Chapter 27
Karla
I was in the mental health clinic for a few weeks. My dad, Grandma Claire, Uncle Landon, and Lorelai showed up every single day to sit with me. It was no secret that I wasn’t at my best. I had such a heavy mind, such a broken heart, but I wanted to be better. I just didn’t know how to be.
Dad told me about how Ash was moving to North Carolina.
That hurt, too.
Everything hurt.
When Saturday came around, it was time for me to head home.
Dad and Lorelai picked me up, and for the whole drive home, Lorelai held my hand.
I didn’t want her to let it go. As we pulled up to the house, I saw a U-Haul truck sitting in our driveway.
A woman was in the driver’s seat, and there was a boy sitting on our front porch steps.
Not just any boy.
My boy.
My friend.
Ash.
My heart skipped a few beats as embarrassment swelled in my chest. The last time he saw me, I was at my lowest. That made me want to crawl into a ball and hide.
“Dad?” I questioned.
He put our car into park. “He’s heading to North Carolina with his mother today, and he asked if he could say goodbye before leaving.
If you’re not interested in talking to him, that’s OK, sweetheart, but .
. . well, he truly cares for you, and I think you care for him.
And I think you both deserve a proper goodbye. ”
I nodded in agreement.
Dad and Lorelai walked toward the front porch first. Lorelai hugged Ash, and Dad squeezed his shoulder before they went inside, leaving Ash standing there alone on the front porch.
As I stared at him, he gave me a small wave and a tiny smile.
I walked past the U-Haul and gave a tight smile to his mom. She smiled back. He looked like his mother. An effortless kind of beautiful.
The moment I made it to the steps, Ash didn’t say a word; he just hugged me. I didn’t know how much I needed that hug until he gave it to me. I melted into him as if we were always meant to be bonded as one.
“Hi, friend,” he whispered as his cheek was pressed against me.
I held him tighter. “Hi, friend.”
He still called me his friend. After everything I’d done to him. After all of my troubles. He still considered me a friend. He showed up right away when I called him, too, with no questions asked.
What kind of boy could be so gentle with a girl who was so cruel?
I didn’t deserve him.
I wasn’t certain anyone deserved a boy like Ashish Banks.
We sat on the top step near each other and didn’t say anything for a while, until I built up the courage to say what I should’ve said to him weeks ago.
“I’m so sorry, Ash. I’m sorry for being a crappy friend and treating you like dirt.
I just . . . I don’t know what I’m doing,” I confessed.
“I don’t know how to do this life thing anymore, it seems, and I’m just so sorry for everything I’ve done. ”
He gave me his goofy, sweet smile and nudged me in the arm. “Hey, it’s OK. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s your first time being alive,” he joked.
I loved him for being the friend I needed and the friend I wasn’t sure I even deserved.
I missed him, too, even though he was right beside me.
It was hard to believe that just a few months ago, I didn’t know a boy like him existed, and now, I was certain I’d never forget him for the rest of my life.
“You’re really moving,” I said.
He nodded. “I’m really moving.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I already miss you.”
Butterflies.
I wanted to tell him about the butterflies.
I wanted to tell him that I loved him. I wanted to tell him that he was my best friend and my favorite crush.
I wanted to tell him that some of the only thoughts that made my heart skip over the past few weeks were thoughts of him.
I wanted to tell him he was becoming my favorite person.
I wanted to tell him everything I felt for him.
But I became too nervous. My heartbeats grew too shy. Besides, why would I tell him that? My life was in shambles. Any true feelings Ash might have had for me were probably long gone after my breakdown. Plus, he deserved someone not as broken as me.
“We’ll keep in touch,” he promised me. “We can talk every night, if you want to. And I’ll be back to visit my dad sometimes.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Totally. Maybe I can come visit you, too.”
We were quiet for a few minutes, but I realized that was OK. Sometimes the best moments were the ones where words weren’t needed. Being quiet with Ash was easy.
After a few minutes, Ash reached into the front pocket of his sweatshirt and pulled out the broken pieces of his toy truck.
I gasped at the sight of it. “What happened?”
“I got upset with my dad and threw it. It broke into pieces.”
“Geez, Ash . . . I’m so sorry. I know how important that was to you.”
“It’s OK. Not a big deal.” He placed the pieces on my porch. “I’m sadder about losing you, actually.”
Oh, Ashish Banks . . .
My heart was his and he didn’t even know it.
“I’ll spend summers and some holidays with my dad still. So I’ll be able to visit you. And I’ll call all the time, if you want me to,” Ash said.
“Yes,” I agreed. “Call all the time.” I chewed on the collar of my T-shirt.
“And maybe my dad will let me come visit North Carolina sometime. We can be long-distance best friends.” Just saying those words gave me a bit of hope that I needed.
I wasn’t ready to lose him, to lose the friendship we’d been building over the past few months.
Life felt so dull before Ash came into my life. He added color. I wasn’t ready to lose that—I wasn’t ready to let him go.
He looked down at the toy truck. “I’m sorry you’re still sad.”
“I’m sorry you are, too.”
He gave me a smile, but it was the broken kind. Ash didn’t talk about his sadness often, but I knew it was there. Not only his sadness about his brother, but his heartbreak over his father, too. I hated that we both knew what it was like to grieve the living and the dead.
“One day, everything’s going to work out for us,” Ash said. “And we’re going to look back on this chapter of our lives and smile because we made it through the bullshit.”
“Swear?”
“Swear.”
We were quiet again, until Ash’s mom said they had to get going. If I could, I would’ve frozen time and kept him with me forever.
Ash stood, then held a hand toward me to help me up. I took his hand into mine.
“We’ll keep in touch?” he asked.
“Always,” I promised. I meant it, too. Just because he was moving away didn’t mean he was going to lose me.
“Promise me one thing, Karla?” Ash whispered as he held my hands in his. His eyes were glassy and he was on the verge of shattering into a million pieces.
“Anything.”
He looked down at the porch step for a moment before his eyes found my stare.
“Promise me you’ll keep giving it another shot.
That you’ll give life another shot. Promise me that no matter how hard it gets, you’ll still stay.
” Tears rolled down his cheeks as he smiled nervously.
“Please, Karla, just . . . just . . .” He released a weighted breath. “Stay.”
“I promise.” My eyes teared up as I pushed out a smile. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“Thank you for saving mine.”
He pulled me into a hug, and I didn’t want to let him go. I knew once I let go, he’d be climbing into that U-Haul and heading all the way down to North Carolina. My friend. My one true friend who loved me when I didn’t even know how to love myself.
He pulled back slowly, his cheek brushing against mine.
For a moment it felt as if time froze. His lips were close to mine, mine almost touching his.
His stare fell to my mouth. I looked up toward his. His warm breath washed against my skin as he whispered. “Karla?”
I gulped. “Yes?”
“I know you have a lot going on, and I don’t want to confuse you even more, but I think it’s important for you to know that sometimes I think of you in a way that’s more than friends.”
For a moment, I hesitated as my brain tried to register what Ash had said.
More than friends? Really? He saw me in a way that I’d never thought another person could see me?
Of course, I wondered about the same thing.
More than he could imagine. Sometimes, I dreamt of him, of us, and the idea of a happily ever after.
I just didn’t believe he was someone I’d ever deserve.
“I think about it, too,” I said, feeling myself growing shy.
He stepped closer to me.
I moved closer, too.
He looked down at my hands, and his pinky brushed against mine.
Such a small touch, such a big feeling.
“Are we a love story or a romance?” he whispered with a slight tremble in his voice.
Butterflies. Butterflies. Butterflies.
“I guess only time will let us know,” I replied with the same kind of shaky tone.
I’d never talked to a boy like that, and a boy had never spoken that way to me.
Ash smiled his smile, and oh, how I loved that smile. “I hope time moves fast,” he said.
I quietly prayed the opposite of him. I prayed that time would slow with us exactly where we were: his arms wrapped around me, and his eyes locked with mine. I’d dream of playing this moment—this, here and now—in slow motion forever.
I loved how he looked at me, as if he truly saw me.
Not the scars, but the me behind all the flaws and imperfections.
He would never consider them flaws, though.
He believed my scars were beautiful. He believed it so much that I almost considered it to be true, too.
I used to be so insecure when he’d look at me.
Now when we locked eyes, I felt as if I were home.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t slow down time.
The moment we let go, I already missed him and his warmth.
Maybe that was the difference between what I felt with Brian versus Ash.
Before that awful party, whenever Brian would speak to me, it felt like fireworks.
Big booms of excitement in my gut that faded the second he looked away from me.
They were random and short-lived, and then I felt left in the darkness.
Yet Ash was more like a fireplace: constant, steady, and always safe and controlled, with a comforting glow.
I was learning that maybe the kind of love I wanted in life was the fireplaces, not the fireworks.
“Ash?” I called out as he began to walk toward the U-Haul.
He turned to look my way. “Yeah?”
“Text me when you make it to North Carolina?”
“I will.”
“Swear?”
He smiled and nodded. “Swear.”