My Darrling (7 page)

The media and the public saw a killer; I saw the love of my
life.

Isaac had moved motels a few times. I began to put the rooms
under my name, and Isaac would sneak in and out past the front desk wearing a
disguise. All the motels were around the same area—for some reason Isaac felt
safest in that rundown part of the city.

In passing, I’d hear people talk about how Isaac Darrling
was still on the loose, and Alex told me that the news had reported that investigators
suspected Isaac had fled to Germany. That wasn’t true, of course. Isaac was incredibly
intelligent, I’d learned, and spent most of the daytime setting investigators
off his path, tricking them into believing he was elsewhere. I don’t know what
he did, but I did know that he was behind the fabricated Germany story.

He never asked me to get involved in any way. He never asked
me to do anything that could get me in trouble. He even told me he would
respect my choice to turn him in if I ever decided to.

I celebrated my eighteenth birthday in those two weeks, too.
I had only briefly mentioned my birthdate to Isaac once, so I wasn’t expecting
anything, but when I got into the motel room that night he had a hot bath drawn
with candles lining the tub; he had food from my favorite Italian restaurant
delivered; he had a dozen of my favorite red velvet cupcakes waiting for me; he
played me a song on his guitar that he wrote just for me—it almost had me in
tears it was so beautiful—and he surprised me with the most beautiful deep-blue,
pear-shaped tanzanite and diamond necklace. It had belonged to his grandma.

“I believe my grandmother was the only person who ever truly
cared about me,” he admitted, somberly. “No one is more deserving of this than
you, Sophie. You love without judgment; you see beauty where there is nothing
but ugliness—just like Grandma did. Happy birthday, beautiful girl.”

 It was difficult to accept something so meaningful to
Isaac, but he insisted that it made him feel good to know that it would be with
someone he cared for when it came time for him to go away.

I also learned that Isaac’s grandma had left him a large
amount of money when she passed away the previous year, shortly before Isaac
began murdering and dismembering human beings. Isaac paid for everything: our
food, the motels—he even regularly bought me candles, flowers and cupcakes, even
though I told him not to because every time he went out in public, he was at
risk of being recognized, and taken away from me.

If I’m honest, Isaac’s disguises weren’t that convincing. He
had a few wigs: a long brown one, a short blond one, and even a crazy-looking
red one. He wore shoes that were too big for his feet, and dark sunglasses. He
had slowly been growing out his facial hair, and I thought it made him look
even more beautiful. It highlighted the strong angles of his jawline. Sometimes
he wore a fake beard and moustache, but no matter how bad his disguises were,
they all concealed him better than the night I met him.

After hours upon hours of long talks over our two weeks
together in tiny, cozy motel rooms, I learned that Isaac was thinking of
turning himself in the night we met. He even admitted that he was contemplating
taking his own life. He told me that I saved him; he told me that I saved many
lives.

“I have resisted the urge to kill since I met you,” he
admitted. “I feel like you’ll be ashamed of me, like you won’t want to spend
time with me anymore, and I like your company more than I’ve ever liked
anyone’s company before.”

He admitted that the desire to kill still burned away at
him, but he said that his will to fight it was stronger than ever.

And that was about all he divulged to me about his crimes.

Like I said, we had a silent agreement that we wouldn’t talk
about it. When we were together, it was about Isaac Darrling and Sophie Lenon;
a boy and a girl who felt connected in ways no one would ever be able to fathom,
in ways
we
couldn’t even understand.

We kissed, we cuddled, we tried cooking spaghetti in the
microwave—the motels didn’t have stoves, of course—we played cards, we listened
to music, we laughed, we danced and we even cried together.

Isaac told me all about his childhood and how close he had
been with his father. They would go fishing together nearly every weekend in
the summer, they’d build bird houses together, they’d play catch, and Isaac
would even help his dad with chores like mowing the lawn and hanging the
Christmas lights. Isaac never understood why his dad decided to leave him here all
alone. His father’s suicide still pained him and it was obvious that he took it
very personally.

I told Isaac about my father, and how he was murdered when I
was just two years old. This confused him more than anything.

“How could you still like me after—”

“You didn’t kill him, Isaac. And besides, I didn’t choose to
like you—it chose me. Believe me, I don’t
want
to like you.”

But I adored him, cherished him.

And so our twisted, dangerous love affair continued.

October 22nd was the date that Isaac and I lost our
virginity to each other.

October 23rd was the date that we lost each other.

It was October 22nd and porches were
decorated with pumpkins, scarecrows, spiders and ghosts. The ground was a
carpet of bright fire-colored leaves, and the air was offensively cold, raw. I
was on my way to meet Isaac after school when I noticed the newest Spider-Man
comic through a convenience store window. I went inside and got it for him,
along with a Twix. As I was paying, my eyes drifted to the stack of newspapers
and magazines to my left. Isaac’s beautiful face was plastered over each one,
accompanied by bold titles like:
The Fallen Angel Killer Rumored to Have
Fled to Germany,
and
Teenage Killer Still on the Run.

I shuddered.

Guilt splashed over and through me. My stomach knotted and
my throat tightened.

Once I got back outside, I began to walk back in the
direction of my home, instead of toward the subway station. Guilt rose up
inside of me like burning, volcanic bile. I had allowed myself to live in a fantasy
world where Isaac Darrling’s crimes didn’t exist as long as we didn’t talk
about them. Where there weren’t investigators scouring the globe for him because
he belonged in a prison cell, and not out in public. Where there weren’t
countless families forever damaged, gutted, from the lives that Isaac took from
them. In my head I had Isaac Darrling and the Fallen Angel Killer pegged as two
completely different people.

It was easier that way.

As I walked, I tried to picture Isaac as the monster he was.
I tried to picture him doing the things I read about online. But no matter how
hard I tried, all I could see was his shy, boyish smile, his long, wavy hair,
and those gray eyes that looked like gunmetal on overcast days. I thought about
how he would gently run a brush through my hair and ask, “It doesn’t hurt, does
it?” I thought about how his warm lips felt like home against mine. I thought
about how happy I was with him, like the world could be crumbling down around
us and I’d still be smiling as long as he was near.

I had always been that girl who wasn’t sure of herself. I
never knew who I was; I wasn’t sure where I belonged. Most of the people I knew
had it all figured out: what age they wanted to be married by, how many kids
they wanted to have, what city they wanted to live in—some even already had
their future kids’ names figured out. And then there was me, always confused, never
quite certain of anything.

Until Isaac.

I had never been able to say, “I belong here,” about anything
before. My home was a hollow place with a looming sadness that never dissipated
after Dad was killed. At school I was known as the quiet girl who was always
clutching a novel or comic book in her hands; the small, quiet girl who always
got looked past like she didn’t exist. I walked through life feeling like a ghost.

Sure, I had everything that I wanted, but I had nothing that
I needed—before I met Isaac. And the things that were wrong with me, seemed
imperfect in the most divinely perfect ways when I was with him. Isaac actually
understood my ridiculous jokes, my love for losing myself in a novel or a comic
book, my lack of interest in partying or doing things most people my age did.

I turned around, walked back toward the subway. Toward the
only person who has ever felt like home to me.

When I got off the subway, I was once again reminded of why
I cared. Isaac—wearing his light blond wig with a baseball cap pulled down low—stood
waiting for me, a single pink rose in his hand. He smiled widely and looked at
me like I was the only human on Earth.

“For you,” he said with a brilliant smile, handing me the
rose.

I brought it to my nose and inhaled. “It’s beautiful. Thank
you.”

We wove our hands together and I tried to rush him away from
the flow of people. I was always more nervous than Isaac when he was out in
public. Naturally, I feared that someone would recognize him. Sometimes I
noticed people shooting him strange looks, and one time when I mentioned it to
him he said, “People give each other strange looks all the time. That’s what
people do; they go around giving each other strange looks all day.” He had a
point; I had been given my share of questionable looks. But his lack of concern
bothered me. Isaac’s face was smeared all over the Internet, newspapers,
magazines, and television. Someone would recognize him again if he went out
enough. He spent most of his days inside his motel room, but he did venture out
in public during the day once in a while—and it scared me to death. It shouldn’t
have—in fact, I should have turned him in myself—but I knew that when Isaac was
gone, a part of me would disappear, too.

When we got back to his motel, my
muscles melted. I felt safe again now that we were alone together inside that small
room, away from prying eyes.

I handed Isaac the plastic bag with his comic book and the
Twix bar. I loved how much his face could light up over the smallest things. In
a way, it reminded me of the innocence I saw in my brother Elijah’s eyes.

Isaac gave me a hug, kissed the top of my head, and thanked
me before sitting down on the bed and breezing through the comic with a big
smile on his face. I excused myself to the washroom, like I always did once I
got into the motel room. I liked taking a few minutes to gather myself, to fix
my hair and make sure there wasn’t anything stuck in my teeth. And, of course,
to pee.

While I was washing my hands I noticed small, dried-up, rust-colored
splatters in the sink. I froze, tensed up.
He probably just cut himself
shaving
, I told myself. Except Isaac was growing his facial hair out—he
hadn’t shaved in weeks.
Maybe he got a bloody nose
. The heater in the
motel room made the air awfully dry.

I walked over to the bathtub and inspected it. It was clean.
I looked at the back of the vinyl shower curtain and saw tiny—almost undetectable—flecks
of something dark brown splattered all over it. It looked like dried blood, but
it could have just been sludge.

I kept telling myself that it wasn’t what it seemed, but
excerpts from stories posted online about Isaac’s killings inundated my mind,
stories that outlined Isaac’s heinous crimes in morbid detail. The words
flashed like a giant, neon warning sign:
dismember, decapitate,
cold-blooded, stabbed repeatedly
….

I yanked the door open. “Why is there blood in your sink?”

His jaw set, his gray eyes grew huge with surprise. He had
his wig off now and his hair hung in waves around his face.

“I had a bloody nose today. That’s all, Sophie.”

“Well normally people use a tissue to stop the blood when they
get a nosebleed…so go on, show me the tissue you used.” I ground the words
through my teeth. My hands were lightly trembling now.

He pulled his eyebrows together in confusion. “I flushed it
down the toilet. Please, Sophie, calm down.”

“Tell me you haven’t—”

He cut me off. “No, I didn’t….”

Neither of us could say the word, could finish our sentence.
I hated using any variation of the word
kill
around Isaac. I’d even
cringe when I heard them say the word in any of the movies Isaac and I watched
together. The word was filthy, left a foul taste in my mouth, hurt my ears, and
I didn’t want to associate it with the person I loved.

Isaac walked over and wrapped his arms around me, encasing
me into his warm, delicate grip. “Don’t be scared, Sophie. I’m not going to
hurt you, I’ll never hurt you.” I didn’t like how he said the words; it was as
though he was trying to convince himself. Or me. Or both of us.

“It’s not just me I care about. You can’t hurt anyone
anymore. You need to stop, to see what you’ve done to so many innocent people.”
I had never talked about Isaac’s crimes this fluidly with him before. “I don’t
understand it,” I continued, “you’re so gentle and careful with me, but I know
who you really are. I know that you have this—this malicious, vile side, and I
don’t understand why.”

We sat down on the bed together and he held my hands in his
to steady them. He dragged in a long breath and exhaled through his nose. “I
don’t like talking about this, but I was exposed to my father’s dead body when
I was very young. He shot himself in the temple, essentially blew his brains
out. I was the one who found him.

“Somehow, despite everything—the blood, the flesh, the smell—I
wasn’t afraid. I was mesmerized. But I was sad, too. It meant that he would no
longer be with me, and he was my best friend. I can’t begin to articulate how
much I missed him.” He paused, lightly squeezed my hand, then began stroking my
thumb with his.

“Once my dad was gone, it was just my mother and I. My dad’s
suicide destroyed my mom. She only gave me attention when she was throwing me
into modeling gigs, or hitting me. She’d take the money I earned from modeling
and use it to buy alcohol and drugs. She never bought food or paid any bills,
so I had to go to the grocery store and steal food when I was hungry. Sometimes
we didn’t even have electricity. I had to carry Mom to bed a lot of nights,
nights when she actually decided to come home. Some nights I was certain she’d
die in her sleep from an overdose. I eventually went to live with my aunt, who
wasn’t much better. Always had strange men in her apartment, drank a lot—but at
least she had food and heat. No one else wanted the responsibility of taking me
in. They all thought I was too damaged by what I saw.