There's a Place For Us (Complete)

Part 21

I. An Exquisitely Tragic Love Affair

(Part 21)

"Hey Isabella!" Adam called in greeting the next day at school. Isabella smiled slightly. "What's up?" he asked. Isabella shrugged her shoulders in response. Her walls were back up, Adam noted. They had been rebuilt to protect her heart from feeling anything.

"Isabella..." Adam started in a much more sensitive tone, "what happened last night?" "We'll talk later, Adam. I have to get to class," and she walked away not even giving Adam the chance to walk with her.

What had happened? She had been acting ok last night, but then he had gotten out of the bathroom and she had been gone. He had asked her to hold his phone, he remembered. His phone...

"UGHHH!" he yelled, and kicked a nearby locker. "WHAT THE HELL KATIE?!" The warning bell rang and Adam walked over to his class, still fuming.

Since they would always walk to class together, Adam knew where her next class was. He saw her walk out of the room, forever an outcast. "Isabella!" She looked up at the sound of her name. "Isabella, you don't understand what you saw! I can explain!" She looked at the floor again as he advanced towards her. "I look forward to an explanation," she told him. "But we'll talk later Adam."

Adam walked away, realizing when he wasn't wanted. Girls stared at him, their eyes traveling up and down his body. He may be a freak, but in their eyes, he was a hot freak and that was all that mattered. Maybe he should have been grateful that he wasn't a total outcast, but that thought didn't really comfort him, in fact at that moment, it made him feel like a complete jerk. He felt like a player, and truth be told, he had been. No doubt. But that had changed, and Adam didn't want to sound cliché or anything, but that had changed because of Isabella.

They met in the tutoring classroom after school ended. "Isabella! Please! Just hear me out!!" Adam bursted into the room. Isabella stared at him with the blank expression he would always receive when they had first met. "Go ahead," she said coldly. "Yes! I used to do that! I-I-I," he fought to get the words out. "I used to sleep around. I would get naked pictures from them, and I would go along with it. Most of the time, I didn't even know the girl's name," he admit ashamedly. "It's what Drew would always do, and he told me that that was how you made something of yourself. You made yourself a sex symbol." Adam cast his eyes to the floor. He couldn't even stand to look at her, for he knew that Isabella would never view him the same. "But, Isabella, you have to trust me. I don't do that anymore. I haven't since Drew disclaimed me as his friend. I just- it was stupid. I used to enjoy it," he said. Some of the girls had put on a good show. "But," Adam started slowly, "after I met you, and I saw the way you struggled, I..." Adam exhaled loudly. "I just didn't want to do it anymore...I don't answer any of them! I swear! And I don't look at the pictures! Those girls disrespect themselves and I have no interest in any of them. You have to trust me..."

For the first time, he looked at Isabella. "I'm a good enough person to forgive you Adam, but I'm not stupid enough to trust you the way I used to." Adam became disheartened and started to walk out of the classroom, giving up hope. If she never wanted to talk to him again, he would grant her wishes. But Isabella's gentle hand on his shoulder stopped him. "I don't want to push you away... cuz that's what I do. I push away good things, or if I don't push them away, they get taken from me. Don't give up on me please; I just need some time," Isabella said quietly, and Adam saw tears prickling her eyes. Isabella had trust issues, and he knew that, but she didn't need to be guarded from him. He was the last person she should be scared of.

"Isabella," Adam said, his eyes pouring out his soul and allowing her to have all of him, "we are never so vulnerable than when we trust someone, but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find joy or love..."