Page 3 of Breaking Isolde
He stood across from me. The paper turned out to be a consent form, standard for all interviews on Academy grounds. I signed without reading it.
“Can you walk me through what happened the night of the incident?” Cooper’s tone was patient, almost gentle. He kept his voice low, careful not to let the words travel.
I gave him the official version. We found her in the river after someone reported her missing. I even managed to sound upset, my fingers trembling as I described how she looked, how I tried to perform CPR. Cooper scribbled notes, nodding in all the right places.
“Did you see anyone else that night?” he asked.
I shook my head. “It was just the two of us. The rest of the search party was looking in a grid.”
He nodded. “Right. Of course.” There was a beat, and then: “Did Casey ever mention being afraid? Of anyone at the school? Or did you ever get the sense that someone was following her?”
I almost laughed. “Nope.”
Cooper sighed. He closed his notebook. “If you do remember anything else, Mr. Grey, you can reach me at this number.”
He handed me a business card, crisp and impersonal. I flipped it over, memorized the numbers, and then tore it in half.
After he left, I went to the gym and ran five miles, then boxed the heavy bag until my hands were blistered and slick with sweat. When I looked down, I thought for a second that my knuckles were bleeding, but it was only the dye from the tape, staining my skin the same red as Casey’s blood.
The interviews continued. Every time Cooper showed up, he was a little more direct, a little less polite. The questions got sharper, like he was paring away the layers of bullshit one at a time. He asked about my father, about the Board, about the “unusual social rumors” at Westpoint. Once, he asked if I’d ever heard of a case being “deliberately mischaracterized” to protect the school’s reputation.
I told him I didn’t know what he meant.
He looked at me for a long time, like he wanted to see if I’d blink first. I didn’t.
That night, I dreamed of Casey again. This time, she was standing at the edge of the river, hair loose and floating around her face. Her hands were cupped, holding something small and white. When I got closer, I saw it was a tooth—her own, knocked loose in the fall, root still bloody. She smiled, and all her teeth were gone.
I woke up with my sheets twisted around my legs, cold sweat pooling at my collarbones. I checked my phone. Three missed calls from my father, one from Dr. Abelard.
The next day, I found Cooper in the chapel.
He was standing at the altar, reading the inscription on the front. His head was bowed, but he heard me enter. “Mr. Grey,” he said, turning around. “I was hoping we could speak somewhere private.”
I crossed the aisle, the soles of my shoes scuffing the stone. The chapel was empty except for us, the pews arranged in neat, military rows. Sunlight filtered through the stained glass in tiny, precise slashes, painting the dust in red and gold.
“I wanted to ask you something off the record,” Cooper said.
I waited.
“Why do you think the Academy is so invested in keeping what really happened to Casey Greenwood a secret.”
He didn’t wait for my answer. Instead, he stepped away from the altar and turned to face me. “I’ve been doing some research. There have been other accidents. Other students who disappeared, or were written off as suicides. But the records are always incomplete, and the witnesses always say the same thing—nothing unusual, just a tragedy, a statistical outlier.”
He looked at me, and for the first time, there was something hard behind his eyes. “You’re not like the others, Mr. Grey. You can change the narrative. Shut this school down. You’re careful… for now. But you also make mistakes, just like everyone else.”
He waited, expecting a reaction. I gave him nothing.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not here to ruin your life. I just want the truth. That’s all.”
For a moment, I almost believed him.
Then I stepped forward, closed the distance between us, and broke his nose with the heel of my hand. The sound was wet and immediate—a pop, then a gush, like someone uncorking a bottle of cheap red wine.
Cooper went down hard, knees hitting the marble with a slap. Blood sprayed across the front of the altar, speckling the inscription in tiny, vivid dots. He tried to speak, but it came out as a wet gurgle.
I crouched next to him, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and whispered, “There is no truth. There’s only what you survive.”
He looked up at me, eyes wide and watering, and I saw the same expression I’d seen on Casey’s face—something between terror and awe.
