Chapter 11 #4
He’s unlocking Caleb’s phone, dragging the brightness on low, opening the browser to snoop around Caleb’s reading log, and—
Oh.
There are a dozen tabs open, recipe after recipe after recipe, little rectangles housing a myriad of Singaporean dishes from congee to kaya toast to chee cheong fun. And at the very bottom, a tab with Google Maps pulled up. The search bar, all in lowercase: asian supermarkets near me.
Before Asher even registers it, his fingers are flying across the keyboard.
He punches his name into Google, and the first result, as he correctly predicts, is a recap of his concussion.
He taps on the link, chewing his lip as the video buffers.
It’s weird to watch himself and anticipate what’s about to come despite not actually knowing the full extent of what transpires.
He watches Alexei tag him into the match, holds his breath as his body flies across the ring, winces at the audible thud of his head colliding with the mat.
But what makes Asher want to propel himself into the sun and either rip out his eyeballs or never ever watch anything except for this video over and over again is Caleb.
Caleb crawling over to him. Caleb dragging his body over Asher’s.
Caleb’s palms behind his neck and head. GEW has clearly edited the footage before airing it to preserve kayfabe, interspersing lowered in-ring audio with choppy cuts to the audience’s reactions, but there it is, clear as day: Caleb trying to protect him.
There are many moments in the ring that don’t come easy.
One of them is when all deliberate judgment turns fluid.
Fight-or-flight fades into a hush. In its wake lies an intuitive clarity.
A symbiosis of sorts. Asher would be hurtling off the top rope, tumbling through the air, and his body and mind becomes one with that of his opponent.
Staring down at Caleb’s phone, with Caleb in the kitchen preparing his medication, Asher experiences one of those rare moments. For the first time, he fully sees Caleb beyond the icy gimmick he’s built up, and in that moment, something sacred and inevitable zips between them on a wire.
It plunges into Asher’s chest like a drop of hot soup: absolute solace seeing, and believing, that Caleb cares.
Because that version of Caleb cradling Asher’s head mid-match is the same person as the boy in his apartment right now.
That’s the same person who smiles at him, who trained with him.
And Asher is willing to bet that boy would never hurt him, not intentionally at least. He sees with a certain clarity, a sudden dogged belief that unless backed into a corner, Caleb would not have purposefully screwed him over.
When footsteps come down the hall accompanied by Caleb muttering something about needing to pick up more food, Asher hurriedly closes the tab and places the phone face down on the coffee table, the last thirty seconds of the video lost to the void.
There is only one person who might know exactly what went down, and Asher, fortunately, has her and her sparkly little space buns on speed dial.
Later, once Caleb heads out on a grocery run, Asher unearths his phone from where he last tossed it between the couch cushions.
Almost immediately he gets distracted by a text from Ava.
My sweet disaster bb how are you feeling???
ya i’m fine and you will think i am hallucinating but caleb is here, Asher sends back.
Within seconds, Ava replies WHY ARE YOU TEXTING ME THAT’S NOT ALLOWED.
He texts back, BECAUSE YOU TEXTED ME FIRST.
Almost instantly, his phone vibrates with WELL GO AND REST AND STOP TEXTING ME. JESUS.
Asher groans, shuts his eyes, and swipes away from Ava’s yelling. “Hey, Siri,” he enunciates into the speaker. “Call the brawling bunch.”
“Okay,” Siri says. “The closest punch is five minutes away—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Asher cracks open an eye and jabs at the screen. Soon, a group FaceTime call is underway.
Thea is the only one who picks up. Perfect. That’s all he needs.
“Are you guys at the hotel—yes, Thea, I am fine. My eyes are literally closed as you can see. Are you at the hotel right now?”
Thea mm-hmms.
“Cool. Thea, go to Bailey’s room and look under her bed. You will find her secret sugar stash hidden behind her duffel bag—”
He is interrupted by a high-pitched shriek followed by a squabble, a crinkle of plastic, and the thumping of something that can only be Thea and Bailey fighting over the bag of sweets.
“Dishonor!” Bailey protests vehemently. “Dishonor on you!”
Asher ignores her. “Thea, take that bag to the pool—oh my God, bitch, I promise to be your personal chauffeur for three months; if you do this for me, I will literally drive you everywhere. Just hold the bag over the water.”
There is the sound of arms slapping against one another followed by an indignant squawk, the swoosh of an automatic sliding door, and then the gentle and repetitive swish of water.
“Done,” Thea says breathlessly.
“Bailey,” Asher says. “My sweet angel. You can kill me later. Right now, I just need to know: What happened with Caleb at Fyter Fiesta?”