2019-07-07 - The Night Isidore Disappeared

THE REEDE HOUSE
APRIL 2008

When it came to the social castes so predominant in every high school, Isabella Reede typically found herself somewhere in the center of an intangible venn diagram of otherwise disparate circles comprised of varying categories of people. While she couldn't have been said to be one of the popular kids, the kings and queens of those groups, she tended to get along with most of her classmates and the other students in Teddy S. Addington High; it was part and parcel of being a generally likable extrovert, though her competitive streak tended to rub others the wrong way on occasion. Despite this, she was fortunate enough to have met some very few exceptions, who thrived on the challenge she presented instead of being cowed or exasperated.

Byron Thorne was one of them; tall, gregarious and quick to smile in spite of a childhood that was fraught with dysfunction, he was both one of her very good friends and her most determined rival. She spent enough time with him that her twin brother had commented on it on occasion, though that was part of the game Isidore played with her also. She could never determine, regardless of how well she knew him - regardless of how emotionally, mentally, ephemerally connected they were - whether he was approving or envious of the interloper who managed to make a space for himself in their tight-knit circle of two.

"I think I'm gonna ask Ronnie to the prom," Isabella said, her green eyes on the television set in front of her, another episode of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown.

She felt Isidore pause from his careful manipulation of a set of blocks, working it in a pattern with just his mind. The spinning center of the wooden mandala he created in mid-air dropped in a dull thump on the carpet. His eyes, the only things that were identical about the two of them, fell upon the side of her face.

She found herself reaching out in an effort to grab some part of the hanging threads of emotion lingering in the mental space they shared, that they occupied within one another since they were born, in an effort to gauge his reaction; the most effective way, in the end, to breach the blast doors of his notorious poker face. She felt amusement, and something else that was difficult to define. Something that not many could understand.

"He's gonna give you so much shit," Sid declared in the end, after several heartbeats.

"I know," she replied, grinning over at him. "That's part of the fun."

"I'm sure you know that, but I dunno if you actually know how this works," her brother remarked, his amusement growing. "Isn't the guy supposed to ask?"

"Psh." Isabella waved a hand. "It's the twenty-first century, and when did you ever know me to follow by those rules?"

"Not a single god damn day. But I mean...you never know, right? If he asked, then you'd know he was also thinking of asking and if that happened, don't you think that means something?"

"Eh? Like what?"

"Oh, come on, Leela."

The sound of the familiar nickname, and one exclusively assigned for her twin's use, stemming from a time his two year old mouth couldn't pronounce her name correctly, had the profound effect of broadening her smile. Isabella tilted her head slightly, with that characteristic, innocent look that wouldn't fool a blind person within a mile of their house. "Anyway, if you think I'm gonna let him beat me to the punch at this, you've got another think coming. He's not gonna expect this at all, and that's almost worth the price of admission by itself."

Isidore's expression at that was both fond and exasperated all at once. "You say that now," he began, letting the blocks drop and stretching his arms above his head. "But wait until he finds out that you've never gone on an actual date in your life, and that you chose to pop that insidious little cherry with him."

"I will kill you if you say anything."

He laughed, his hands immediately catching the pillow she hurled in his direction. "Well, since you brought it up, I still need to decide who I'm asking."

"Just take your entire harem, go as a group."

"Look, I can't help it if girls want all of this."

"What, distressed t-shirts and jeans that barely fit?"

"Yeah, well, just let me know how your 'When Harry Met Sally' experiment works out."

Isabella laughed, whipping another pillow at him. "Ugh, I hate you."

This time, the soft, malleable object hit him in the face, though with no small measure of allowance on his part. Isidore returned his sister's earlier innocent look, though upon his features, it stood a chance at being more convincing than her own. "You love me."

"I do." This said unabashedly, and with no hesitation at all - a rarity from a young woman who tended to shy away from softer emotions. Isabella had many rules; all the usual intricacies and foibles expected in a teenaged girl, codified in a dizzying array of personal algorithms designed to befuddle and confuse. Isidore, however, remained one of the very few exceptions to all of them, and the only one who could be counted on to interpret them correctly.

And he knew it. The smile he gave her after that straightforward declaration reflected much of the gentleness and affection that made him so popular with the girls, and some boys, in their school.

"You know me," he said, unrepentantly stating one of the most irrefutable facts of their universe, taking a small, brightly wrapped box and tossing it at her direction. He watched expectantly as his infinitely more physically capable sister caught the belated birthday gift within her fingers, and turned it carefully in her hands.

"I may love many, spend time with many, but I'll never love anyone the way I love you."

The moonstone pendant swung freely against her clavicle, its cold, white gold setting brushing against the neckline of her tanktop as she finally reached for the cordless phone in their kitchen. The green-eyed girl frowned, staring at the numbers on the keypad, so intently that the digits and their corresponding letters started to blur in her vision. Truthfully, she expected the crap the moment she asked, she expected the mutual laughter that was bound to follow, but her twin's remembered words slipped through her mind, leaving a dent on her usual brassy confidence. After all, what if he was right? What if he was right about all of it?

What if he knew what she really intended? What she was trying to say without saying anything at all? That ultimately, with their graduation looming so close, she intended to fly as far away from Gray Harbor as she possibly could. That she wasn't sure if she would ever return, or where her life was going to lead her, and that all that she was certain of was that she didn't want to leave with any regrets.

That all that she might want, before doing everything she could to forget this place forever, was to dance with a boy that she liked before embarking on her next adventure.

"Ugh. You're overthinking it," Isabella said out loud, determinedly punching in Byron's phone number. "Seriously, why does it always have to be a-- "

The sense of something dangerous and wrong suddenly crashed over her, akin to a wall of water descending upon her from the ceiling and drowning her in the sensation. Pins and needles pushed deep from underneath her skin, spears of ice and fire climbing up her spine. She gasped, convulsing fingers dropping the phone, dimly hearing the other side of it ring as she tilted to one side, and saved herself from falling in the last minute by clutching at the end of the counter. Her heart jumped to her throat, her blood rushing a dull roar in her ears.

Sid.

She pushed herself forward and took up a dead run. She practically flew out of the doorway leading into the kitchen, through the narrow hallway, passing the closet and vaulted up the stairway leading to the second floor landing of their family home.

I'm sorry, Leela. Isidore's projected thought slipped through her, a whisper barely heard, and her heart sank. He sounded so far away.

Don't you fucking dare!

Desperation flooded her every nerve, bled into every cell. Her footsteps pounded over the landing, practically throwing herself against the door leading into her brother's bedroom. She tried the knob and twisted it, to no avail.

"Sid!" she cried, rattling screw and steel, eyes burning with traitorous moisture as she battered at the lock. "No! NO! Not without me, god damn it! You promised...you promised!"

The sensation of her brother fading on the other side of the door, just beyond her grasp, beyond her intervention, spurred her to reel backwards, bracing herself against the railing before launching herself bodily off it. Her shoulder slammed against the wooden appendage with bruising, jarring force, gritting her teeth as she forced herself to endure it. Pain ricocheted through her, ripping through muscle and bone, and gradually pooling into the mental space that Isidore had always occupied within her - a presence that was dwindling by the second.

Twice. Three times. She felt her ball joint snap from her shoulder, its ligaments tender and torn. She grew brighter as she screamed, and drove herself right into the cracks that appeared upon the surface.

The door gave way in the middle; a shower of splinters that pricked her skin and cut her cheek.

Unable to stop her momentum, Isabella fell right into her twin's vacant bedroom, its four corners filled with nothing but the painful lack of him.