The Grand Rupture

I walked up towards the front yard and I saw him. Isaac looked back at me with a gentle smile, while patting his red sweaty neck with a paper towel. “Are you gonna complain about the heat again?” I asked. Isaac relaxed his brick arms and let them hang loose. “I don’t complain that much. Besides, you can’t blame me, not everyone is a walking AC like you!” He went down the painted wooden white steps, his boots knocked against them. “Hm. Thank you?” Isaac went closer to me, I thought he was going to kiss me like he always did when we met up, I leaned closer but only tasted the chill air he left when he went past me. That was weird. I ignored that awkward moment, happy that he didn’t turn around or notice.

I followed behind him as Isaac took his car keys out of his jeans pocket. Mud traces and dirt piled along the sides of his old Subaru Impreza, in some areas around the trunk had small chipped away red paint. “Parallel parking still catches you out?” My fingertips slid against the exposed grey metal. “Always will. Honestly, I don’t know how my dad does it.” Isaac opened the passenger door and stepped aside. “Milady.” He bowed slightly. “Oh what a gentleman!” I gasped. As I sat down on the warm leather, I laid my cool hands on my rosy boiling cheeks. At the time, I never wanted to admit that his words warmed me more than the Arizona sun. He already knows it though. He has always known.

There wasn’t as much traffic that late afternoon, a dozen cars lined up behind each other like people waiting in a bank, green furry trees sprouted up towards the yellow ombre sky. Rigid stores were squished shoulder to shoulder, their different vibrant colours as their only border between. “You know, my parents have been asking when you could come over for dinner with us.”

His relaxed smile turned into a slight frown, “Oh. They still want me to?”

“Of course! I’ve been kind of talking about you a lot at home and it would be great if you came,” I interlaced my fingers with his, “we could hang out more and…they said they could let us have the house to ourselves afterwards.” He hesitated for a moment. His hands slipped away from mine as he turned through a junction. “Thank you. It’s great that they still want to see me,” Isaac’s fingers rubbed against the wheel, “but I’ve got a lot of plans. Gotta help my auntie.”

“Oh, of course, it’s okay you don’t have to come.” I turned my body towards the passenger door. “Thanks for understanding, Mina.” He sighed, almost like he was holding his breath.

About five people were walking by the numerous steakhouses and Mexican restaurants, two of them were around sixty wearing shirts and shorts with large sunglasses that covered a third of their faces. The other two were joggers dressed in neon yellow and light blue, desperate to reach a cooler place. And one person was a girl loitering outside a gift shop, the denim was loose over her shoulders, her arms protected her chest and her head hung looking down at the pale pavement, like the overreaching lampposts above.

The stuffy wave of heat from outside burst through the open car window, it gripped onto my skin and my tanned thighs started to stick bit by bit with the seat.

“Are we almost there?” I asked. Isaac glanced at me, “Yup. Ten minutes away. You’ll love it, trust me.” I went deeper into my seat; the seatbelt strap was still warm on my shoulder. Streams of shops receded and ran dry as we shot out of the main part of town and merging to the outskirts. The muted white noise surrounded the car, like dull oceans and dead waves, hid in plain sight in the far-stretched desert and occasional cacti. Skidding tyres in two lanes ahead of us from cars braking echoed into the abyss as the sunset emerged at the front dusty window, its eyes half-closed but pupils still bright and piercing. My head fell back as I dozed off from the weight on my eyelids.

“Hey sleepyhead,” a whisper in my right ear jolted me awake. There was no road anymore, no sugar-coating advertisement boards, just the tired sun and sandy cracked cliffs. “This was the place you were talking about?” Isaac and I stepped out and onto the grey torn soil. “Yeah. I found it last week. I call it,” he slowly took his hand across, revealing the wide-scale pits of dull rock and river veins, “The Great Gorge.”

Uneven staircases of rugged rock curve beside the green grim water below, if you could call that water. The depth of the drop was about half of the Empire State Building’s height; I imagined a coin descending and how almost silent it would be. At night, this would be a bottomless pit, all sound would be ghosts. Only spots of shrubs were signs of life, although most of them were becoming light brown wrinkled newspaper. The yellow-orange remained the centre of it all, naturally, I stepped further towards the edge, the ground stayed sturdy in its place, while Isaac was shuffling gingerly. “Careful there, Mina! I can’t catch you.” I pivoted around. “Obviously, you’re two metres away and about to shit your pants.” I could have sworn I saw his cheeks go pink. “Shut up.”

The wide view of the entire gorge’s elements was enhanced, even more, the sun slipped lower as the navy blue pressed. The warm air gradually condensed, it was like the top of Earth was beneath my feet. I said a silent prayer as my thanks, to who? I don’t know. It felt like I needed to at that moment. “Does anyone else know this place?”

“Not anyone you know,” he said, closer to me than before. Isaac knew a lot of people; I think I knew only a third of them. Some of them were quite similar to him, the distant ones who had a smile that broke the tension. They were open books but the words sometimes didn’t line up together, incoherent at best. The others were very much the opposite of him, the air around them was theirs to control. Their voices were loud and they knew how to precisely use it, but their actions would say otherwise. Whenever I encountered them, I fished out for the tiny inklings they had, something that Isaac liked so much. For he was a guy who always knew time wasn’t forever. His whole life seemed to be a race he needed to win, if he could do something with his free time, he would find anything to grasp to. It’s why I trusted him. I knew nothing would be wasted if I was with him. Well, that’s what I thought.

My shoulders were embraced by his arms. His lavender-bloomed cologne infused the breeze around us; the two of us. “What do you think?” he asked. “It’s breath-taking honestly!” His arms tightened their hold softly. “Exactly like you.” Hot magma was poured onto my chest. I held his wrist and played with his watch. I wanted to say it and chose to do so.

“Isaac?” I stuttered.

“Yeah?” he murmured. I exhaled, “I love you.”

The coin dropped. Silence deafened, like a million fired canyons, and the ground beneath was yet to shift.