Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
Max
The second I read that name, a tight feeling coiled round my stomach. It squeezed like a vice. Constricting until I had to sit. That name.
Ashley Smith.
What the hell were the chances? Zero? Less than zero? But still that name brought back memories that I’d been working so hard to forget for so many years. Unfortunately, since returning home, those memories were becoming harder and harder to suppress.
“ Ashley Smith. Ash .” I said the name out loud and took notice of the way it rolled off my tongue, the way it felt in my mouth, the way my vocal cords formed so easily around it, as if it was a name I said daily. It wasn’t. Maybe it’s been running through your head daily, though? a part of my brain suggested, and I quickly shut it down. I had become good at shutting that part down. Practice makes perfect, after all. And I’d decided long ago to never listen to that part again. Because that part was home to all the memories and the images of her. Of us. I’d forced the door closed on that part of my mind years ago. Locked the door, nailed it shut, and walked away from it. But when I’d moved back to South Africa, the echo of that name had been everywhere, and it was becoming harder and harder to push it all away. In fact, that name had been on my mind so much lately that it made being physically confronted with it now even more unnerving. As if I’d manifested it in some way. Which I hadn’t. I didn’t believe in such things, but still. It was weird.
The door in my mind cracked open a little more and now memories and images were flooding me. Happy memories, the best memories of my life, but, with those, also the worst memories of my life too.
I cursed out loud and walked to the other end of my room. “Shit.” It always shocked me when I felt like this. I thought I had this under control. But the mere mention of that name clearly still had the power to rattle me. Maybe it was more than just hearing the name, though.
Leigh and I were definitely flirting. And I liked her, probably more than I’d liked anyone in a while, and I didn’t even know her. Maybe that’s why it suddenly felt as if the floor had shifted under my feet. Because these small, fledgling feelings I was having for Leigh were ever so slightly reminiscent of the feelings I’d had for Ashley . . .
My phone delivered another beep. The ID . I raced over to it, the photo that she’d sent was just waiting to be downloaded. All I had to do was tap the arrow on the screen and then, then . . . My finger hovered over the button. Why was I hesitating? A feeling, huge and vast and overwhelming, built inside me. A feeling that I hadn’t felt in forever.
“Fuck it.” I pressed the button and the image crystalized before my eyes, and as soon as it did, my phone slipped through my fingers as if it was suddenly made of melted butter. It fell to the floor, bounced once, twice, the torch turned on, and then it settled. I looked down at it, the light from the torch shinning up at me as if I was in some kind of interrogation room. It felt like I was. Because there were so many questions coming at me right now that I was trying desperately to answer. The first and biggest one being: Had I really just seen that?
Or had I imagined it because I’d wanted to see it? I didn’t know which thought was most terrifying, and I didn’t know why it now felt that picking up my phone and looking at the screen was the hardest task that had ever been laid out in front of me.
I bent down on my haunches and stared at my phone as if waiting for it to do something to me. But when it didn’t, when it simply lay there motionless, I picked it up. I traced my finger over the screen, a large crack running the length of it now. I turned the torch off quickly and then looked at the screen.
“Fuuuck.” The word escaped my dry mouth as I crossed my legs and sat flat on the floor, staring at the photo in front of me.
It was her.
Ash.
My Ash.
I clutched my head. It hurt from all the spinning it was doing and all the questions racing through it. I hadn’t seen this face in thirteen years. I hadn’t googled her once in all those years for fear that I’d feel exactly like this. I wasn’t on social media either in case she Googled me and reached out. I had done everything possible to never see this face again, and yet here she was. The locked door at the back of my brain, keeping back all those memories, cracked open even more.
Those eyes. Big and round as ever.
Small, button nose that I used to touch with the tip of my finger. That I used to plant soft kisses on.
Lips. Small lips that almost disappeared when she smiled that megawatt smile. A smile that had the power to knock you off your feet and make time stop. When she smiled at you, everything in the world was perfect.
The fucking door was cracking open even more. I tried to mentally slam it shut, but it was no use. Everything rushed back now.
Kissing those lips, Jesus Christ. There was no better feeling in the entire world. Nothing beat sinking into those lips, into her mouth and tasting her.
“Shit!” I stood up abruptly and ran a hand across my forehead. It was damp with sweat. I had to stop thinking like this. I had to stop staring at her picture and remembering. But I couldn’t.
Her hair was totally different now. It was short, hanging just below her ears. She’d always had this long hair that was always getting knotty, and that I was constantly helping her brush. Sitting behind her on the bed carefully trying to work out the knots that had gathered under her ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her hair was no longer blonde either. She’d clearly stopped bleaching it to within an inch of its life. It was dark and chocolaty brown, just like those manga-sized eyes of hers.
The shape of her face was also different, cheekbones and a sharper jawline had replaced youthful softness. She no longer looked like a girl, with those faint lines by her eyes and mouth, and her face seemed slimmer and longer, but . . .
She was still, without a doubt, the most gorgeous girl—woman now—that I’d ever laid eyes on.
When the initial shock had worn off, the full implications hit me. I had been unknowingly talking to the only woman I had ever loved for the last month. It all made sense now. I’d felt this inexplicable connection to her and I hadn’t known why. Now I knew. This thought scared me so much that I reached for a glass of whiskey in hopes of taking the edge off the painful jagged feeling that was ripping me up inside.
What did this all mean?
“No!” I downed the glass. I was reading too deeply into this. It was thirteen years ago. I was over her. That’s what the last thirteen years of my life had been all about. Getting over her.
Work. Traveling. Sex. Work. Traveling . . .
Sex.
So much meaningless sex.
I shook my head, turned my phone off and tossed it onto my bed. I walked straight into the bathroom and peeled off my clothes. I climbed into the shower and blasted myself with water. I needed to wash it away, these feelings, these thoughts, the sweat that had formed on my forehead and palms. I stood there and let the water rush over me, imagining it taking away all those feelings I didn’t want to be having. I looked down and pictured them all falling into the drain and disappearing once again.
I was over her.
I had to be.