Chapter Four : Secrets at the Table

Isabella's POV

"Eleanor... please, I need you to talk to her," he said.

It crushed my heart. He had said my mother's name.

"She won't even look at me," Adrian said, his voice cracking. "Please, Eleanor, she'll listen to you."

I was breathless; every nerve completely stretched with tension.

Then my mother entered the scene, as sharp and jagged as glass. "Adrian, can you hear yourself? You humiliated her, and us. And now, you ask me to fix it?"

"I just want her to know I still love her," he said.

"That isn't love that destroys one," she shot back. "I'll talk to her. But don't expect any miracles from me." And she hung up.

Now I could scarcely breathe. Adrian had sunk against the wall, head bent with the dead phone limply in his other hand. I did not wait for him to notice me. I grabbed a bag, stuffed some clothing in it, and walked out without looking back.

---

It's all too hazy, lights streaking before me. My palms throb holding tightly on to the steering. Each breath rips a hole deeper in my chest. It is more like a beacon across the sun at night with a comforting glow in the dark corner of my life where my mother's lights were calling.

Before I even knocked, she threw herself into the door and drew me into her open arms.

''Isabella!'' It hugged me and enveloped me in the scent of warm silk, almost smothered but let's say cocooned into what I had long been yearning for.

"Just for a while, up until after the wedding, I can't be with him," I whispered.

"You don't have to explain it," she tightened her hold on my hand.

And then I saw him.

Tall. Familiar. Wrong.

Victor.

He was the one mistake I had managed to bury-the sting of his lips on the slip of my guard still lingering. His stormy gray eyes widened in shock, seeming to communicate on my own.

"Oh, this is Victor," my mother announced with a glow completely unaware.

He revives quickly from his astonishment and comes toward me with that strange smile of his. "A pleasure, Isabella."

I twisted my lips slightly into something resembling a smile and I offered him my hand. "Nice to meet you." The lie burned.

Dinner was like walking right into a trap: no escaping it now. My mother poured the drinks with wine, chattered about the wedding arrangements now totally unaware of the brewing storm under the table.

"By the way, Isabella," she burst out of nowhere, her sparkling eyes boring into me, "What's your opinion on Victor?"

My fork halted. Heat crept up my neck. I managed a smile. "He seems...kind."

Victor features around the mountain cliff, raw knuckles atop the stem stark white. "Your mother is a remarkable woman, and I'm fortunate to be at her side". His eyes flicked to me, sharp with memory.

I scrapped my fork through china roughly. "I'm sure you are," I said.

The smile suddenly dropped from his face. "She deserves the best," he insisted, voice even but strained.

"Already flattering?" Mother teased, hand soft against his. "See, Isabella? He's fabulous."

"Oh yes," I returned brittlely. "Fabulous."

But his gaze kept tenderly pulling me back. Every time we made eye contact, memories of that night flashed behind my eyelids: his hands ripping me, voice raspy against my skin. The twisting agony of shame coiled my stomach into knots. I averted my eyes, stabbing at food I could not eat.

"Yes, such as: "So, Victor," I said a bit too harshly, "what is it that you do?"

"Investments. Lots of travels," he said smoothly and interestingly rehearsed, as his leg bounces under the table like a ticking clock.

As she says, "Very successful! More than that, he listens to me", Mother beams proudly, "He makes me laugh."

That's... good, I added, mine faltering.

A thick silence fell over us as we dined; the only sound was the clattering of cutlery in the distance, like bullets shells falling deep into the earth. Every time I raised my glass, my hand shook. His eyes seem to hold me captive; when I dare return his gaze, I expect that the storm within his will break me.

My mother reached across the table and grabbed Victor's hand, lacing her fingers with his. She gave him a soft look with a tender lit face and said, "I can't wait for you to walk me down the aisle, Victor."

Shattered in me were those words. My mother's lover; my mistake.

Victor looked down over her with such warmth, the splay of his fingers closed on hers. But when his eyes cut over to mine, all unspoken guilt seemed to scream louder than words.

One hard swallow, and I plastered on my mask of composure while everything inside me unraveled. The air turned oppressive, heavy. I wanted to yell or run, but here I was stuck, bound to my chair, smiling on a string like some pathetic puppet.

Mother excused herself to fetch her wedding notes, and then I started choking.

With shaking hands, I fled to my old bedroom, shutting the door behind me. The moment I fell on the bed, the tears began to pour down. All became frantic thoughts across a heart weighted with lead: Among all men why this one?