25. Chapter 25
Asher
I stand in the hallway, feeling strange and twitchy. I’m sure once we go downstairs, I’ll feel okay again.
“Cookies?” Noah asks.
“Uh?…?yeah, sure.” I linger in the space between the entryway and the kitchen, unsure what to say or do.
Seeing Lilith was freaky as hell. It’s like she’s part of some ancient time—a distant life I barely remember, because I don’t want to remember it. I didn’t want her to pull up my sleeve and expose the side effects of what being with Noah has done to my body either, but she did.
I’m happy here. With him. It doesn’t matter if he’s hurt me in the past. It just doesn’t. It can’t. I have to stay here. There’s no other option.
I clench and unclench my hands, feeling teary-eyed all of a sudden, hating the thoughts flitting through my mind, unable to make sense of them, unable to make sense of anything.
Noah comes to check on me. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I whisper, cursing how fucking stressed out and rattled I feel.
More than ever, I wish I had some drugs to numb the darkness welling up from within. The cravings pierce my chest like sharp needles, and it hurts just as badly as it did during the worst stage of my withdrawal.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Noah wraps his arms around me, and I force myself to hug him back, burying my face into his shoulder, inhaling deeply. He smells so nice.
It’s not his fault that Lilith came and ruined everything. We were having a good time before then, even if Noah was visibly uncomfortable about the whole going-outside thing. I was too, in a way. I liked feeling the sunshine on my face though; I really needed that.
“It’s okay,” Noah says. “We don’t need to go outside again, ever. We’ll order everything online from now on.”
“Okay,” I mumble into his shoulder, but I can’t help but feel a little weird about what he just said. It’s not like I never want to go outside again just because of that run-in with Lilith.
We can go on walks and stuff, feel the sun on our faces, breathe the fresh air. We can’t just be cooped up in the basement twenty-four seven. It’s not healthy.
“How about some tea?” Noah offers.
“Tea?” I mumble, wiping my face with my sleeve. “Fine, but only if it’s got lots of sugar in it.”
He smiles. “Of course.”
Noah brews the tea while I sit by the kitchen island. Just then, a familiar ringtone sounds through the room. My ringtone. My phone is ringing.
I rise from the barstool and go on a treasure hunt. A while back, I told Noah to hide my phone away, but it doesn’t seem like he did a very good job. I find it on the top shelf of a cabinet.
When I see the name on the screen, my heart jumps to my throat.
“Who is it?” Noah asks.
“It’s Ethan. He never calls me.” Why is he calling me?
“Well, maybe you should answer.”
I take a deep breath and tap the reply button. “Hello?”
“Ash? Hi.”
Fuck, it’s so weird hearing his voice. I almost want to start crying again. It must be over a year now since I last heard it.
“I’m coming home for the weekend,” my brother says casually, as if he hasn’t left me on read for months. “Just thought I’d let you know.”
“Why are you calling me?” I can’t help the tense tone of my voice. How the hell am I supposed to talk to someone who pretty much told me he hated me last time we spoke in real life? “Why not just text me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just wanted to check in on you.”
“Did Lilith contact you?”
“Who’s Lilith?” When I don’t reply, he makes an impatient noise. “I’m coming home for the weekend, okay? If you want to see me, come to Mom and Dad’s tomorrow.”
At that, he hangs up, and I’m left staring at the phone in my hand.
I can’t believe he called me. I can’t believe I just heard his voice.
Fuck, this day has been beyond exhausting. I can’t wait to crawl into bed with Noah and just forget about everything, at least until tomorrow.
Noah sets the kettle on the counter. “What did he say?”
“He?…?he told me he’s going home for the weekend. To my parents’.”
“Okay.” For some reason, his voice grows tense. “But I thought you and your brother had a falling-out?”
“Uh, yeah, but?…?He hasn’t been home in ages, and I really want to see him. Can I go, please?” Feeling the need to ask for permission feels weird. Everything about this conversation feels weird.
“Go?” Noah hunches over the kitchen counter, back turned to me.
“I-It’s not like I won’t come back!” I say in a rush. “I’ll just spend the weekend at my parents’.”
A sudden tension passes between us in the wake of my words, and when Noah turns around, his face is that emotionless mask again. Closed off, eyes dark.
“I’m sorry, Ash, but I can’t let you do that.”
My stomach drops. “Wh-What?”
“If you go, you might stay gone, and I need you to be here. With me.” He pushes himself from the kitchen counter and stalks toward me.
“I have to be able to leave sometimes, Noah,” I plead, backing toward the windows. “I’ll come back. Don’t worry.”
He shakes his head. “No, Ash. Don’t you get it? They’ll convince you to stay with them. They’ll discover where you’ve been— how you’ve been—like that girl did. They won’t let you return to me. If I let you walk out that door, I’ll never see you again.”
This can’t be happening. I told him?…?I told him we were done if he ever thought of compromising my freedom again. This is more than thinking it; this is doing it.
“Please, Noah. You have to let me go.”
“Why?” He’s inches away from me now, reaching out a hand to stroke my cheek. “Why do you need your brother? I thought he didn’t care about you.”
“I?…?I didn’t think he did.” It’s not even about my brother—not really. It’s all of it. Our isolation, Noah controlling me like this. Shit. I turn my face away, tears falling down my cheeks. Why is he like this? Why are we like this?
“ I care about you, Asher.” His thumb strokes my cheek, drying a tear, and when I look up, I see he’s on the verge of crying too. “There’s nothing else I care about. Only you. Please.”
“Don’t you understand?” I sob. “I can’t be with you when we’re like this, Noah. I can’t love you when we’re like this.”
“Do you?” His eyes light up with hope. “Love me?”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” I whine. “I can’t. I can’t love you unless you let me go. You have to let me go, Noah.”
“But I can’t let you go.”
I break down, shoulders shaking. “Please. Please.”
“I’m sorry.” He embraces me once more, but where his body heat used to be comforting, it now feels anything but. It feels stifling, as if it’s erasing my own being, my own will, my own self. “I’m sorry. You have to understand.”
I cry into his shoulder as he strokes my back. It feels like mourning, like the end of it all. Because I do understand.
I understand I can’t be with him. I understand I have to leave him. Or else he’ll destroy me.
He’ll smother me.
He’ll make me into what I was before he released me from my chains, only this time, those chains will be invisible. I can’t live like that. It’s not love; it’s a slow death. An erasure of my existence.
So that is why I lean back and kiss him for the last time, tasting my own tears and his, feeling oddly numb with the gravity of my decision. I cradle his face, and my hands are shaking. All of me is.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It might kill him, what I’m about to do, but all things considered, I think he’d thank me for that.
As quickly as I can manage, I reach toward the counter and grab the heaviest object I can find: a porcelain canister of utensils. Closing my hand around it, I swing it to the side of Noah’s head.
Noah tumbles to the ground, the utensils clattering all around him. He grabs his head, gasping for breath. “Ash?…”
That single word is like a knife through my heart. I could say “I’m sorry” a hundred times over, and it still wouldn’t be enough, but Noah should be sorry too, and I don’t think he is—at least, not sorry enough. And that is part of the reason I have to go.
For the second time that day, I inhale the fresh air of the world outside. I’m going home, but it doesn’t feel like it.