AN: I'm posting early because I'm predicting a horrible week and I'd like to make sure the week's posts go up.
Unbroken
Isabel's dorm is empty when I walk in. It's like a ghost town. All the evidence that once it was bustling all the time with none of the people to show for it. I climb up to the top floor. I'm glad I didn't help her move in but knowing the Evans, there was a moving company to do all the heavy lifting. When I look out of the common room window, I know why Isabel insisted. It does have a view. My bike looks like a tricycle from so high up. I turn to find her room when I bump into this tiny girl. She's barely five feet but from her face, I know she's older than I am. "Sorry."
"Watch where you're going." She bites out and makes for the stairwell.
Isabel's dorm is in a corner. She has windows on two walls. It's obvious her roommate is a pushover because the entire room screams Isabel. I make myself comfortable on the bed clearly marked by Isabel and I wait. Her books are stacked neatly on the desk with post-its on the sides to declare what needed to be done with each. She has a picture of the three of us on the desk. We were kids in that picture. Max, Isabel and I at age 12. All three of us awkward with our growing limbs, with Isabel's chest still flat. Before puberty declared that she was to be a bombshell and Max was to get so devastatingly handsome and before I would shoot up seven inches that following summer.
"Oh God! There you go being all nostalgic." Isabel's voice fills the room and then so does she. Thinner, still, than she was at Christmas.
"You're taking care of yourself." It was more a question.
"I am." She frowns at me. "What?"
"Nothing." I stand and hug her tightly. She hugs me back just as tightly.
"I miss you, Michael. I don't have anyone to state obvious things in an obnoxious way and it makes life incredibly boring."
"Glad to see I'm needed." I kiss her forehead and reclaim my spot on her bed. "All alone?"
"Practically everyone leaves for break but I'm not ready to do that. Maybe next year." She nods. "How's everyone?"
"Max and Liz are getting better."
"Better?" She frowns at me. She's out of the loop. I forget that.
"Liz was torn up, you know? She made herself sick. She and Max had it out the other day. Things are getting better."
"Oh." She says and sits at her desk. "But… they're going to be okay?"
"Yeah. Liz is getting help. I'm helping. Max is understanding… but you know he'll watch her like a hawk now."
"Of course." She wipes at her eyes and I frown. She doesn't say anything but I can see there is something on her mind. "What? God! You're staring."
"You good look."
"That's not what you were thinking." She accuses and gets up to put away some laundry.
"What's going on?"
"Trisha hates me." She shook her head. "Jamie was a safe guy. I broke it off with him when I decided that I wanted what you and Max and Liz have. Jamie would have never gone for it. Chris might have but Trisha scared him off. I was so angry with her. She gave me an ultimatum."
"Shit." I breathe.
"Yeah. Either I come out of the closet or we're through." Isabel's eyes fill with tears. "I told her that I'm not in a closet and she walked away."
"Iz, I'm sorry."
"So, now I'm alone and I miss her." She rushes into my arms and I let her cry it out. We laid there forever, thinking to ourselves. When my stomach growls and I still don't say anything she laughs. "You never used to be like this."
"Like what?"
"Patient. Quietly understanding. Ignoring your food schedule to comfort me." Isabel sits up and kisses me lightly on the lips. "Thank you. I'm glad you came." She stares down at me for a moment. "I know the best place to feed you. Great burgers, almost as good as the Crashdown."
"Only I don't have to cook. Yes!"
"You cook?" She tilts her head at me.
"I do work in a greasy spoon."
"But at home?"
"Yeah."
"Huh."
--
The next two hours just flew by while I ate a lot and Isabel ate daintily and jabbered on and on about her life in California. She's alive, so much more so than I've ever seen her. Even at Christmas when all her plans are falling into place she doesn’t look so alive. Then I find the pattern. She has the most fun with Trisha. It's as we're leaving the greasy spoon and heading back to her dorm that it comes together.
"Then this guy walks in and nearly runs Trisha over. She lets him have it. "Just cause I'm short doesn't mean I don't matter! Why don't you watch where you're going?" I swear, she was about to punch him." Isabel's smile freezes when I touch her arm. "What?"
"Trisha's short?" I raise my hand to indicate how tall I meant. She nods. "Black hair. Like pitch black. Attitude up the ying-yang. About 25?"
"Yeah." She blinks at me. "That's her."
"I ran into her, literally on my way to your room today."
"Where?"
"On your floor in the common room."
"Today?"
"No, the last time I came to visit you."
"Are you sure?" She starts rifling through her purse and pulls out a picture of the little girl who had wanted to tear me a new one for daring to bump into her.
"That's the one."
She sags against a wall.
"How long has it been?"
"A week. An agonizing week."
"Go find her. I'll just chill in your room for a bit."
"I can't just go find her." Isabel groans and starts walking again. "Just cause she was on my floor doesn't mean she was in my room. It doesn't mean anything. How am I supposed to say I know she came by?"
"Just tell her someone saw her passing by and mentioned it to you. You thought maybe you should check in and see how she's doing… because you're not doing so great."
"I can't say that." Isabel scoffs but then all the façade fades away. The Roswell face comes off and the real Isabel shows through. "Could I?"
"Go. Talk to her." I kick at the sidewalk. "I need to check in."
"Are you on a leash?" She teases me.
"I'm respectful of my significant others." She nods to me and disappears into the night and I'm left alone to climb to the tower Isabel lives in. Seeing the torture Isabel puts herself through with people who don't even know she's an alien, I can appreciate my situation a bit more. Max, Liz and I work. Not well, but we work. We need a little fixing from time to time but for the most part, we are unbroken.
As I lay in Isabel's roommate's bed, I realize how much I miss them already. Even with how tense things were when we left. I have a hard time falling asleep because there's too much bed just for me. Max isn't there to heat up the bed, Liz isn't there to fall asleep on top of me. The feather pillows and down comforter just aren't going to cut it. Somehow I do sleep and when I wake up, there's food.
I'm barely able to sit up and take the plate Isabel is holding before she lets loose a string of events that we're going to do. She's taking me sightseeing even though she knows I hate that stuff. I'm a little grateful when she goes to shower. I'm less grateful when my breakfast is interrupted by a five-foot-nothing pissed off lesbian.
"Where do you get off?" She yells at me.
"What?"
"You think you can just waltz in here and take my girl?"
"What?" It's too early in the morning for this shit.
"Isabel is mine." That's it.
"Isabel is not property." I tell her. "If Isabel wants to have a guest, that's Isabel's business. Not Trisha's. I'm Michael by the way."
"Look. I know she's confused or whatever but I love her. I will fight to the death for her."
"Shut up." I set down my eggs and whatever else Isabel gave me and turn to the little spitfire. "First off. Do not interrupt my feeding time. Second. Isabel is not your property. Third. Isabel is not confused. Fourth. If you don't learn to accept Isabel for who she is, you will lose her. Fifth… I forget but I'm not fucking Isabel so you can just shove it."
I go back to my breakfast and Trisha just stands there, dumbfounded. When I'm through, I hold out my hand. "Michael Guerin, I'm Isabel's friend since birth. I'm also sometimes screwing her brother and his girlfriend."
"Trisha McDaniel, I'm sometimes Isabel's girlfriend."
"So, I've heard." I motion for her to take a seat. "Her brother does not know all that goes on here but I do. Isabel talks to me. I need for you to understand something. Isabel is not like other girls."
"I know that."
"No, you don't or you wouldn't be trying to force her into the mold of something else." I don't want for Isabel to be hurt but I don't know how to explain things. "You're how old?"
"26."
"You've been out…"
"Eight years."
"So, you know that you are in fact, a lesbian. You don't have any desires for men."
"I am and I don't."
"Things aren't that easy for Isabel. I'm sure she's tried to explain but I don't think you're getting it because she cries when she talks to me." I watch that delicate face thinking and I know there something else going on. "It's like being a hermaphrodite without the benefit of dual sex organs. The urges to copulate with both sexes is overwhelming and it feels right. It's not just physical. It's spiritual and to my knowledge, Isabel has not had sex with a man but she wants to. She needs to."
"She can't have both."
"Maybe not with you. It will break her heart but she had to do what she feels is right. She needs a man and woman who are willing to take her for who she is. She has enough heart for the world and she wants to share it with two people. Two people who will love her enough to see what agony she goes through. Do you love her enough to allow a man into your life?"
"What?" Trisha sits back as if I had just slapped her.
"I loved her brother enough to fall in love with his girlfriend. And she loved him enough to fall in love with me. It's hard. It is unbelievably hard but it is worth it. Isabel is my family and she deserves nothing but the best and if you cannot give her what she needs then walk away. Leave her be. She will hurt, she will grieve and then she will move on."
"So if I can't reprogram myself to love a man, then I can't keep her."
"I didn't say that. Maybe you think she doesn’t what to admit she's gay to her parents or to herself or whatever. Isabel is strong. Isabel gets what she wants. If she were gay… she'd come out and say it. She'd tell her parents and the world… but it's not just that. The world would accept her gay or straight. The world does not accept bisexuality as viable. And actually I think dualsexuality is a better term. She's not bipolar. It's not woman today, man tomorrow, alternating highs and lows. It's a constant. Both. Now. Today. Tomorrow. Do you love her enough?"
"Why didn't she tell me this herself?"
"Isabel has only recently admitted to herself what is going on. She didn't know it could work when I last talked to her. She doesn't have the benefit that her brother does. Max and I have been friends since childhood. We've known his girlfriend our whole lives. We were very tight-knit in high school but she doesn't have that. We've only been doing this a year and it's been a hard year. Very hard because people make mistakes. People get hurt."
"I hope Isabel knows how much you love her."
"She's like a sister."
"I do love Isabel. She completes me. If I didn't know I were gay when I was 18, I would have known when I met her." Trisha's eyes fill with tears. "I don't know that I can share her with someone else. Not even another woman."
"If you are willing to try. You will find that maybe you can be even more complete. I didn't know I needed more than Max. Now, I know that I have it all. But I have to work to keep it. It means I get pushed out when the parents come to visit. It means that I don't get to share in some of the events but sometimes, I like it like that. You have to be willing to be the odd man out. Maybe someday I'm going to get sick of it but right now, being with them is what makes me happy and I'm not usually that happy a guy. I don't enjoy being happy."
"Then why put yourself in this position?"
"It makes them happy."
The End
This concludes section 7. I don't know when I'll get the next triad of parts up but I'll try to keep the post updated
Beloved Unloved Series (UC, Mi/M/L ADULT) 09/03 Part 21[WIP]
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