My Darrling (10 page)

The motel was taken out under my name, and I had one of the
two keys to the room. The key was the longest and thinnest one on my key ring,
so I clasped it in my palm, ready to use it as a weapon to gouge someone’s eyes
out if I needed to. In my hurry to get there, I’d forgotten to grab the pepper
spray Isaac had given me. He insisted I carry it around everywhere I go.

It was already dark out, and I saw the dull motel sign
lights glaring at me. It looked different to me tonight. Just the night before,
I looked at the motel as a cozy place, where Isaac and I made a fort and made love
in it. I looked at it as a warm hideout, away from the craziness of the world,
away from school, parents, drama....

And now I felt afraid of it.

As I got closer, my heart palpitated so hard it felt like it
was going to lurch through my chest. Adrenalin and anger pushed me, though,
kept my feet walking forward, ready to confront Isaac and to leave him for
good.

Once I reached the door, I did not hesitate—I glided the key
into the lock and burst through, just as the tip of the blade came smashing
down into a bare, blood-covered back. I could see there were already numerous
wounds all over the naked corpse. The victim was already dead. There was a
video camera sitting on the dresser across from the bed, a tiny red light
glowing from it.

Isaac’s face was so alive; he looked happy. He reminded me
of someone taking their first sip of water after a long, exhausting run on a
hot day, or a starved animal that finally caught some prey.

A proper reaction would’ve been to run, scream, even faint,
but I just stood there, eerily calm. My arms and the tips of my fingers felt a
little tingly, like icy pins jabbing away at me. There was a barely audible
ringing in my ears, too, and when I blinked I saw spots—but otherwise I felt
fine.

When Isaac realized what was going on, that I had stormed
through the door, he removed his hands from the knife, leaving it in the
corpse’s back. He wasn’t wearing gloves. No disguise. I guess there was no
point; he wanted to be caught now. He wanted his trial to begin so that he
could gain more notoriety. It was all part of his twisted game.

He walked over to the video camera and pressed a button. The
red light went off.

This sounds ridiculous, so very ridiculous, but I truly
believed that Isaac changed for me. I thought I mended him, I thought that all
he needed, all he thirsted for, was love. So I loved him with everything I had
in me, and he drank it all in. I thought I quenched his need for attention, for
fame.

The room smelled of rust, iron, and something else—something
sour. I allowed myself to glance at the victim once more; just one quick
glance. His hands were tied together behind his back, his head flopped to the
side, his eyes slightly open. There was fabric stuffed in his mouth and it was
soaked with blood.

I looked away before I had time to register anymore.

I felt nauseous now. And like I was dreaming.
Yeah, this
is all a nightmare
, I told myself.

My eyes blurred as tears coated them. “How could you—after
everything—” Words evaded me. Did I even say that out loud?

“I wanted to kill you, Sophie.” His voice was devoid of
emotion, and the life that was in his face when I barged into the room had completely
drained away. “So bad.”

Now I was afraid.

He came closer and I took a clumsy step back. He had blood
in his nails, all over his hands, on his shirt. “I’ve wanted to kill you for so
long because I love you so, and I want to free you from this wreckage you call life.
You don’t belong here, my love.”

“Don’t say that, Isaac. You said you could never hurt me.” I
was prepared to start begging for my life now, like I imagined all of his
victims did.

He tried to laugh but it got caught in his throat. Instead,
his eyes glossed over with tears. “That’s why I killed him.” He jerked his
thumb over his shoulder at the body. “I crave the kill, to feel the life drain.
I love the sight of blood; I love the smell of it, the feel. The warmth. I love
setting people free—it’s like rescuing a bird, then setting it free so it can
fly away from captivity. Giving it back its wings. I—”

“Stop!” I wound my arm back and whipped my ring of keys at
his face, wishing I’d have remembered the pepper spray he had given me. “Stop!
Just stop! You’re sick, Isaac. I hope you slowly rot away in your cell, and I
hope that each time you close your eyes at night you see your victims’ innocent
faces looking back at you, pleading with you.” I was crying from a heated anger
now. “And you’re trying to twist this around, make it look like some sort of
compassionate thing you’re doing. You don’t care about anything or anyone. You
don’t even care about yourself. How stupid of me to believe you cared about
me.”

Isaac had the nerve to cry now. As though his tears meant
anything. I knew he was only crying for himself, because my words wounded him.
He didn’t care about what he had done. He didn’t care about the innocent lives
he took.

The buzzing in my ears swelled and the room began to sway,
teeter. I felt weak. I was going into shock. I’d never seen a dead body before;
I’d never felt so much hurt, never been so betrayed.

I froze in place when I heard boots slamming into the
pavement outside the room. The door was kicked open, and in stormed a SWAT team
of about ten officers, their guns drawn.

I felt light as air, like my feet would rise off the floor
and I’d float away. There was an uncomfortable pressure behind my ribcage. My
heart felt swollen, thick, like it could spill right out from my chest. I pressed
my palms against my heart, as though to hold it in.

“No,” I cried, mostly to myself. After everything, after all
this, I didn’t want him to leave; I wasn’t ready for Isaac to be ripped away
from me.

Two officers slammed Isaac down to the floor, pulled his
hands behind his back, and cuffed him.

An officer read him his rights.

A crime scene investigator stood over the dead body,
snapping pictures.

I wondered who the victim was, where he worked, if he had
any sisters or brothers, or a girlfriend or a wife. I wondered what his last
meal was. What his last words were. If someone told him they loved him lately.
If I would have turned Isaac in, this man would have still been alive. I’d take
that bloodcurdling guilt to the grave with me.

Before I knew what was happening, I was pushed up against a
wall and my hands were cuffed behind my back.

“She didn’t do anything!” Isaac wailed. “Let her go! She didn’t
know anything! No Sophie, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I remember the last look Isaac and I shared that day. His
eyes were full of tears, full of fear. We shared a second of silence as he was
whisked past me, both of us in handcuffs, both of us crying and speechless.
Sometimes silence screams so loud that it hurts, and that second of silence was
the loudest sound.

Isaac did love me.

He felt; he cared. I saw it in the way he looked at me as we
were being ripped away from each other. As an officer read me my rights Isaac
looked back at me and mouthed the words,
I love you
. He did it so that
no one could hear, so that it was something that only him and I shared. Without
uttering a single word, Isaac told me everything I needed to know; that love
isn’t a place you choose to go, rather it’s a dark room you accidentally
stumble into, blindfolded, as the floor drops out from beneath you and you seem
to fall endlessly. By the look in Isaac’s eyes, I knew that he’d stumbled into
the bottomless dark room. All I needed to know was that I made him feel
something.

And I did.

He loved me.

It might sound sick, twisted, but that was something I’d
take with me everywhere I went in life.

October 23rd was the last day of my crooked love affair with
a killer.

My Darrling, as I called him.

It’s been almost one year since
Isaac was executed.

He served ten years on death row
before he was executed by lethal injection.

Ultimately, he got what he wanted: a
swarm of media attention, a bevy of haters, and hoards of fans. By the time his
trial was over, everyone knew his name, knew his face.

I served one numb year in prison for harboring a criminal.
Isaac’s motel room had been taken out under my name, and I had personal
belongings scattered throughout the room. There was no way around my charges.

The media wrote about our story, fabricated a bunch of
bullshit to sell papers and magazines, or to get traffic to their websites.
They didn’t even come close to getting our story right, though.

I think about him every single day.

Time hasn’t removed the memories: the way Isaac’s gray eyes
sized me up, how his voice softened when he spoke to me, the stories of his
past, the way he smelled, the night I gave myself to him….

Time certainly hasn’t healed any wounds.

It’s been eleven years since we were ripped apart for what would
be the rest of our lives—and I still keep a photo of him and I together. I keep
it hidden in a place where only I can find it. I deleted every other photo of
us together; photos we took while hiding out in motel rooms, eating takeout,
watching movies, and talking until the sun rose. I deleted them because the
pain that sprung forth while looking at them was excruciating, unbearable.

Alex and I didn’t speak for nearly five years after he found
out about Isaac. He was angry, but most of all, he was hurt. I didn’t think
he’d ever forgive me, and then one night during the Christmas holidays he
texted me, said he got my number from my mom. That night he admitted he had
missed me every day after we stopped talking.

We met up the following day to catch up over coffee.

Alex and I have been married for just over three years now.

I never went to visit Isaac in prison, but I did attend his
execution. I wanted,
needed
, to say goodbye. I didn’t tell Alex that I
went; it would have only caused him more hurt and disappointment. He already
nearly divorced me when he found the nine letters Isaac had written me. They
were all written before Alex and I had reconciled after years of not speaking,
but it still hurt him that I hid the letters from him, that I lied.

Isaac and I wrote each other nine times before I stopped
corresponding with him. I stopped writing after the ninth letter for two
reasons: one, he poured his heart out to me, reminisced, told me he loved me,
begged me to visit him, told me he wanted to marry me; and two, because I felt
the exact same way about him.

I loved him.

I missed him.

I wanted to be with him. And that was when I knew I had to
cut him off; that was when I realized that you don’t need a happy ending to
move onto a happy beginning. I had to let go. He was given no warning, no
explanation—and it killed me inside to know he’d be waiting for a letter that
would never arrive.

I was the only one who attended his execution.

I sat behind a glass panel as Isaac lay strapped down to an
execution table before me, terrified. He looked different from when I had last
seen him, when he was nineteen. He was thirty now, and his hair was cut short,
his skin sallow, and he had put on a little weight. But he was still absolutely breathtaking.

And even after all this time, even though I had refused to
visit him in prison all those years, he turned to me with tears in his eyes and
mouthed,
I love you
. I mouthed those three words back as tears barreled
down my face.

Prior to entering the execution chamber, I was instructed to
remain silent, and it was nearly impossible. I wanted to tell Isaac everything.
I wanted to sit and talk with him for hours on end, tell him everything about
my life since he’d been gone. I felt overwhelmed with guilt for not visiting
him. I wanted to hear all about his time in prison. I wanted to curl up with
him and watch movies, eat takeout, and laugh together.

Like we used to.

A man with white hair and glasses stepped into the room,
slid a pair of gloves over his hairy hands, then announced, “Mr. Darrling, you
are now permitted to make your final statement.”

Isaac didn’t take his eyes away from me as he spoke. “I
deserve what is about to transpire here in a few moments’ time. My victims and
their families, however, did not deserve what I took from them. In the end, I
was shown that the world can be a beautiful place, full of beautiful people who
are capable of loving monsters like me, unconditionally.” He smiled, a sad
smile, and when he blinked tears rushed from his eyes and down his cheeks. “Sophie,
you look just as beautiful as you did the day we met. Thank you for everything
you gave me, thank you for loving me. When the leaves start to change colors in
the autumn, please think of me. And know that, wherever I end up, I’ll be
thinking of you, my love.”

And with that, he smiled wide. This time it touched his
eyes.

He was ready to go now.

Each word he spoke was like a separate dagger piercing me in
the heart, in the stomach, in the lungs. I felt like I was about to vomit, the
air felt thick, and my throat tightened a little more as each second wisped by.
But I needed to do this; I needed to be there to see Isaac out. I needed him to
leave this world knowing that someone loved him with enough love to make up for
those who didn’t.

I no longer think that I was crazy for loving Isaac; one
cannot control emotions that transcend understanding. I did not choose to love
Isaac, and I will never regret loving him. But I will always wonder why.

After about seven minutes, Isaac lightly gasped for his
final breath, his body twitched just once, and his heart stopped. His victims’
families finally got justice.

But he’s not gone, because every autumn he is brought back
to me: in the smell of the crisp leaves, through the bright, bold colors, the cold
rain, and the brisk city nights. In the autumn, I feel him with me, and I
smile.