California. Staying at the Motel 6 down by 111.”
I drop my phone and scramble to pick it up. When I finally get back on the line, he has already hung up.
27
Isabelle
When I go back…
I don't want to go back to the motel. I don't want to see Tyler.
All I want to do is get into the car and drive as far away from here as possible, but I can't.
Tyler is in danger and despite everything that has happened, I owe him an explanation.
When I get back to the room, I have to knock a few times before he opens the door.
“You didn't have to leave like that,” he says, clearly angry.
“I need to talk to you,” I say quietly.
I put all my stuff on the other bed and sit down on the one that he has been lying on. Then I burst out crying.
The tears just flow out and I can't make them stop. I cry until my eyes get so puffy that it hurts to even rub them.
I cry until it feels like there are little razor blades pushing on my eyelids. I'm not just crying over all of the secrets that I have kept and all of the lies that I have told.
It's more than that or partly, it’s less than that.
Have you ever experienced that feeling of exhaustion when you’ve just reached your breaking point?
I haven't slept well in days and I'm the type of person who needs deep, quiet sleep.
I miss my home and I miss my students.
I miss just going through my day without a worry in the world.
“I'm not cut out for this,” I say quietly, wiping away tears as more and more come.
It hasn't even been that many days and I feel like I'm breaking.
“I'm really sorry,” Tyler says, draping his arm over my shoulder. “We should've never done this. I love you, but you deserve so much more than this life on the road that's going nowhere.”
“It's not just that,” I say quietly. “I've been keeping some secrets from you and you deserve to know the truth.”
He gives me a slight nod and waits for me to continue.
“I didn't just come with you out of the goodness of my heart. It's not that I don't love you, I do, but I also came here to get away. I thought that maybe they would stop bothering me if I wasn't there anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks calmly.
He's no longer absent or far away like he was earlier.
He's here with me.
Present.
Concerned.
Willing to help.
“Once you told me about Tessa, I thought that maybe I would have a way out of this mess.”
I dry the last of my tears and move slightly away from him on the bed to face him.
“My mother owes a lot of money to some mafia guys. We haven't been in touch at all for the last couple of years, but she got addicted to painkillers and I knew that she’d gotten involved in selling drugs as well. Then she disappeared.”
“Did you think that something had happened to her?”
“At first, I thought maybe, she does have this habit of ghosting me, not calling me back for days and weeks. So, I didn't think much of it. Then this guy started contacting me about paying her debt. I thought it was a joke, but then they kept pressuring me and insisting that I owed them $100,000. I had nothing close to that and I have no idea why I was expected to pay that in the first place. I ignored their calls and then they showed up at my door. I changed my number but the calls kept coming. I saw them as empty threats at first but after a while, it didn't seem to be that way anymore.”
“Is that why you ran away?” Tyler asks.
I nod and say, “I should've known better. They found me here. They called me and said that I have until Monday to pay or they're going to really hurt me.”
“Have they said that before?” he asks.
“It's different this time,” I say.
“How?”
This is the part that I have been dreading to tell him about. I lick my lips and look down at my ragged fingernails. I've been pretty good about not biting them for a while and then today, I just couldn't stop myself.
“They know about you,” I say, looking straight into his eyes. I want this part to be untrue as much as possible, but he needs to know exactly what's going on.
“What are you