This was it. The moment of truth, if you will. Isaac was going to spill, like night-time vomit from a pregnant cancer patient.
"Yes, I did go to Gus'."
"Did you happen to… drop anything while you were there? And what were you doing there anyway?" Kaitlyn pressed.
Instead of focusing on Isaac's answers to Kaitlyn's questions, my mind wandered about all the wrong things. Like how Isaac is supposedly in love with Monica now, and how I'm supposed to take care of a baby, another human being, when I can barely take care of myself. And without Isaac's help, since he'll be spending all of his time with Monica. It was all too much.
I looked down and spotted tubes in my vision, then remembered what makes my situation so much more complicated. I was so used to embracing the cancer; accepting my impending doom. But then, I had something to live for. I had a baby inside of me that needed to live. I had a mystery to solve. What am I supposed to do? I thought to myself.
Nobody talked while I was thinking, and I almost thought I was thinking aloud.
Finally, Isaac said something.
"Well… okay. I went to Gus' house to see if he had anything I could read or remember him by, and Monica's phone number might've slipped out of my pocket. So I went to Augustus' house. So I have some feelings. Is that a crime? And I might've dropped Monica's number by accident."
At that moment, I felt worse than I already did. And confused. Very confused. So I decided to speak up.
"Did you find anything at his house? Anything that maybe, I can read?" I asked.
He scratched his head, not in that creepy and insane way. It was more natural this time, as if the normal Isaac had returned.
I looked over at Kaitlyn, who seemed to be analyzing every detail of him, as if he was this big jerk, like I basically told her that he was. But there was something innocent and sweet about Isaac, so I could never completely hate him.
"No, I didn't find anything else." He replied in the calmest tone I'd heard him use all afternoon. I sighed and sat back, knowing that I could trust him. Pictures of Gus' face started creeping into my head, and I began to feel that horrible feeling again.
At that moment, Isaac smiled suddenly, and it shocked me. He was probably trying to change the melancholic air to the room. Isaac like never smiled. Ever since he became blind, he hadn't smiled at all. His smile was so odd, that I just had to smile back, even though he couldn't see it.
I laughed, like Isaac often caused me to do. Then I remembered what it was like to be in love with him. I never thought I could love again, but Isaac made it so easy. Okay, so maybe I love Isaac. Like really love him. But there's stupid Monica in the way.
"How's Monica?" I asked, bringing up the topic casually.
"Oh, she's great."
Great.
He must've noticed me slump a little at his words, because what he said after, blew the tubes right out of my nostrils.
"I can't do this anymore." – he paused – "You are much greater than Monica will ever be. You see, I need someone who not only loves me, but challenges me on an intellectual level. And Monica just doesn't do any of those things. She came to me to ask me if I would be her boyfriend again, I said no, but I told you that I said yes just to make you jealous."
He paused to smirk at me, and I laughed some more.
"So… Monica kept getting into my head and hurting me. I'm done with that. I want to be with someone that I can actually have a normal conversation with." He said.
I didn't even have to look at Kaitlyn to know that she was doing her 'aw' face at me.
Isaac rubbed his hands on his pants.
"Um, I'm not very good with words, sorry." He paused to think before continuing. "We need each other, and together, wait no, sorry."
Watching Isaac stumble seemed to crack me up, even though it shouldn't have been. I was about to tell him that I accepted whatever he was trying to say, but then he tried again when I opened my mouth.
"Okay, I got it. What I'm trying to say is that… when I'm with you, I feel like a whole new person and being blind doesn't seem to matter. I can't see you physically, but I can feel your presence when you're here. I can feel that cool Hazel-like aura and it makes me feel good. I want you to always be there. Always. Do you get what I'm saying?"
"I think I see what you're getting at here." I said. In reality, I didn't really understand.
He grinned again before continuing. He must've been really nervous to be smiling so much.
"This probably makes no sense, but, I'm going to try and be smart here and propose that maybe alright can be our okay?" he asked.
Okay was like my always with Gus. If I were to have an always with Isaac, that would be like a repetition of my old relationship, would it not? No. I believe it would have a different meaning now that it's being used with a different person. The idea was quite clever.
"I'd like that." I said through a smile.
Someone cleared their throat beside me, and I forgot that Kaitlyn was there for a moment.
"I am so lost. Can someone please fill me in? And what's with all this smiling?" she asked.
This time, Isaac and I laughed together.
I looked at him and instantly saw his genuine beauty, when he wasn't even trying to look good today. That's when I knew how much I truly loved him. I always wanted him around, because he possessed these magical Isaac powers. He could make a broken cancer-patient light-hearted. And it was true – what he said; we needed each other.
Thank you, Isaac, for being there for me when others couldn't. That's what I wanted to tell him. But instead, I decided to communicate my thoughts through an embrace. I stood to hug him, and felt his warmth surround me.
In a voice that only I could hear, yet not a whisper, he said, "Alright,"
I loved how different our relationship was from others. It was one too deep for anyone else to understand. It was just Isaac and I, at the very bottom of the deep end, while the rest were at the shallow end. They could only dream of a relationship like this, because to them, love doesn't really exist.
But us down here, we know what love is. We feel it all the time.
"Alright." I whispered back.
This wasn't the end. More like the beginning of the beginning, beginning with a promise.
I thought about our word; Alright. To my knowledge, our alright meant that we would try to stay forever content, that we would hope to be forever in love, and that we would dream to be forever infinite.
