Newt let out a sob and nodded against my neck. When I put him down, he turned and ran past Isaac to Nolan and Dallas and Loki. The wide berth he gave Isaac seemed to be the final straw for Isaac because he sank to his ass in the snow and tucked his legs up against his body. His long arms wrapped around his legs and he began rocking back and forth. I was moving toward him when Newt suddenly came barreling back at Isaac and threw his arms around him from behind. The little boy began sobbing again and that seemed to snap Isaac out of his daze because he lifted an arm and curled it around Newt. Newt was in Isaac’s lap by the time I reached them.
Isaac didn’t say anything as he rocked Newt back and forth over and over. I put my arms around them both and was glad when Dallas came up behind the pair and draped his coat over Isaac’s shoulders. I had to guess Isaac’s coat was in his car. Fortunately, Newt had his parka on. As eager as I was to get both of them off the ground, I wanted them to have this moment. When Newt had calmed, I ran my fingers over his hair and said, “Newt, can you go inside with Dallas and Nolan? Isaac will be along in a little bit.”
Newt nodded against Isaac’s body. He held onto Isaac for another second and whispered, “I love you, Isaac.”
“I love you too, buddy.”
“Are you mad at me?” the little boy asked.
Isaac let out a choked sob and shook his head. “No, Newt, I’m not mad. I’m not leaving you, okay? Not ever. Do you hear me?”
Newt nodded and then got up and took Dallas’s proffered hand. Dallas’s eyes met mine and I saw him motion toward the garage. I knew what he was saying and nodded my thanks. I reached down to help Isaac to his feet. I wrapped my hand around his and led him toward the garage. The apartment Sawyer had been using while he’d taken care of the sanctuary during Dallas’s recovery from surgery was above the garage. He’d only recently moved out, so I knew Isaac and I would have the privacy we needed.
I led him up the stairs to the apartment, which fortunately wasn’t locked. The heat was turned off so I led Isaac to the little gas fireplace and got it going, then pulled a blanket off the back of the couch. I sat us both down in front of the fire and wrapped the blanket around us as I put Isaac between my legs so he was facing the fire and his back was to my front. For the longest time I just held him, because I knew he’d talk when he was ready. There was no doubt in my mind the incident with Newt had fundamentally changed something for Isaac. The fact that he was still so quiet meant he was trying to process things. It was a testament to how deeply troubled he was, not only by whatever had sparked the whole encounter, but Newt’s and his own reaction to it.
“We shouldn’t have stayed,” he finally said. “Newt and I were doing fine till now.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with that statement, but I didn’t even get a chance to say anything because Isaac said, “He didn’t really know what he was missing, you know?” He shivered against me, so I rubbed my hands up and down his arms.
“Family was just something he saw on TV. He didn’t actually know what it was.”
“You guys don’t have a family?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It was us and our mom, mostly. She was young when she got pregnant with me–only eighteen. It was just her and her father and he’d had all these plans for her to go to college but when she got pregnant with me, he kicked her out.”
“What about your father?” I asked.
“I don’t know who he is. He was never in the picture.”
“What did your mom do?”
“What most young single mothers do, I guess. Worked odd jobs and stuff. But when I was old enough to take care of myself, she went back to college. She was super smart. Like genius-level smart. She actually got accepted into MIT before she got pregnant with me. She reapplied when I was ten and was accepted. Full ride. When she graduated, she started teaching there.”
“What did she teach?”
“Math. She loved numbers.”
He said it with a certain wistfulness that had me asking, “Did you and she get along?”
He was quiet for a moment before nodding and saying, “I didn’t know there was anything wrong with her, you know? She was just my mom. I thought it was normal when she’d wake me up in the middle of the night and start writing formulas out on the wall while trying to explain all these principles to me. She loved to play loud music and dance at all hours of the night, and sometimes she’d keep me home from school just so we could drive to the beach and go swimming or look for seashells or whatever. Every day was a new adventure. And it made sense to me that after all that, she’d need to sleep, sometimes for days on end.”