Page 32 of Nights Without Night
“Isa?” I say softly, knocking on his door. As expected, he doesn’t reply. I wait a few extra seconds. “I’m sorry about what happened. About what I did, I shouldn’t have…I’m sorry,” I say. I wait.
Nothing.
“I’m going to come in, okay? Just for a second.” I wait to see if there’s any protest. More silence.
I push the handle down as I lean against the door and—a click. The door doesn’t budge. I try again. Another click. I stare at the handle, dumbfounded.
The door is locked.
It never occurred to me beyond the first time that Isadoro would lock the door. I try it again. Same result.
“Isa. Isadoro. Open the door. Please,” I say. Wait. Nothing.
“Isadoro,” I repeat. Something is crawling up my throat. There’s a band tightening around my chest.
This I can’t take. This one final brick in the wall between us, this one final locked door. I, I—
I rattle the handle, pushing against the door.
“Isadoro, open up!” My head is filled with the rush of my blood. There’s something wrong with my throat and my lungs. Air will go out but not in, body clenching at each intake. I bang on the door.
I need it to open.I need it to open.
“Isa, please. Please,please,” I say, and I can’t take it. I can’t breathe, I can’t do it. Everything is so much all at once, all the shadows all around, the dishes in the sink and the unused easel in the corner and the silence, thesilence, it’s clogging the back of my throat, my hands are shaking, flapping. I press my back against the wall but it’s not holding me up and I can’t breathe. I’m crying, my tongue pasty and thick, my ribs jumping, my eyes blurred and sightless. All the air is jammed in my throat at once so that I can’t, Ican’t—
The door opens. I’m on the floor, somehow. I look up.
“Isadoro,” I say, his name scrambled by my defective body.
“Hey. Hey, hey,” he says, and then he’s around me, touching me, his arms and his hands and then his chest as he hauls me to my feet and against him. My arms wind around his neck at once, clinging to him. My chest is convulsing in big, awful sobs as I bury my face into his neck.
“Please, please,” I say, even though I don’t know what I’m asking for anymore. Isadoro shushes me gently, holding me close as he strokes my back.
“It’s okay. It’s open. It’s okay. Breathe, okay? Breathe,” he says.
I try, but I can’t quite get there.
Everything is a haze. When I calm down from gasping to stuttering breaths, Isadoro makes to pull away. I cry out, holding fast.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he says and pulls me with him. He manoeuvres us to the bed and we lie down. The sheets smell bad. So does he. I hold him close.
We stay there in that dark pit.
*****
I wake up in the faint glow of a lamp. My eyes feel grainy, my mouth pasty, my throat raw. I blink. I’m still tangled in Isadoro, facing each other. He’s looking back at me with tired eyes. His beard has grown even longer. I rub my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
“Water?” I ask. Isadoro passes me a bottle from under the bed. I take a long swallow, swishing the water around in my mouth to try and get rid of the taste. When I’m done, I hand the bottle back to him and we settle down again.
“I’m sorry,” I say after a moment.
“You already apologized. It’s fine.”
“No, not about the whole water thing, although I’m sorry about that too. I’m sorry about the whole…freaking out thing,” I say. Isadoro frowns, as if not understanding the apology. “I shouldn’t, I know I shouldn’t be putting anything else on you.”
He looks at me. “Why?”
“I know…that you’ve been through a lot and, coming back, it’s a big change and I shouldn’t be adding to that. I should be-”
