it tremble underneath mine. "It's okay."

"I'm sorry," he breathed.