CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

ASH

“Ashleigh, thank God,” are the first words out of Summer’s mouth as she pushes open the door to pull me in for a smothering hug. “I’ve been so worried about you.”

“No need to worry. You know no one gets the best of me.” I hook my hand around her arm and try to pry her loose. “I’m fully capable of taking care of myself.”

“I know.” Her grip on me doesn’t lessen as she steps back to study me with the concern of a mother hen, never mind that we’re the same age. “But I saw that video, and you disappeared off the face of the earth. I was worried.”

“Well, I’m here now.” I pat her arm like her concern is unjustified. “We should have a drink.”

Behind us Sam clears his throat.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Summer asks me, her face suddenly hovering mere inches from mine.

“She’s staying with me,” Sam tells his sister as he steps inside and shrugs out of his North Face down jacket. We’re gathered in the tiny foyer amidst shoes and coats, and he takes the opportunity after he hangs his, to press his fingers to the small of my back, reminding me that he’s here with me whenever I need him. “Let me take your coat?”

“Yes.” I undo the buttons on my trench, and he holds it while I slip out of it.

“She’s staying with you?” Summer asks him, turning to me. “For how long?”

“Since last Tuesday.”

“Why didn’t you call me? You could have come here.”

“I know. I—” How does one tell their best friend they just couldn’t handle a million questions when the shit hit the fan?

“Sorry,” Sam jumps in. “Ash needed some space.”

“You could have told me, though.” Summer’s eyes widen as her gaze swings to her brother and she punches him in the arm. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t at least tell me that much, so I didn’t have to worry my heart out.”

“My fault,” I say. “I didn’t know how to tell you. Or what you’d think. Or if you wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.” Inside, I’m hollow and cold, except for the burn behind my eyes. I’ve worked really hard on my ‘don’t give a damn’ attitude. What if for the first time in our lives she sees right through me and doesn’t like what she finds? “I needed time to work out what to do.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she says. “I swear, sometimes I don’t understand you at all. I’m your best friend. I always have your back.”

“Thanks.” I sniffle. This time when I’m engulfed by her hug, I hold on tight. I want so very much to believe her when she says that.

“And have you? Worked it out.” She steps back. “Is there anything you can do about the video?”

“I have my lawyers sending out cease and desist letters every time a new copy pops up online,” Sam speaks for me, giving me a chance to collect myself. “I’m not sure there’s much else we can do.”

“I’m trying to ignore it,” I tell them. Or at least wish I could, but Luca’s last text message made it clear this situation isn’t going to fade away any time soon. It’s probably going to get much worse unless I can work out how to give him what he wants.

“Do you know who did it?” Dylan comes into view, his smile sympathetic. There are sprinkles and cake batter on his fingers that he wipes up with a kitchen towel. “I know a guy if you need. Doesn’t ask any questions.”

“Remind me again why I like you,” Sam grumbles.

Dylan chuckles. “Because your sister loves me, and I give good advice.”

“When have I ever asked you for advice?” Sam asks, confused.

“Last summer.” Dylan wiggles his eyebrows. “Remember when you asked me how I kept up with your sister, but what you were actually asking—”

“Zip it, Dylan.” Gabe elbows him in the ribs as he joins us, taking my hand and squeezing it. “Good to see you, Ash.”

I glance between the three men, aware that I will probably never know what that subtle dig was about, but hating the fact I bristle at the thought of it being about Mandy. Nobody knows about me and Sam. They don’t. His sister doesn’t have a clue. Mandy doesn’t have a clue. As far as they all know Mandy and I are as good at being friends as we were before she tried to make Sam hers. They might even think Sam and Mandy should have ended up together. Maybe they’re right. But I want to grab his arms and put them around me and tell them all that I never want to see or hear about anyone else with him again. 

I glance up to find him looking at me like maybe he’s thinking the same thing. I swallow an influx of saliva that tastes a lot like I’m chicken and ignore the urge to touch him.

“Come on.” Summer puts her arm through mine, pulling me away from our posse of boys. “We should talk while the men hunt for pizza.”

***

“I can’t believe that some…some… wanker would do that to you. And there’s nothing you can do?” Summer is ready to jump out of her skin. The pale gold wine in her glass swings perilously close to the rim as she picks jerkily at some imagined lint on her fuzzy cardigan. “You can’t get him fired? Or… anything? You’ve reported it to the police though, right? Surely you could sue him.”

She hasn’t been able to sit still since we started talking through what happened. She keeps clenching her teeth and sounding pained each time she asks for a little more detail. “Is it some kind of revenge thing? I just don’t understand how someone could do this to anyone.”

“I don’t know either,” I tell her, examining my fingernails and trying to pretend it’s not a big deal so Summer doesn’t get any more wound up. I’m supposed to be turning over this new leaf where I tell her everything, and I do want to, but if I told her about the demands in the texts Luca’s been sending then she’d tell Sam. I put the lid back on her nail polish and spread my cherry tipped fingers across my thigh, so they can finish drying. I need to work out how to fix this myself without Sam getting involved. We’ve come so far, I don’t want to let him down now. I don’t want to see the disappointment he’ll feel when he realizes how badly I’ve screwed up. Especially when I can’t imagine leaving him again. “We only dated for a little while. There was nothing to get revengy about. I don’t understand why he did it at all. He’s just a sick individual. They both are.”

“At least you weren’t in love with him,” she says, like I could ever have feelings for anyone like Luca. “You’ve always been so emotionally resilient.”

I roll my gaze at her, mainly so my eyes don’t get glassy. She’s my best friend and she truly has no idea how wrong she is about me. “Hard to feel anything for a guy like that. Hard to love anyone after you’ve already found where you belong.”

“Who?” Eyes wide, she gapes at me, before her brain starts clicking along. I can see it; the great quantity of memories she must be sifting through while she dies of curiosity.

“It doesn’t matter.” I blow on my nails. “Not really, though I suppose you’ll find out at some point.” Would Sam be happy if I told her about us? Would it be enough for him to let down his guard? Would he let me slide on the other thing he made me promise to tell Summer about? Would he let Talon stay in the past where he belongs?

Sam thought I was in love with the guy. I never bothered to dissuade him from that notion. Never tried to explain that I’d been head over heels for Sam since I was fifteen, or that I’d had a life long crush on him before that, or that there was never anyone else, though I tried. I pretended. I faked like a damn champion. I held my secrets close to my chest and I let Sam believe that I grieved for a man I’d loved.

“Are you going to tell me?” Summer pushes at my arm, bringing me back to our conversation. “You can’t just leave me hanging like that. I’m your best friend.”

I wish I could tell her about Sam. Maybe she’d forgive me for keeping that secret. “Do you remember Talon Whyte?”

“Talon Whyte?” She leans her chin on the heel of her palm and drums her fingers on her lips.

“We went to school with him.”

“The son of that actor? He went to prison for assault if I remember—”

“We dated,” I blurt. “In college. For a semester.”

“And you fell in love with him?” Her eyes are bugging out of her head, the sudden jolt forward at the news causes her wine to spill on her knee. “All this time and you never told me about him.”

“I’m telling you now,” I say, not even entirely sure why, except that Sam told me I had to. What difference does pulling the past out of the dark and parading it in front of Summer make anyway? It’s done. I can’t change it. She’ll only be disgusted with me. How am I supposed to live with that?

“We were involved for a while. I don’t know. We got each other in a lot of ways. His dad was gone and so was mine. His stepmother was almost the same age as us. Plus we both liked to party.” I glance at my feet because I can’t look her in the eyes. Calling Sam that night and telling him why I’d been arrested killed me. Telling Summer is worse, and I can barely force the words, “We got wasted a lot. High—”

“You were doing drugs?” She gasps, her hand going to her mouth.

On some level she must have known. It must have occurred to her. I was daddy’s little rich girl. No one gave a damn, but they sure did give me cash. I had disposable income to burn through and no one to make sure I used my head. When I went away to college, I didn’t even have her to keep my stupidity to a minimum. I pick at a fuzzy string on my sock until it becomes a hole. “We were having fun. We rarely showed up to class. We were usually hammered by lunchtime. I moved in with him when I was kicked off campus.”

“Ash, you never said a word. All those times I called…”

“I was strung out,” I whisper, wanting to vomit.

“I thought…” she shakes her head. “You sounded like you were having fun. I thought you were just being the same old Ash. How did I not know?”

“I’m really good at faking,” I say, pretending to be perky and blasé like she’s used to. All those times she called me she thought Molly was a girl in my dorm. She didn’t realize I was talking about my drug abuse. “Really good at pretending to be something other than what I am. Like happy.”

“Oh God, Ash. Did anyone know?”

“Sam knows,” I tell her. And their dad. Sam must have talked to him about it at some point, or at least he was aware that something had happened to drive me into his son’s home for all that time. “My brother knew?” She glances past me in the direction of the kitchen where our men are discussing who knows what while giving us some privacy to catch up.

“I needed him to bail me out,” I confess. “We stole this car, this beat up, rusted out old orange Ford with creaky doors. Talon thought we should take it for a spin. That it would be funny to cruise around in this beat up junk car like we were normal people. I don’t know why I agreed.”

“You stole a car?”

“I…I drove the car.” My stomach is in my throat, chunks and bile keep me from being able to swallow. “I honestly don’t remember how we went from thinking about stealing it to me driving it, but I was behind the wheel when we crashed. Talon wasn’t wearing a seat belt. His head was in my lap.”

The image is so clear. I touch my forehead and stare at my fingers as though I expect them to be covered in sticky brown blood like they were when I came to. Copper floods my senses, and something acrid burns my nostrils. Pine needles pop and snap around us. I’m sitting in a pool of what I’m pretty sure is my own wee. Talon’s head is in my lap and my skirt is ruched around my hips and my panties are knotted around my ankles. I start screaming.

Summer grabs my hand, jolting me. “I can still see the twisted angle of his body.” The steering wheel breaking his neck was the only thing that kept him from being thrown through the window. Not that it mattered. “He was gone.”

“Jesus,” she whispers. “Ash, I can’t believe you never told me any of this.”

“I was driving. It was my fault. How do you tell someone something like that? There isn’t a card for that.” I can barely get the words out, each one becomes more and more high pitched and whispered until I choke on them. “I’m so glad we’re friends, but I have to tell you I killed someone.”

“It must have been an accident.” Her nails cut into my skin. “Otherwise the police would have charged you with murder.”

“I don’t remember any of it. One minute we were laughing and talking about stealing a car for the hell of it.” It doesn’t matter how hard I try or how hard I push, I can never remember past Talon joking about stealing the car. It’s like my own mind knows I can’t handle knowing the truth. Am I a coward for thinking that might be for the best?

“The next I was arrested for DUI, possession, and manslaughter. Then by the time Sam came to get me all the charges were dropped. I can only assume my dad got involved, but we’ve never talked about it.” I can never bring myself to ask. “Sam took me home, and I stayed with him while I got better.” 

“I’m so sorry.” She throws her arms around me and drags me into a hug until I have to fight to breathe. “That’s horrible. I wish you had told me, so I could have been there for you. I’m so glad you at least had Sam. Losing the person you loved and thinking you’re to blame must have been so awful.”

“I didn’t love him,” I say.

“It’s okay to say you did,” she tells me. “Sometimes we love people that aren’t good for us. But you never have to pretend with me. I want you to know that. You don’t need secrets with me. We’re practically sisters.”

“I didn’t love him,” I repeat. In some ways that makes it worse, because at least if I’d had feelings for him it would have made sense of why we together. But he was just another distraction. “I didn’t love him, because I couldn’t fall for anyone. But I killed him. That was my fault.”

Sam clears his throat as an advance warning, and we turn to the sound of his voice. His pained gaze catches mine as he joins us. How much did he hear before he decided to interrupt? “Pizza’s ready. Sum, can you give us a minute?”

“Sure.” She smiles fondly at her brother and pats his bicep on her way past. “Be kind to my friend, she’s fragile.”

We watch her leave the room. “I wasn’t going to tell her about us.”

“I wouldn’t care,” he says. “If you want to tell her then tell her, but you might want to be certain that you’re done with anything that will take you from me again before you share that news. I have a feeling it might not be so easy to break up with me with Summer around.”

Want to stay, stay. Want to love, love. I’m so used to fighting these emotions. I’m so tired of waiting for someone else to keep him from me, and dying inside when they do. But this isn’t uncomplicated. Love isn’t a splendid thing. It’s chaos and pain and trying not to screw up, and I am so very good at screwing up. “We should go eat.”