Page 101 of Resisting Isaac

This is different.

And confusing.

She sits on the cabin’s porch swing, wrapped in one of my old high school football hoodies, drinking the tea my mom made. Her hair’s twisted up in a messy knot, baby hairs curling at her temples.

I drop onto the swing beside her, close enough to feel the warmth rolling off her but not so close she’ll think I expect something.

Sophia the hen squawks from beneath the swing.

“Didn’t realize you had company” I say, peeking at the disgruntled chicken, who glares at me like I interrupted something.

“Thanks for flying me home,” she says, still staring out at the river.

“Anytime.”

She glances over. “You say that like you mean it.”

“I do.”

That earns me the ghost of a smile. “Even if my mom hates you?”

I shrug. “She’ll come around.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then she’ll have to deal with it.”

She goes quiet again, then, “You didn’t have to stand up for me like that. Not with Diego. Not with my mom.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

I look at her. Really look.

Her lips are pink and swollen like she’s been chewing on them. Her eyes are tired. Shoulders curled like she’s carrying too many damn things at once.

“Because you’re the most important person to me in the entire world now.”

Her breath catches. “Isaac…” she starts, a warning.

I shake my head. “Don’t worry. I’m not trying to make this more complicated. I’m not asking for forever tonight. But we’re family now, spitfire. So just…sit with me awhile.”

She blinks, and I see it—something inside her softens. Not completely, but enough. When she leans into me, it’s slow. Cautious. Like a deer walking straight into the hunter’s crosshairs.

Only I’m not hunting her.

I’m just here. Like I always intend to be. Even when she might wish I wasn’t.

Her cheek presses against my chest. My arm curls aroundher shoulders. We rock in silence for a while, the only sounds the creak of the swing and the river running behind us.

Then she whispers, “This feels like cheating.”

I stiffen. “On who?”

“On the version of me I’ve had to be to get where I am.”

The tension in my chest eases.