"Wow, I don't know what to say… except that you really shouldn't have," Isaac Mendez said, running his hand through his overgrown dark hair. He smiled sheepishly at the three people standing in the living room of the shared loft apartment. They were wearing party hats, and holding multi-colored party horns. Isaac's loft mate, Peter blew the party horn enthusiastically-quite startling Isaac-before sporting a wide grin.
"Are you kidding?" Peter said, pulling Isaac to the large frosted cake sitting on the coffee table, "It's not every year our favorite ex-heroin addicts hits his 6-month sober mark." Simone Deveaux-Isaac's girlfriend-reached over and squeezed Isaac's hand.
"Peter," she said in a warning tone before turning to look at Isaac, "Seriously, Isaac, we are all so proud of you." Her amber eyes shone with a hint of tears and suddenly Isaac felt very nervous. If it was one thing he wasn't good at, it was handling Simone when she was crying. Peter sensed the alarm in his expression, and pulled out the cake knife.
"For who's a jolly good fellow!" Peter bellowed, before guiding Isaac's hand over the knife. Isaac flashed his friend a grateful smile before cutting into the cream cheese over red velvet cake.
"Excellent," Isaac said when he saw the red velvet on the inside, "Who's responsible for this cake which looks very home-made." The butter-knife ripples on the frosting and the shaky hand-written Congrats Isaac! gave it away.
"That would be me," the fourth member of the group, a pretty blonde named Claire Bennett said before extending her long delicate finger and scraping some frosting off of the side and sticking it into her glossed mouth, "Peter told me red velvet is your favorite." For a brief moment, Isaac felt a small flutter in his stomach.
"Ah, he's right, and this is perfect," Isaac said, shoving a spoonful of cake into his mouth. Peter glanced over at Simone who still seemed to be on the brink of bursting into tears. He quickly sliced a piece and handed it to her.
"Be cool," he said under his breath so that only Simone could hear. She looked up at him in surprise. Making sure Isaac was busy listening to Claire's chatter, Simone let out a sigh and looked at Peter.
"It's because of you, you know. I don't think he could have done it without you, Pete."
"And if you don't stop crying every time you see him, he's going to freak out. I know this has been hard on you, Sim, but you've got to keep it cool."
"You're always so concerned about him," Simone said, looking at Peter glassily. Peter shrugged good-naturedly.
"What can I say? I'm a public health major at NYU, so my aesthetic requires me to help out a heroin addict." He was absolutely joking, but Simone shot him a dirty look.
Their voices were low and almost inaudible over Claire's animated chatter about a cake batter incident that had occurred the night before. However, despite it all, Isaac heard them talking about him… worrying about him. He kept smiling at Claire, but inside he formed a solid resolve to keep the two of them from worrying about him again.
Later that night, Peter had retreated to his room and Claire had gone home for the night (but not before lamenting over the tragedy of curfew that came with still being in high school). Isaac sat very still, staring into the distance. Simone was lying across the sofa with her head in Isaac's lap. He absentmindedly began twirling his fingers through her merciless black curls. He didn't even notice her studying him.
"Isaac," Simone said.
"Hmm," Isaac replied, not looking down. Simone gently removed his hand from her hair and tried to hide the irritation as she moved her curls back into place.
"I'm glad you're doing okay," Simone began. Isaac suddenly picked up the uneven tone in her voice, and shifted his head until he met her determined gaze.
"Simone," he said with a question mark hanging at the end. This prompted her to get her head off his lap and sit up. She faced him completely and bit her lip.
"Isaac, I've watched you struggle for six months," she said, blinking back what Isaac could tell were big, fat, crocodile tears, "And I am ecstatic that you are sober and doing so well for yourself. When you started painting again, I cried for days."
"I remember," Isaac said, recalling the miserable period of time when every time he picked up a brush, Simone would start emulating a leaky faucet.
"Now that you're better…" Simone said, sounding unsure, "I was thinking we could move on to some other, er, issues." It was dark and the only light in the room was the dim lamp in the corner of the living room. It shined off of Simone's dark skin and gave her an eerie look of luminosity.
"Sim, whatever you're trying to say… just say it." Isaac had a feeling he knew what she was going to tell him, and he didn't know how he felt about it.
"We've been drifting apart for ages. I didn't want to say anything while you were in recovery, but I feel like now is a good time as any. Isaac, I want to break up."
There it was. Isaac waited for the relentless heartache. He had felt it so many times in college when Simone had threatened to leave him for his… habits. However, this time, he felt nothing. There was no grief and desperation eating up his heart. Instead he felt relief and resignation. This surprised him. He found Simone staring at him, waiting. She was, without a doubt, astoundingly beautiful. Her wild curly black hair rested perfectly on her willowy dark frame. At one point he had loved her, but not he felt nothing.
"I understand," Isaac said, "Thank you for being considerate." All the tension from Simone's face melted away and was replaced with relief.
"I still want to be around you… and Peter and Claire," Simone added, "I still care about all of you. You're my friends."
"Of course," Isaac said, "You're welcome here as always." Simone smiled and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. The familiar once-intoxicating smell of jasmine no longer held their former charm.
But when she was gone, and Isaac couldn't help but feel a certain emptiness in his heart.
"You're still up?" the voice startled Isaac, but he glanced to his side to see Peter standing at mouth of the stairs leading up to his floor. "I couldn't sleep either. Came down here for some late night Discovery Channel."
"Discovery Channel is just a lot of animal fornification. The Price Is Right reruns are on at this hour, and you're wrong if you think I'm not going to watch them," Isaac informed him. As they both argued over which channel to settle on for the night, Isaac didn't even notice, but the emptiness he had been feeling seemed to lighten and completely disappear.
Peter, as it turned out when he began his freshman year, was very bad at focusing. Growing up rich enough to attend alternative private schools where there were no grades and where everyone sat on bean bag chairs did not quite equip him for the handles of the real world. This is why he found himself poring over his books at the kitchen table on a saturday morning. The rustling and bustling in the kitchen was Simone, who had come over to help Peter focus and to keep rounds of coffee coming. She came out with two cups in hand to see Peter holding a pencil to his mouth with one hand and scratching his spiky brown hair with the other. She bit back a laugh at his puzzled expression.
"How many questions on the practice test have you answered?" she asked him. He looked up with alarm.
"None… I am still reading the instruction paragraph." He sounded so distressed that Simone didn't even crack a smile. She set down the coffee next to his books and spoke to him in a reassuring voice.
"Don't worry about over-analyzing the instructions, Pete, just move on to the questions." Peter sighed and put down the pencil and picked up his coffee.
"I heard you and Isaac split up on Wednesday," he said before taking a sip. Simone frowned at him before holding her own up up to her lips.
"Yeah, we did," she said, "Is he okay?"
"He's fine, but Jesus, Sim," Peter said incredulously, "When I said play it cool, I didn't mean actually ice him out."
"Peter Petrelli," she said angrily, "I was not acting on your instruction." Peter's hard olive-colored eyes softened.
"Are you okay?" he asked, "I know it's been hard having to tiptoe around him." Simone laughed with a hint of what seemed like bitterness to Peter.
"I have always been bending backwards for Isaac. I've never minded. I just think it's time for me to move on to a new chapter… maybe one that's not so complicated." Peter didn't like the way this conversation was going.
"The last few months have been difficult," Peter said with new vigor, "I've had to go out of my way a lot too. But a guy like Isaac… he's one of a kind, you know? He's the type to make sacrifices for." Simone laughed.
"The way you talk about him, Pete," she said with a chuckle, "It almost makes it sound like you… you…." Simone stopped suddenly, and she hard at Peter. He waited for her to continue, but when she didn't, he threw her a quizzical look.
"Peter, do you… are you in love with Isaac?"
A loud clatter across the kitchen table sent books, papers, and pencils flying everywhere. Simone had to grip onto her mug of scalding coffee to keep it from splashing as Peter launched himself across the table and held his hand to clamp her mouth. "Shut up, he's right down the hallway."
It was all the confirmation she needed.