“Ilse?” His surprise was evident, but so was his discomfort, which she made herself ignore. “How have you been?”
Ah.Issac was doing small talk. Dutch people didn’t do small talk the way everyone else in the world did. Small talk for them was unnatural, practiced, and a sign of discomfort.
But Ilse made herself ignore this, too.
She had to.
“I’m doing fine...for a college dropout.”
Issac laughed weakly. “At least you don’t need to wake up at god-awful hours for class.”
“True.” Instead, she had to wake up with her heart in her throat, wondering if today would be the day she wouldn’t be able to put food on the table. “So...I was wondering—-”
He interrupted her almost right away, saying under his breath, “It’s not possible.”
Issac had always been charmingly tactless, but this – this was different. This wasrude.
She said finally, “I see.” And she did see, too much so, more than she could bear. When Issac didn’t say anything else, she couldn’t help asking, “How do you know what I was about to ask?”
“Natalia called me.”
‘Natalia warned me,’was what Ilse knew Issac truly meant.
Natalia was her so-called best friend who was supposed to have her back. Natalia, who had been the first to loan Ilse money but had now apparently appointed herself as everyone’s guardian angel.
She could easily picture the petite-framed Natalia in her mind, her blue eyes welling with tears as she whispered in that sweetly frail voice of hers.I want to help Ilse, but I don’t think it’s right if I lend her all of my allowance.
“I want to help you, Ilse—-” Issac’s tone was abrupt, fierce.
“I know.” Ilse absently watched her fingers start to move, drawing circles around the buttons on the phone booth.
It had been eight months since her parents had died in a car crash, eight months of living off her friends’ allowances as she struggled to keep up with the mounting bills, eight months of futile attempts to prove that she did have an inheritance, but somehow their family’s accountant and lawyer had conspired to make it seem like her parents had died bankrupt.
“I’m sorry, Ilse.”
“I know.” Somehow, she managed to find it in herself to mean it. And if Natalia herself had apologized to her, she knew she would bear no grudge against her ex-best friend either.
“I want to help you, Ilse. It kills me that I can’t, but you know how things are. We’re all living off our parents until we graduate and—-”
“I really understand.”
“I’ve always liked you, Ilse. You know that, right?”
She remained silent, not knowing exactly what she should say or what he wanted to hear.Yes,she knew he had a crush on her since they were five. But was that supposed to make her feel better?
“I’d even marry you in a heartbeat. You’re my dream girl. But you have Jan—-”
“Ialwayshad Jan, and I will always have him,” Ilse couldn’t help pointing out helplessly. “It wasn’t like I hid him.”
“I know, I know,” Issac rushed to assure her. “And I’ve always thought it’s amazing, the way you were so proud of him—-” His voice trailed off. “What I’m saying is, I knew he was there, but it didn’t really sink in that he’dalwaysbe there until...”
“Until I didn’t have enough money to support him, and you realized that if you had me as your girlfriend, you’d be the one supporting him instead.”
“It’s not like that.”
But it was exactly like that, Ilse thought tiredly, and she didn’t hold it against him. Jan was part of her family, not anyone else’s. She didn’t expect anyone to have the same devotion she did to Jan.
“Ilse—-”
