The Winter Project

39. Isabel

For someone with a shocking amount of anxiety in her body at all times, Isabel was surprised to remain so calm when she was knocked so harshly in the ribs by a bicycle that sent her flying onto the ground. The paint tin had hit her stomach and the old wooden slats had cut her elbow and given her multiple splinters. When she looked up to see the man that had knocked her down, his terrified expression was so funny that her only natural reaction was laughter. She laughed loud; a laugh she hadn't heard come out of her own mouth for possibly years.

By definition he was cute, and Isabel hadn't seen anyone even half her age since arriving in Sirmione. As he helped her up from the ground, she admired his face. His eyes suggested he was quite possibly east Asian, and surprisingly one of his eyes was brown and the other was green with a speck of brown across it. Isabel stared at his eyes for a while, admiring their differing colours. His smile was warm and welcoming, his eyes squinting almost completely shut as he smiled. She hoped that the splash of the paint that she could feel on her face would cover her blushing cheeks as she felt them burning.

As he tried to help her clean, Isabel laughed until her stomach hurt. She watched him lean in paint, and then slip in the paint and balance himself by putting his hand in another puddle of paint. She sat on the ground and laughed until tears come out of her eyes, as if she was watching an over the top comedy sketch show. This guy was unbelievably clumsy, and his apologies through laughter made it all the more amusing.

They exchanged small talk but the memory of the conversation topic was lost thanks to the remnants of shock in her system from being so violently thrown to the ground by his bicycle. Before she knew it he was leaving, and Isabel felt a strange sadness to see this total stranger turn away. She wanted to remember what it was like to spend time with someone her own age, drinking alcohol and staying up late, talking about nonsense. She thoroughly enjoyed her own company and that of Steven, but after the sun went down and Isabel was alone for the night, she found herself so lonely that she would have to sleep with the television on just to hear the sound of other people talking. She had gone in search of friends, but the town was quiet in the off-season and she had never been good at approaching people.

'Would you like to go for lunch?'

She looked up and saw him sat on his bike, knee bleeding and covered in paint, still smiling through squinted eyes. She felt her stomach leap. It would have been great to say that her stomach leapt out of infatuation and excitement, but for Isabel it was out of anxiety. Trapped in a restaurant, forced to eat with a total stranger? She wanted to go, but her head said no. All the while she was thinking of this, he simply stood and waited. She began to wonder if maybe there was nothing wrong with her at all, and the queasy feeling in her stomach might just have been a sign that she found him attractive. The more she thought about it, the more nervous she became.

'I can bring some food here, if you're working.' 

He must have been stood there for a good minute waiting for her to say something. She couldn't help but think how it looked; like she was making excuses not to spend time with him. Cautiously, she agreed to the compromise and he cycled away excitedly, promising to be back soon.

He was gone for possibly two hours, and Isabel accepted the fact that quite possibly she had hallucinated him out of pure loneliness, or he caught a glimpse of her inability to make basic life decisions and decided not to return. As the sun was going down and the paint was drying, she was about to leave when he reappeared on his bicycle, out of breath and red in the face from cycling too quickly.

'So, I didn't know what you like, because obviously I don't know you.' He spoke excitedly and quickly and his words were mumbled. 'I got a little bit of everything, and I didn't get meat because you know, there's a lot of vegetarians out there these days.'