Rayston Point Road || Editing

Chapter Thirty-Five

"Will you call me when everything settles?" Andie and I were sitting in her car in front of the house. The rain hadn't let up, my dress still hung damp on my body despite the time I had spent in her car as I recounted the last six months of my life to Andie, the words tumbling out almost too fast for me to keep up. She had listened intently, not interrupted, but occasionally widening her eyes or nodding as she listened. When I finished telling her, she leaned over the console and hugged me. When the first thing she said was, "I believe you," I almost cried into her shoulder, a garbled, half-sob, half-laugh bubbling out of my chest as I pulled away from her, wiping my eyes and messing with my frizzed, mangled bangs.

When she asked where I wanted to go next, I knew instantly. Slowed only slightly by the downpour, we eventually arrived at Isaac's house. We sat there for a moment, the weight of what I had explained to Andie on the car ride over sitting between us before she finally broke the silence.

"Of course," I said softly, and leaned over the console to hug her again. "Thank you." Smiles passed between us along with another moment of silence as we leaned away from each other, holding each other's gazes before I turned to push open the car door. In the dash to the front door, any drying off that I had done in the warmth of Andie's car vanished, and water dripped from my bangs down my nose as I pounded on the heavy door.

With a quick glance over my shoulder, I watched as Andie pulled out of the driveway. As I turned back around, the front door swung open.

"I'm just that irresistible, huh?" The confident and teasing comment came first with a sly grin and raised eyebrow and ended with a decreased volume and a frown that hid the dimples in his cheeks. "What's wrong?" With my arms crossed over my chest, damp and dirty dress weighted over my body, mascara that had already smudged under my eyes in my sleep now rimming my eyes, I could only image what he was thinking.

"Can I come in?" I asked, put off by how meek my voice sounded as it followed another deafening crash of thunder. Isaac was stepping aside before I even finished the request, opening the door enough for me to pass through.

"Lor?" I heard him behind me as he pushed the door shut, but I only headed for the stairs. The only noise that passed between us was my wet sneakers against the hard floor beneath me, and the barely noticeable sound of Isaac, barefoot, following behind me.

I went straight for his room, the back of my mind registering that, in the hours I had been gone, the mess in the hallway was cleaned up, the picture and frame nowhere to be seen.

"Okay, Loren, what the hell is going on?" Isaac shut his bedroom door behind us. When I turned around to face him, he was right there.

"I want to tell you about my mom, my dad, about Nolan... everything." I couldn't bring myself to look in his eyes, so I kept my eyes level, on the stitching around the collar of his t-shirt.

"Whoa," I heard him exhale, an involuntary reaction that caused him to clear his throat after and then reach up, resting both hands on the bare, wet skin of my upper arms. At the contact, warm and gentle, I looked up at him. "You don't have to tell me anything if you're not ready."

"I do," I whispered, raising my arms to cross them protectively over my chest as I shifted on my feet, sniffling. It felt like fire where Isaac's hands rested on my arms, but the rest of my body felt cold and numb, and everything that I felt about that night, everything that I had forced myself not to feel over the last six months, threatened to burst.

"Hey," Isaac's hand raised from my arms to my cheeks, the touch familiar as it brought me back to last night when we kissed, although there was a different energy radiating from his touch now. "Why don't you get cleaned up first? You can think about it, decide if you really want to tell me." His fingers reached up and brushed some of the tangled strands of hair away from my face, his thumbs swiping gently across my cheekbones. Each touch left a lingering wave of heat in its path, and I couldn't help but feel struck by how different this felt from the first day we met, how different he felt. His confidence and playfulness replaced by concern and depth, the magnitude of how quickly things had changed between us evident in the steady way his brown eyes searched my face.