CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - ISSY
I’m checking my email on Finn’s phone because the battery is dead on mine, and even though there’s a million messages about the seminar yesterday, I don’t even pretend to read them. I just hold the phone in my hand, stare down at it, and think. I need to make sense of this. Because it makes no sense.
I’ve known this man a day and a half and I’m rearranging my life for him.
Well, no. That’s not really true. I’m accepting his offer to navigate this Caleb bullshit alongside me.
And the only thing I can come up with that makes any sense at all is that… everyone wants to belong. That’s my feeling, anyway. That’s one of the major takeaways I’ve gotten out of this whole life-coach thing over the past several years. People are unhappy when they don’t feel supported and it’s hard to feel supported when you’re fighting for your life.
That doesn’t have to mean literally. Not everyone has had to fight like I did. The fight could be as simple—and overwhelming—as trying to pay rent, or heat your house, or feed your kids.
And if the sense of belonging isn’t there, then hopelessness takes over. There’s a big difference between being solitary and being alone.
I look over at Finn as we navigate our way back into downtown Denver and use him as an example. He comes from a family where blood means everything. Where loyalty is counted in the secrets you keep and success is earned by doing what you’re told. Even if that involves putting your life on hold.
This has to be the reason he wants to come with me today.
He’s given them enough and now he wants to take something for himself.
I see women come into my classes and seminars like this all the time. They got married, had kids, devoted years and years to taking care of other people and now… the husband left. Maybe cheated, maybe not. Maybe she cheated. The kids are older, no longer attached to her every second of the day. Or maybe she had no children. Maybe she had no husband. They are all different in that respect.
But the one thing they have in common is they feel lonely. They feel adrift. They feel lost.
But I don’t really care why the women come to me. I just want to help them find peace, whatever that means to them. The way I found peace in helping them. It just feels good to do that and I’m sad that there will be no more masterclasses in my future. The online stuff is nice, for sure. But it won’t ever replace the sense of pride I felt walking into that office on the first day, bearing witness to their broken dreams. Or the sense of joy it brings me when I watch them grow, and change, and blossom as the weeks and months go by. And there’s no man, no amount of money, no amount of personal success that can replace how I feel about them the day they graduate.
Not all of them have their shit together that day. Not all of them have achieved whatever it was they thought they wanted when they started the class. And not all of them have found their peace. But all of them are on their way.
And I helped them do that. With words.
It amazes me every time I think about it. That something so simple, something free, something we all have access to—put together in the right order and said with conviction—can change lives.
I am not the world’s most tragic girl, by any stretch of the imagination. But I’ve paid my dues. So maybe… maybe today is my graduation day? Maybe I put in the time, did all the homework, and now it’s time for me to move on too?
Maybe I’ve been using them to fix me, instead of the other way around?
“What are you thinking about?” Finn asks as we sit at a red light on Champa Street.
“Everything,” I say, looking over at him to smile. “Do you think this is like, meant to be or something?”
“What is?” he asks. “Us?”
I nod. “Yeah. Because, well… we met the day before yesterday, Finn. That’s kinda crazy, right?”
He exhales, but it’s kind of a laugh. “Totally,” he says, easing the car forward when the light turns green. “But you know what?”
“What?” I ask.
He looks at me for a moment, then takes his eyes back to the road and the morning traffic. “I’ve been in a cage for so long I barely know what it means to be free. And this, what we’re doing today, feels a whole lot like freedom to me.”
“What if we hate each other tomorrow?”
“Do you think we will?” he asks. And it’s not a joke. It’s not mean, either. In fact, it feels like the most honest question I’ve ever been asked.
So I say, “No. I don’t.”
“Me either.”
“I think… I think I see some frustration in the future. I see some challenges. Like what if you snore like a fuckin’ bear?”
He laughs.
“You didn’t last night, but that doesn’t really count. I wouldn’t call anything we did last night typical.”
“Maybe it is? Maybe that’s our new normal? Fucking, and laughing, and talking, and room service. Maybe that’s the rest of our lives? Maybe I never sleep deep enough again for you to find out the answer to the do-you-snore question?”
“What if we get caught?” I ask.
“Who’s gonna catch us?”
“The Bureau? Caleb?”
“And then what?”
“I dunno, maybe they kill us?” I say.
“What if we stay and toe the line? What will they do to us then?”
“Same, I suppose. Eventually.”
“Do you want to stay and fight?” He looks right at me when he asks that question.
I shake my head. “No, that for sure leads to death.”
“Are you having second thoughts? Because if so, I get it. You barely know me and—”
“I’m not,” I say quickly. “I’m not.”
“Then what’s this about?”
“I just… it feels a little like quitting to leave all those women behind. I mean, I know the online course is good. I’ve been building it for a while now, preparing for this day. I have a shell company to keep it anonymous, I have the website all ready, I have like almost a hundred videos for them to watch. And it’s all free, so…”
“Are you worried about money?”
“No,” I say, frustrated that when I need the right words, I can’t find them. I’m a goddamned award-winning speaker who gets paid to find the right words and now they’re failing me. “I actually made a ton of money off the book. So I have that in savings overseas. And that last masterclass got me into a solid six figures for this year already and it’s only February. So it’s not the money.”
“Then…?”
“I just feel kinda like a quitter.”
“Well, we can always tell the world what kind of man Caleb Kelly really is. You have a lot of information, Issy. And so do I. We could bring him down. Maybe alone it would’ve been a tough sell, but together?”
“But you’re one of them, Finn. How could the world trust you? Caleb and his people will drag your name through the mud. Turn you into a joke. And the FBI won’t help, not when they find out why you really joined.”
“I think they’ll come around once they find out what we know.”
“Will they?” I ask. “Knowledge is a strange thing. You can know something. Something wonderful. Something meaningful. Something true. And even then, oftentimes it changes nothing. You could know the secrets of the universe, but what do you do with that knowledge? And what good is knowledge anyway? What good is truth that isn’t accepted? What good is a secret you can do nothing with?”
“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? We can do something with our secrets.”
“I don’t think so, Finn. I think the world already knows our secrets. Some place, deep down, they know these things already. Maybe not the specifics, but they know bad people are out there. They know there’s corruption. They know all this, and they don’t want to think about it. They don’t have time to care. Because caring means they have to reevaluate their priorities. Their worldview. Caring means they have to change.”
He looks over at me as he turns into the alley behind my work. Pulling up next to my car. The only car in the parking lot since Suzanne won’t be back and no one is coming in for a consultation today. We get out of his car, get into mine—he drives. And pull back out into the street to head over to my place.
“Are we talking about them? Or you, Issy?”
Some people might take that as an accusation. Some people might be offended. Some people might even get angry.
But it’s an honest question.
Those were the words I was looking for and couldn’t find.
“Why am I doing this?”
“Leaving?” he asks.
“No… why did I start this business in the first place?”
“Oh,” he says, surprised at the change of subject.
But was it really a change of subject? Haven’t I been talking about this the entire time?
“To help people, of course. I mean, you can’t be doing it for the money. Otherwise you’d be charging for that online course.”
“I’m not doing it for the money,” I say.
“I know. So why don’t you tell me why you’re doing it? Because you’re the only one who knows.”
“I’m doing it because I care about them,” I say. “I want them to feel cared for when they’re with me. I want them to feel that because I never did.”
He leans across the center console, places a hand on my cheek, kisses me on the lips, and whispers, “Yeah, it’s official.”
Which makes me laugh. “What are you talking about?”
“I love you.”
“Oh, Lord,” I say, still laughing. “You’ve known me one day.”
“We’re working on day two, lady. Don’t shortchange me on the morning after.”
“You’re crazy,” I say.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe all the panic we’ve been through just made us unusually close. Maybe telling secrets gave us a bond you can’t get any other way. Or maybe,” he says, soft smile creeping up his face, “I’m just the kind of guy who knows a good thing when he finds it.”
I feel tears welling in my eyes. Which isn’t me at all. I mean, I didn’t even cry last night when I told him I was raped repeatedly as a child. By a mobster who is now most certainly after me. Who probably wants to kill me or, worse, rape me again.
Anger, hate, rage, violence—none of that stuff fazes me anymore.
But tenderness?
Yeah, that gets me every time.
I’m just not used to it.
“Hey,” Finn says. “Get used to it.”
It’s like he can read my mind. How could he know me so well? Why do I feel like we’re meant to be together?
I’m not one of those girls who waits around for Prince Charming. And he’s not even Prince Charming. He’s fuckin’ King Death or something. He admitted to killing his own father. And I dismissed it. I… I validated him for doing that.
“I like you,” he says. “Maybe love is too strong a word for day two, but I’m in, ya know. Whatever it is you want to do, I’m in. If you want to run, we’ll run. If you want to fight, we’ll fight. If you want to go public, we’ll do that. Hell, we can do all three if you want. I don’t care. I feel like with you, I can do anything, Issy. You… empower me. So just tell me and we’ll do it together.”
I place my hand over his. “I want all three.”
“Done.”
“It’s not done, you weirdo. Doing all three is impossible.”
“Says the woman who already did the impossible.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You survived, Issy. And from what you’ve told me, that was an all-of-the-above kind of strategy. So let’s do it. Let’s leave today, make a plan, get that asshole Caleb—and Declan and anyone else who’s dirty as sin—and take it all public. Put it all out there for the world to judge. I’ve got tricks up my sleeve, don’t worry about my reputation. What you see is not what you get.”
“I don’t know if I believe that.”
“Which part? The tricks part? Or the surviving part?”
“They’re gonna get you,” I say. “And I can’t let them.”
“If that’s code for I’m-gonna-leave-him-so-I-don’t ruin-his-life, then forget it, babe. You’re stuck with me.”
“But—”
“Just trust me,” he says. “I know that’s a hard thing for you, but trust me. I got this.”
I decide to accept his offer. Because I’m tired. I’m tired of making all these decisions on my own. I’m worn out from being the strong one. I’m fucking exhausted from maintaining control. I just want someone on my side. I just want a partner.
And I want to believe that the pleasure of living comes from the panic you endure when you change your life from one thing into another.
And it hits me then. Just as these words go from being an ethereal mist around my feet to something concrete in front of me… this is exactly what Zig meant when he said, “You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.”
And that feels so right all of a sudden. So on track, so inevitable, so certain, and necessary, and fated that I believe it.
But I shake my worldview one more time and take that conclusion one step further.
It’s not the words I believe in… it’s us.
His phone rings in my hand, startling me. But when I look at it, there’s no incoming call.
I squint my eyes, tabbing at the screen as it continues to ring, trying to find the call.
I look up at Finn and find a look of panic on his face.
“What the—”
But that’s when I realize the phone in my hand, his phone in my hand, is not the one that’s ringing.
And my phone is dead.
“Finn?” I ask. I look at his coat pocket and realize the ringing is coming from there.
I reach for it, but his hand on my wrist stops me before I can get my fingers inside.
“Don’t,” he says.
“What is that?” I ask. “Is that a…”
He shakes his head. “Just don’t, Issy. Not now.”
“Is that a burner phone in your pocket?”
I slap his hand away, reach inside, and pull out one of those cheap-ass phones you can buy in the checkout line at Walmart. The screen says, Blocked.
“What the fuck is this?” I say, my voice rising in pitch. “Are you still working for them? Like right now? Even after you got a second chance?”
“Issy—”
“No. Tell me,” I yell. “Tell me right fucking now. Are you still with the Mob?”
But I don’t need him to tell me. Because it’s written all over his face.
Finn Murphy is nothing but another goddamned lying man.
“Issy, please.”
I throw both phones at him. One hits the window, screen cracking, the little burner bounces off his cheek, leaving a bright red mark on his skin.
“You fucking liar.” I shake my head. “You motherfucking liar. And I almost left town with you. Were you gonna turn me in to Caleb? Was this all a game to you? Were you gonna—”
“Stop it,” he says. “Just listen to me.”
I point my finger right in his face and say, “Fuck you. Get out of my car, leave, and don’t ever contact me again.”
And then I take a deep breath, feeling a little vindicated that I figured him out before we left town and he ruined my life—but also a little sad that I fell for his charm. And his smile. And his eyes. And his dream.
But I let that breath out, open the door to the car, slam it behind me.
And walk away.