33. Epilogue 2
Noah
Two years after that day in the woods behind school, Asher and I are going on our first trip. It took us a while to decide where to go, but as soon as the suggestion came up, the choice was easy.
“We don’t like people much, right?” Asher said. “So how about Alaska? We could rent a cabin there or something.”
Said and done. We’re leaving tomorrow, and tonight I’m filled with tentative excitement, along with the anxiety of how broke we’re going to be when we get home.
Asher’s parents have stopped sending him money each week. Not because they found out about him dropping out of college, but because he asked them to.
In turn, I’ve taken up my old job at the gas station, and Asher joins me there three times a week.
It doesn’t make for much of an income, but on the other hand, our everyday expenses are quite low.
Traveling is expensive though. I don’t think Asher realizes quite how expensive, as he’s always had his parents’ money to fall back on.
Either way, we’ll get through it, just like we’ve gotten through everything else. This night, tomorrow, and beyond.
To prepare for our first fall and whole winter together, we installed heaters in the basement, and now it’s toasty and warm when we want it to be. Mostly, the heat of our bodies is enough.
Asher still spoons me and holds me by the throat when we sleep.
We both feel safest that way, though it’s not for the same reasons it used to be.
Asher trusts me not to harm him, and I trust him as well.
I trust him with my life. Trust that he’ll save me, again and again, and that I’ll be there for him when he needs me as well.
I lie awake for a long time, thinking of all I have gained, unexpectedly, amazingly.
The veil of darkness that always cloaked my life and mind has lifted, and now I not only hope for survival—I’m surviving .
I’m living. Both of us are. And we will keep surviving, keep living, bit by bit. Day by day.
When we slip down into our black holes, we claw ourselves back to the surface with the help of each other.
The people on the outside may not approve of us, but I’m no longer as terrified of Asher leaving me as I was.
The feeling is still there, but it’s nagging and annoying instead of overwhelming, because I don’t believe in it anymore.
Instead, I believe he’ll stay. And I believe I will too.
Long ago, I saved his life, and in return, he saved mine, even if he didn’t know it then, and he keeps saving me, again and again.
I’ve tried a few medications, but none have been as effective as just being near him.
My Goldilocks. I still can’t imagine a life without him—even more so now than before—but I think that’s okay.
I’m still as desperate for him as I was when we first met, but it’s a different type of desperation.
A less toxic one. A more lasting one.
Sometimes, when we’re apart, I feel an echo of what I used to feel constantly before we met. Like a stranger in my own brain—unwelcome in a world that doesn’t want me. I’m reminded of the broken, lonely creature I used to be, but these days, the feeling passes quickly.
I feel human now. I feel whole—or at least, as whole as I can be.
I don’t know if I’ll ever entirely get rid of that feeling.
Something has been shattered in me, like a broken bone that healed wrong and might never fully recover.
Asher has his own struggles, and sometimes I fear I’m not enough for him.
That he would be better off with someone else, someone who’s whole and healed.
But the parts of me that are whole fit into the parts of him that are broken, and the parts of him that are whole fit into the parts of me that might never fully heal.
That is the reason, I think, why he’s content to stay with me.
And I don’t think it’s such a bad thing, even though my therapist has said we should learn to be apart, for the benefit of us both.
I can’t say I fully understand her reasoning.
All in all, it’s a work in progress.
I still go into the woods sometimes, but when I do, I don’t go alone. Asher knows nothing of guns, and he claims he doesn’t want to learn. He says he just wants to be close to me. Though, I suspect part of the reason is that he’s trying to catch a glimpse of the wolf.
We haven’t seen her since that day behind school, but maybe she’s still around, watching me.
Watching us. That is enough. I don’t need to be saved anymore.
She’s with us every step, every breath, every crack of twigs under our feet.
Reminding us of what it is to be alive and that you can go on despite the weight of your hardships. Despite the immenseness of your grief.
It will get better . That is what my therapist says, and I have started to believe her, just as Asher has started to reconcile with his sobriety.
A couple of months after the wolf sighting, he got drunk with a few of his old friends after work, and he ended up participating in more than alcohol. Not heroin, but something else.
He told me the day after. Broke down, cried about what a failure he was. I just held him. Told him it’s hard and that it will continue to be hard, but maybe, if he wants to, he can ask for outside help.
That’s how he started going to the group meetings every Monday. When he comes home, he’s always bursting with energy, babbling on about all of the interesting people he met there.
Sometimes he simply walks up to me and starts tugging at my clothes, caressing my waist, slipping his hands up my shirt to tug at my nipple piercings, even if I’m cooking, especially if I’m cooking.
One time, he even jerked me off while I was trying to make ramen from scratch. Said he wanted an “appetizer.”
Sometimes he tests my boundaries in other ways. Darker ways. But those, we reserve for the basement.
Ethan has called him a few times, and though he ignored the calls at first, I encouraged him to pick up the last one, and he ended up talking with his brother for hours.
Apparently, Ethan has moved to a small town outside of Boston, and he’s gotten engaged to his college girlfriend.
Doesn’t seem like he’s very focused on advancing his career.
Maybe he got sick of managing his parents’ expectations.
This summer, he’s coming to Springvale with his fiancée, and I think I’m going to encourage Asher to meet up with him. If only to get closure. If only to lessen the pain I know still resides in his heart.
I sigh into his embrace now, trying to shake off the preflight anxiety.
Being around all those people at the airport?…
The eyes, the questioning glances?…?That is one thing that hasn’t really changed: I’m still not good with being around people.
But I’m good with being around the only person I care about, and right now, I’m warm and safe in his arms, and so I will be in twenty-four hours, after we’ve landed and situated ourselves in our cabin.
Asher stirs behind me. My distress, however quiet, always seems to wake him up.
“Noah?” he asks, voice muffled by sleep. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
He lifts his hand from my throat and takes my hand instead. “But there’s something, right?”
Yes. There is something. If only I could work up the courage to say it.
I clear my throat, feeling my chest tense as my heart kicks up a beat. “Remember?…?how I asked you long ago?…?if you felt safe with me?”
“Yeah, what about it?” Asher nuzzles into my neck, inhaling deeply.
“You said?…?you didn’t think you’d ever feel safe around me. Do you?…” My throat tightens, and I can barely get the words out. “Do you still feel that way?”
“Hmm?…” He slides a hand up my body, stopping at my nipples to gently tug at the piercings there, as he so loves to do.
Even after all this time, I don’t think a day has gone by where he hasn’t put his fingers or his mouth on them.
He hasn’t pierced me anywhere else, though, even though I’ve offered. He says he doesn’t need to.
He keeps tugging at my piercings, slowly, thoughtfully, to the point I feel him growing hard behind me. He sighs and lets go, planting a kiss on the back of my head.
“I don’t know when it happened, exactly, but I do feel safe with you, Noah. Of course I do. It just took some time.”
“Oh.” The wave of relief is so stark it washes away any pretravel anxiety, along with any lingering fears, any doubts, and the last bit of pain in my heart.
“Shh, don’t worry,” Asher says. “I’m here, aren’t I? With you. Don’t you see me?”
I turn around to meet his sleep-mussed hair, his smile.
My world.
I lift my hand and lay it on his cheek, softly and with care, as if it’s the most important thing I’ve done in my life. Because he is.
“I see you. Always.”
He smiles and leans in to plant a kiss on my lips, chaste at first, but as it usually goes with us, the kiss soon turns heated, his body writhing against mine, his hand coming up to grip my throat.
He runs his tongue across my lower lip and looks straight into my eyes, letting me feel the heat of him, his full attention. His love.
“I see you too.” Between kisses, he asks, “What do you want to do when we get there?”
“Where?”
“The cabin,” he chuckles.
“Oh. I just?…?I just want to be with you. I just want you to hold me.”
He tightens the grip on my throat, cutting off the very edge of my breath. “Like this?”
“Yeah?…?Like that.”
“I want to hold you too. I want to be with you too. Forever.”
I close my eyes, and my chest fills with joy—a joy I can barely believe the gravity of. But I trust it. I trust us .
“Forever.”
THE END