all of these possibilities for my life. Going with Tyler and getting a new identity would also solve another pressing problem of mine.
There are bad men looking for me for what my mother did and were I to simply vanish and become someone else, they would probably never be able to find me again.
Then again, neither will my mother.
Something tickles the back of my throat and I feel myself choking up. I don't like thinking about her or talking about her, mainly because it's too painful.
There was a time when she was a real mom, sort of, but then she got into drugs and her addiction got the best of her.
I stopped being able to trust anything that she promised or believe anything that she said.
Then she disappeared.
I was already out of college and living on my own, sending her money occasionally, which was probably a big mistake. We usually talked every few days and then suddenly she stopped returning my calls.
That was very unlike her because I was her lifeline. I was the person that she could always come stay with or turn to for some money. She never called me back.
A few days later, when I went to her apartment, she wasn't there either. There was an eviction notice on her door. I called the police and made a report, but they put in the minimal effort to find her.
They told me that adults can go away anytime. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone.
When they heard about the drug problems, they wrote it off entirely.
Knowing that I wasn't getting anywhere with the cops, I hired a private detective, but he also came up short.
How do you find someone with no credit history and who pays for everything in cash? The answer is it's really fucking hard.
Well, after that, all I could do was worry. I became an insomniac.
I would walk the streets of Cheswick and talk to every junkie and drug dealer that I saw, showing a picture of my mother.
I started showing up late to work and I almost got fired. Then I gave up. I hate to say it so bluntly, but that's exactly what happened.
I just couldn't deal with not knowing where she was and I decided that she just didn't want to be found.
Two weeks later, I got a call from the men she owed the hundred thousand dollars to. I knew that she gambled, but I had no idea that she had such a big debt.
They wanted me to pay them back the money, in exchange for her. I didn't have the money and didn't have any way of getting it. They kept calling and I kept stalling.
Then Tyler showed up and things got a lot more complicated.
I lift up my head and look into Tyler's eyes. He smiles at me and I smile back.
“I love you,” he says. “I think I always have.”
“I love you, too,” I whisper.
13
Isabelle
We spend the rest of the day hanging out, laughing, reading, and watching television. It feels so good to just be a normal couple after all this time.
It starts to feel like we might actually belong together. I have my doubts, not so much about Tyler, but about everything that we are going through.
Then there are moments like this, sitting here in his arms on the couch, when it all feels very right.
When I get up to make dinner, he stops me and says that there's something that he wants to do for me.
I don't protest. I'm not much of a cook. He makes a vegetable stir-fry with a caprese salad.
I bought a few bottles of white wine and he pours us two glasses.
“This feels like a real date now,” I say.
“One of these days, I’m going to take you on a real date.”
“Where would that be?” I ask.
“We can fly to Paris, have dinner at one of those little restaurants that serve exquisite food, right along the Seine. If you want to go to Paris, we can stay somewhere more local. Take a sailboat out from Marina del Rey and set sail. It might get windy and cold, but I’ll pack extra blankets for you to cuddle up with.”
“That sounds… Great.”
“I just really wish that we had met earlier,” Tyler says. “I left you back in middle school, even though I didn't feel it or understand it. I kept thinking back to you, comparing other women to you, through my life.”
“That's not really good,” I point out.
“I know. It's cruel, unkind, and