It is two weeks later, and today is the day that Isaac is leaving the nest, the day he leaves this small town goodbye and says hello to the small city. He wants to be excited, he kind of is excited, but there's still that ache in his heart and the small feeling of regret, of something left unsaid.
He has held out hope somehow that Liam might appear out of nowhere and try to tell him whatever it is that he's been trying to say all this time. Isaac figures that it's ironic that now that Isaac is finally ready to listen, Liam is nowhere to be seen. He's aware it's his own stupid fault, that he should have been listening all this time.
The truth is that Isaac was so blindsided by what he had to lose that he didn't stop to see he what he could gain. He knows he's not unique in this, knows that plenty of experiments have shown that humans avoid loss more than they try to gain, that people prefer to stick to the status quo as long as they don't risk losing what they already have, even if there's a chance something better might be waiting. It doesn't make the feeling any better though, Isaac still feels like an idiot, his heart still feels broken, and Liam is still nowhere to be seen.
The bags are all packed, taking up so much space in the front room that the twins have taken to treating it like their own personal fort and sometimes it takes him a good few minutes to find them hidden among the mass of everything.
It feels exciting, sort of. His entire world feels kind of wonky, pushed off its axis, tilting at an angle it's not meant to tilt. Because he's excited, he really is, university feels like a whole new adventure and after this summer ISaac feels prepared for those. But every moment he feels excited, Isaac also feels this small niggling feeling at the back of his brain, the feeling that everything is not quite how it is meant to be, there are people who should have been by his side that aren't, and there are words left unspoken that keep catching in his throat and threatening to make him choke.
So Isaac is excited. But he's also kind of sad.
Daniel seems to know the whole story, Isaac can only assume that Liam told Jonah, who of course told Daniel, and so there two lives are still inextricably linked and Isaac doesn't quite see a way of stopping that. It's clear that Daniel and Jonah think he's an idiot, and Isaac is inclined to agree. It's clear they think the two of them just need to talk, and despite the fact that he does not want to, Isaac knows they're probably right.
He considers himself an expert at avoiding conversations, he wants to say it's because of the way he grew up, how Gideon's name was only ever said as a silent whisper. And that's maybe true, but it's not the entire story. The entire story is that Isaac is scared, he's scared that he'll lose a friend, he's scared that he'll lose a lover, he's scared that he'll lose Liam.
Sometimes fear is a far stronger drug than anyone can imagine.
So Isaac has continued to wallow, has continued to wonder what exactly Liam might have said if Isaac had allowed him to voice his thoughts. He thinks he can piece most of it together, you don't just kiss someone for no reason after all. And from the way Daniel keeps prodding him, as if Isaac is going to spill a story about some great big romantic adventure, he can see that while he's not convinced Liam has told them the whole story, he's told them enough of it, and what he's told them is what Isaac feels like he's always wanted to hear.
Isaac reckons that most people probably grow up dreaming of princes and princesses. Of wanting to someone to fall in love with you, with the way you talk, the way you laugh, the way you dream. Isaac used to want someone to love him so much that they'd share stories about him, that his name would constantly be on the tip of their tongue. He wanted the stort of love that feels like a fairytale, some epic story of falling in love with all the trappings of a popular novel or a hallmark movie. Isaac just wanted someone to love him so much that they feel like they had to share it with the world.
And now Liam is sharing stories about them but it's all wrong, because the ending hasn't quite worked out the way Isaac wanted it to, and Isaac knows it's all his fault.
"I'm going for a walk," Isaac shouts.
He doesn't wait for a reply, he pulls a jacket on and heads out of the door. Deep down he knows where he's heading but he refused to acknowledge it, instead his feet move as if on autopilot, his brain overflowing with too mant other things for him to focus on such a basic think like walking.
His brain is a mess of what ifs and realities. He can't help but wonder at which point he truly fucked up, whether the right point to talk about what they were was after the first kiss, or the second, or maybe before they'd even kissed at all? He wonders if they were even a something before this kiss, tries to figure out when exactly he started liking Liam, and why exactly he refused to let himself acknowledge it. Okay the second part is easy, he didn't want to lost a friendship, didn't want to mess up the group dynamic that they'd found, the fear of losing was far greater than the wonder at the potential gain.
When he started liking Liam is a more complex thing though. Isaac doesn't think he's ever been in love before, but he always imagined it would feel a little like being hit by a truck. He imagined that suddenly one day it would happen, and he'd realise, or he thought maybe he'd be a victim of love at first sight, that he'd see a person and just know.
Instead Isaac is realising that love is something that slowly builds. That it's a series of small events, all of them seeming insignificant until you look at the sum of it all. Not one single moment making it happen, but suddenly its 7pm on a Thursday night and you look across at the other person and it's like the words won't stay in your mouth any longer, it's suddenly the only words you can think to say, and trying to keep them inside is a constant struggle they're so desperate to escape. It's not anything special about that moment, the love has been building all this time, but suddenly you're at capacity and the love has to spill out.
Love isn't a noun, it's a verb. And Isaac is realising that's true. Maybe he never realised he loved Liam, but there's something loving about driving god knows where late at night when you have no idea what's going on. There's something about love in trying to make someone smile when everything seems hopeless.
Isaac doesn't want to say he's in love with Liam, but it's there, lurking, beneath the surface, on the tip of his tongue. So many small moments adding up to make it hard to deny.
Isaac realises that all those rom-coms he watched (because his mum consumes them like comfort food and Isaac can't resist a good friends to lovers story) have poorly equipped him from the world. Love is not some grand gesture at the end of a period. It's not easy and it's not obvious, it sneaks up on you and surprises you when you least expect it, perhaps for the person you're least expecting.
Love is a bastard for whom there are no words to explain. It defies logic, defies reason, defies any kind of rules you might try to impose.
You don't control love. It controls you.
Isaac wonders if this whole thing is hopeless, if maybe everything is already beyond the point of repair. He wonders if there's an obvious moment where he's supposed to give up on something, that maybe if he can't handle a basic conversation about his feelings, then he can't really handle a relationship. But at least Isaac knows now that talking is good.
Talking always seems to be something they're lacking in the movies. When he's watching them Isaac wants to scream at the characters that everything would be fine if they would just communciate. Now it's him and he realises that a small voice in his brain has been screaming all along.
Isaac has no idea what has happened this summer, has no idea how his brain and his body co-exist anymore. He wonders how you can go from feeling like you know exactly what you want from life, knowing exactly who you are, who you need, to this strange space. Isaac feels like certainty is evading him, all of those things that seemed so constant seem to be disappearing. Liam has gone from his life and soon Daniel and Jonah will follow as they all spread their wings, head their separate waves, scattered like seeds to different corners of the country. Isaac wonders if the tethers that bind them are good enough to stay strong, he supposes he just has to pray that they are.
He wonders if it is possible to have a mid-life crisis at 18, but then that thought feels rather morbid and so he decides to hope it's a quarter-life crisis instead. He can't decide if this is just his life falling apart, or if this it to be expected, if this is maybe what growing up really is. Realising that you didn't know yourself half as well as you thought you did, and being forced to confront that you don't know everything.
Isaac is realising now that his idea of a good idea is actually quite a bad one. He thought ignoring the need for a conversation was a good idea, thought it would make everything easier if they just kissed and then never spoke about it again. Isaac has never felt like a bigger fucking idiot.
Of course he can never know for certain exactly how it would have worked out if he hadn't been so dumb, but he figures that anything has to be better than this. He knows that no matter what, in that alternative universe where he actually possessed more than a single brain cell he wouldn't be pacing frantically. His stare is fixed on the ground and Isaac is just trusting his feet to carry him.
Walking has always been a form of solace for Isaac, a way to get his thoughts to flow through his mind more easily. Back when Gideon was alive the two of them used to go for walks together all the time, Isaac used to always think it was because there was hardly anything better for them to do. Now he realises how much he appreciated those walks, on those walks the age gap between the two of them felt much smaller, Gideon used to share everything that was going on in his life, even the minute details he didn't bother to tell anyone else, even the embarassing details he didn't want to tell anyone else. Isaac used to confess to his older brother about his stupid crushes, his embarassing dreams, and it felt good to be able to talk to someone. Those walks sometimes felt like the only time the two of them were completely at ease and completely themselves.
Even when Gideon was gone, and even when they moved away from somewhere where walking out of the door opened up a whole new world, Isaac carried on walking. His dad always used to joke that he could tell when Isaac was worried about something because he'd see him out the window walking laps of the estate. Supposedly if you stared closely you could see where the pavement had worn away from all of Isaac's pacing.
The point is that Isaac thinks better when he's walking, he can't really explain why. He thinks that in some ways it helps his brain that his limbs can do it so easily, he doesn't need to think about what his body is doing, it's on autopilot, and so it leaves his mind free to keep whirring and thinking and trying to figure out whatever the problem is.
The thing is that Isaac usually finds himself walking away from his problems, this feels like the first time he's ever been walking towards them. It's unusual and it's foreign and while Isaac's not certain that it is a good idea, he is pretty sure that it is not a bad one.
Liam's street looks much like it did the other day, even when he was mad at Liam Isaac still hasn't forgotten the route to get here. It's something his brain does when it thinks somewhere might be important, Isaac couldn't point out the route on a map, but each turning has a tug of familiarity and somehow he finds himself arriving somewhere he never in a million years imagined that he'd be able to find.
Isaac recognises the front door, it's hard not to. Painted a shade of powder blue it stands out from every other door on the street. It somehow seems exactly like the sort of house Isaac should have pictured Liam living in. The front garden is neatly maintained, bright flowers lined in borders making everthing seem warmer. The flowers remind Isaac of summer in the same way that Liam reminds Isaac of the sun.
He takes slow steps closer to the house, and suddenly the walking isn't easy anymore. He is having to remind himself to just keep on placing one foot in front of the other. Something that felt so natural moments before now feels as if it's the hardest task in the world. And because it's so hard Isaac can't seem to think of anything else, like what he might say when he knocks on the door, or even what kind of resolution he might be hoping for.
Isaac knows that this is not a romance movie. That is is not going to knock on the door and Liam will ravish him with a kiss, but even a hope that unrealistic is somewhat hard to distinguish.
Slowly, Isaac raises his hand and knows. He holds his breath, racks his brain for words, any words, literally any single sentence that makes some sort of sense.
Time seems to drag by, seconds stretching into minutes before Isaac's very eyes.
Eventually, the door opens.
"Isaac?"