Chapter 25 #2
The crash out is going to be epic, and I’m just hoping that it doesn’t happen before we manage the thirty-minute train ride home.
The sky is an inky black that makes it feel later than it is, but we’re still way past her bedtime. One of many exceptions that were made for a hockey game on a school night.
He shrugs and gives me a guileless smile. “You only get to be a kid once, right?”
“Her or you?” I bat back, wishing that I could push my shoulder into his, just to feel his solid weight.
Still, I couldn’t say no–to either one of them.
She and Asher were like two peas in a pod during the game, and I’ve never been so happy to be ganged up on.
If he got nachos, she wanted nachos. If he got a hot dog, she wanted a hot dog.
When she negotiated cotton candy on behalf of both of them and then ate all of it, I had a very clear vision of pink and blue vomit spewed across the people in front of her.
Luckily, it didn’t come to pass.
Still, I can’t remember having so much fun.
Watching how Asher talked to her about the game and explained the rules more in-depth than I had before.
The way he lifted her up so that she could see when play moved into one of the corners.
He’s a really good teacher, I realized, as he patiently answered her questions and explained concepts to her.
And then there’s how close we were pressed for the last couple of hours. Stadium seats are notoriously small, and I’ve never been so grateful that there was nowhere for our legs to go but against one another. Our shoulders, too, if I could help it.
He seemed to feel the same, finding reasons to always be repositioning so that we brushed together.
A touch on my knee here when an exciting play was happening.
An arm thrown over my shoulder there whenever a goal was scored.
It could all be explained by revelry and excitement, but I know that we could have been down by ten and still found reasons to come together.
I don’t want to send him home later, even though I will. Getting Lyla to bed is going to be a nightmare until she crashes, and more importantly, she can’t know about us. I’m serious–I won’t have her keeping my secrets.
I wish it didn’t have to be a secret.
It’s like I’m always finding a way to torture myself. First, over giving into the chemistry between us. And now, about how even though I’m the one setting the rules, I wish that I could crash through them without a care.
When the pedestrian light flicks on, we start walking across the street.
The next few seconds happen quickly then.
Lyla’s still holding my hand, but she’s about a foot ahead of me, her arm outstretched and pulling us forward.
With the loss of vision in my left eye, I don’t see the car coming as soon as I should. By the time that it’s in my line of sight, it’s barreling down on us, ready to clip her.
It’s so obviously running the red light that I almost can’t believe it’s happening.
Except it is.
I pull her toward me, and I think I’m going to throw up when I realize that her weight isn’t pulling back at me anymore.
“Lyla,” I scream, bile rising in my throat. Swift and acidic and I think I may throw up right in the street. No, no, no, no reverberates in my brain like a sick mantra. Like if I keep repeating it, everything will be okay.
I register Asher’s voice in some dim place in my mind, but I can’t comprehend his words. “It’s okay. I’ve got her. It’s okay.”
We’re still standing in the crosswalk, but I don’t come back into my body until I finally feel a tiny squeeze against my hand. “Daddy?”
I look down at my own hand, still enveloping hers. I follow the small, fragile line of her arm up to where she’s pulled close against Asher’s chest, her other arm wrapped around him.
She’s looking at me with big, scared eyes. Probably because I must look like a wild man right now. I’m pretty sure the entire street can hear how loudly my heart is beating. “Daddy, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Am I okay? I’m… My heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest and my legs suddenly feel too weak to hold myself up.
I register that the pedestrian light is still on for us to cross. It’s probably only been a few seconds. Why do I feel like I’ve aged ten years?
“I’m okay, baby,” I say instinctively, once I realize that she’s not hurt.
I catalog her face and her small frame and her skewed pony tail that started straight and shifted progressively more sideways as she jumped and cheered for the Nauticals tonight.
“I’m okay. You’re okay, too.” I hope my words soothe her, but I don’t know that they do.
All I know is that she’s not hurt because Asher, who was on her other side, pulled her up in time.
I don’t have time to think about what just happened–what could have happened–because he says, “Let’s get across the street,” in a soft but determined voice that calms me the smallest bit.
And he doesn’t let Lyla go. Instead, he keeps her pressed against his chest, carrying her like she’s the most precious thing in the world. Which to me, she is.
It helps that she’s easy to hold, and he does it with one arm. The other one wraps around my shoulders and guides us safely to the entrance for the metro.
All the advice that I’ve given him over the last few months about panic attacks is a lot harder to employ when you’re the one going through it.
I’m trying to remember to breathe and focus on the sounds of the city and the people milling about.
They’re oblivious to how I felt like, for a moment, I came too close to losing everything.
He takes charge from there, navigating the three of us to the platform, where we only have to wait a couple of minutes for the train.
I still feel numb and like my body and brain aren’t quite working right.
They definitely aren’t working together.
My limbs are sluggish and my brain won’t stop spinning out, replaying all the worst possible scenarios.
All I can make sense of is Asher’s presence next to me.
Even though Lyla’s the one he’s carrying, I don’t think that he realizes that he’s holding both of us up.
I lean against his solid frame. I only stopped touching him when we had to navigate through the turnstiles.
Lyla doesn’t quite understand what almost happened, but the fear that she saw on my face seems to have tired her out–or the insane amounts of sugar; honestly, I hope that’s it–and she’s already falling asleep in Asher’s arms.
Good. I want her to have even one more day in this world where she doesn’t realize how cruel and unfair it can be.
Asher knows, and I don’t know that I ever fully appreciated his loss until this moment.
We get onto the train wordlessly and sit in a corner with two seats. I’m glad that we don’t have anyone around us, not that I’m using this time to process what almost happened.
I’ve been so fucking lucky, all things considered. Sure, we’ve had a few bumps and bruises and tumbles, but nothing like this. Not the heart-shattering, life-changing possibility that she could be taken from me.
“I don’t know what I’d do,” I say, realizing I’m actually talking instead of the words just replaying in my mind like they’ve been doing since the train started moving.
Asher looks over at me, Lyla’s head nuzzled against his shoulder. She’s sleeping soundly now, the train swaying gently while we head toward home.
I know that he must have been scared out of his mind too. But he didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. He stepped up and did probably one of the scariest things in the world for him. And he did it for me and Lyla.
It’s like a rock’s been dropped into my stomach with the weight of that realization. I just look at him, hoping that he understands what he’s done for me.
“Looks like you could use a good hug more than me right now,” he says, easily adjusting Lyla so that she drapes her arms over me instead.
I pull her onto my lap and hold her close.
Something about having her safely in my arms again makes me want to cry.
Like now that the danger is truly over, I feel like I could just fall apart.
“Thank you,” I say quietly, catching his bright blue eyes. “I should have already said that.”
I don’t have the energy to feel awkward or embarrassed. All I feel is gratitude.
He nudges his shoulder into mine, and I immediately soften into the comfort. “There’s nothing to say thank you for. I’m not letting anything bad happen to her. I can promise you that.”
When did he become my greatest source of stability? It’s been happening slowly, even though I’ve been trying to keep him safely in a box. In a place that I can control and manage.
But whatever walls I had are gone, now. I know they are because in spite of the nervous, skittering feeling pinging through my veins and a sensation in my legs like I’ve just run a marathon, I do something that I’ve never been able to do before.
I believe him.
Lyla doesn’t rouse on the car ride home from the train station. Or when I gently lift her out of the SUV to carry her inside.
And I’m grateful for it. I want her to remember tonight as her sugar-filled, excitement-laced first pro hockey game and not absorb the anxiety that’s still radiating off of me in waves.
Asher’s right there with me until we get to our front doors.
I look over at him. I’m not strong enough to fight this. Not tonight. “Will you…” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Will you stay for a little while? I feel like if I’m alone, I’m just going to spend all night watching her, making sure that she’s still breathing.”
He nods wordlessly and walks over to where I’m finagling with my keys to get Lyla inside. He takes them from my hand and unlocks the door.
“You can wait in my room,” I say, and the surprise is evident in his soft, serious eyes. But he doesn’t argue, thankfully. Instead, he follows the two of us up the staircase, and I point to a door opposite Lyla’s own, decorated with her name.