The Loudest Silence

Mason

I pulled my keys out of the ignition before sitting against my car seat. I looked around the empty parking lot, and let out a deep sigh. The clock read 3:42 A.M, nearly three hours after Brielle's party had ended. I had finished dropping her friends off hours ago, yet sleep couldn't find me. I had been restless since Isabella left, and the headache that had been brewing all night, had only intensified, as I pushed my fingers into my temples to alleviate some of the pain. 

I had kissed her.

Why did I kiss her?

I had repeatedly been asking myself that question all night, and as much as I tried to convince myself that it was all for the assignment, a tiny voice would remind me that the assignment had barely crossed my mind the entire night.

As much as I didn't want to admit it, I knew I was falling into a deeper hole with Isabella, and it was a pathway I knew I couldn't go down.

And yet, I couldn't bring myself to stop. 

I had spent that last few hours replaying every interaction I had with Isabella. From any minuscule conversation we'd had over the span of a couple months, down to her body language with any person she came across.

The only conclusion I could draw was that there were too many gaps in Isabella's life. Nothing really seemed to add up, almost as if her whole persona was fabricated. I didn't want my thoughts to cloud my judgment or stray me from the overall goal of the assignment, but the gaping questions were eating away at me, and I knew I needed answers before I could proceed any further. 

Heading into my office, I shut the door behind me before taking a seat at my desk. Isabella's file sat in the middle of the desk staring at me, and I couldn't help but feel a silver of guilt as I pulled the folder open. I was invading her privacy, but I had already gone through that file more times than I could count. Telling myself that didn't help the pang of regret that rang through me as soon as I began to read through her file again.

Everything was the same as the first time I had read it,  but this time, I wasn't looking to read information about her. I wanted to dig in between the lines, and find something that the files weren't explicitly telling me. 

I didn't know what I was looking for, or if I would even find it, but I was desperate for something that would help me make sense of the sudden doubts I had about the assignment. I needed something to help ease the war in my mind that was slowly turning into a war in my heart. 

Looking down at the papers, everything appeared to be in order. Isabella was born to two parents, and an older brother. Her parents separated when she was young, and custody was dually granted to both parents, until full custody of Isabella was granted to her father. Isabella and her father ended up relocating, where she was homeschooled and raised by Rick Wright.

I furrowed my eyebrows as I reviewed the information repeatedly. Isabella had an older brother, and yet only she left to live with her father. Judges rarely grant split custody of siblings unless theres a good reason to do so, but nothing on the file alluded to that. It was odd that Isabella and her brother were each living with one parent, when the separation happened at such a young age. There was no way that Isabella came to the decision by herself that she wanted to solely live with her dad when she was that young.

So who made that decision?

Flipping through the file, I looked into the type of schooling Isabella went through over the years. While living with her mother prior to her relocation, Isabella attended public school. It was only when she moved with her father that she switched to homeschooling. There weren't many photographs of Isabella as she grew older, and the ones that did exist were taken of her outside her home, or a short distance from her home. There weren't any pictures of her in a grocery store, around town, or with anyone besides her father.