Chapter 42
Ash
I had a bad week at work. Unfortunately, it came with the job’s territory.
Some weeks were the most rewarding weeks of a person’s life.
Others came with so much sadness that I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I watched three people die yesterday. Then I saw two grieving mothers and an elderly woman who lost her soulmate.
You’d think being in my profession, in the city where I stayed, death would become easier to handle, but it didn’t.
It simply ate at my soul. Still, I was trying my best to shake off the heavy feeling before going to see Karla.
I didn’t need her to see my sadness; I wanted her to believe the lies of happiness I was trying to feed her.
Since my father passed away, I’d had a lot more sad days than happy ones.
The only thing that kept me going over the past few days was the fact that I had a dessert date coming up with Karla.
She made it easy to pretend I was happier than I was, and this date was something I needed.
Well, not a date-date, but a friend date. Friends. We were simply old friends.
I showed up to her place a little before eight, ready for laughter and lightness. I couldn’t do anything heavier than that. Not after the week I had.
The moment Karla opened the door, she gasped as her eyes locked with mine. “Oh no!” she said. “Are you OK?”
Did she see the heaviness in my eyes?
I narrowed my stare, trying to play it cool. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I hear a burning butthole can last for up to a week,” she said with a sly smirk.
My body relaxed. She was mocking me. That was good. Great, even. We were keeping things light.
“I am going to need some comfort dessert for me to forget about that whole night,” I said, stepping into her apartment with a tray of brownies.
“Lucky for you, I have everything set up on the rooftop.”
“Rooftop? You have a good view?”
Karla smiled before waving me over to follow her. I did as she said.
She led me up four staircases, only limping slightly. It was remarkable to see how much she’d improved with her movements over the years. I wondered if she still suffered with pain from the accident all those years ago. I prayed she didn’t.
When we reached the top steps, she opened the door with that same sweet grin plastered on her lips.
The moment she stepped outside, I followed.
She then flipped on a light switch, and the whole space lit up.
A stunning rooftop hangout space with lounge chairs, plants, and fairy lights.
Right near the edge of the roof, a picnic set up was there with the cocktails, and I’d be damned, a plate of chicken wings.
“Not spicy at all!” Karla assured me the second my eyes fell to the plate of wings. “Garlic and parmesan, to redeem myself from the last time we hung out. I swear I do make food that won’t burn your bum.”
I put my hand over my chest and sighed. “I was about to get triggered.”
She laughed, and I loved it.
“No trigger points here, I swear.” She took a seat on the blanket that was spread out, and I sat beside her. Look at li’l Miss Karla East being romantic.
Wait.
Was she being romantic? Was this a date-date? Or a friend date? Or a very friendly date?
I tried my best to not overthink it. “So you’re still a rich girl, huh? Bookshops and rooftop apartments.”
She laughed. “My father is rich, not me.”
“You said that same thing when I saw your house all those years ago,” I joked. “I didn’t believe you then, and I definitely don’t believe you now.”
Her smile spread. “OK, OK, I’m rich. But even with all that money, I still have a sucky view.” She gestured toward the automatic billboard straight in front of her. “I can name every ad on that billboard with my eyes closed, with the exact order that they go in.”
“Bullshit.”
She arched an eyebrow. Then she turned around with her back to me.
She was wearing a tube top that evening with a long, flowy, black skirt.
She was showing more skin than she had before, and I couldn’t help but take a glance at every single piece of her, including the tattoo ink on her left shoulder.
“OK, tell me the first ad, and I’ll tell you the five that come after it,” Karla said, bringing me back to our conversation and away from her skin. Even though my eyes wanted to stay locked on her a little longer.
I glanced at the ad. “Larry’s Law Firm.”
“Followed by ChickNDip—buy five strips, get two free. Then it’s ChickzNDics, the gentlemen’s club, which is to not be confused with ChickNDip, though at ChickzNDics, you can buy five lap dances and get two free,” Karla explained.
I smirked as she continued. “Then there’s Honda’s summer sale ad, followed by Nissan’s summer sale ad, ending with a Bible verse asking if you’ve talked to Jesus lately, then we are right back to Larry’s Law Firm.
” She swung around on her butt to face me again. “How did I do?”
I snickered and did a slow clap as I stared in complete amazement. “Damn, that’s impressive. You got them all right.”
She made a dramatic bow. “Thank you, thank you, I’m remarkable.”
She was.
“I noticed ink on your back.” I arched an eyebrow. “You have a tattoo?”
Karla glanced over her left shoulder. “Oh, you can see it? Yeah. I got it when I turned eighteen. I tried to convince my dad to let me get it when I was fifteen, but he said he would never sign off on it. So for my eighteenth birthday, I signed off on it myself.”
“What is it?”
She turned to face me more, her cheeks blushing. “It’s a little silly.”
“I like silly.”
“But it’s really silly. Like extra silly.”
“That’s my favorite kind of silly.”
She giggled again, and fuck me, I loved that shit.
She then turned her back to me and rolled the top part of her tube top down. I wouldn’t have minded if she rolled it down even more.
I tilted my head as I stared at it. “A string of flies on a stick of butter with butterflies floating away from it?” I questioned, confused as ever.
“Yeah. It’s silly, and you might not remember it, but when we were kids, you mentioned loving these things you called wordlets.”
“Words within words.”
She nodded. “You drew me a picture of this, and I swore one day I’d get it tattooed on my skin.”
My mouth smiled, but my heart was grinning even harder. “Butterflies.”
“Yeah.” She glanced over her shoulder at me and nodded slowly, the warmth returning to her cheeks as the sun began to set over the Chicago skyline. “Butterflies.”
Oh, shit.
Fucking butterflies.
I shook my head in disbelief. “You got my art inked on your skin?”
“Yes.”
“Karla . . .” I whispered, still shaking my head.
She did that even after I’d disappeared after all those years?
Why? Why would she want a reminder of me resting against her skin?
Would she want the real me against her skin now?
Would she like the person I’d grown to be?
Would she mind if my fingers slowly traced the ink on her back?
Would she care if my touch slightly lingered?
Why did I crave the opportunity to touch her? To touch her skin . . . to feel her warmth. And why did she keep my mind spinning with thoughts of who we once were, what we could have been if I wasn’t so scared all those years prior?
Would we have still been in love if I hadn’t let her go?
She pulled up her tube top and then turned to face me fully. The smile on her lips was still there, but it held a hint of something else in it. Curiosity, maybe?
She hugged her knees into her chest. “I go to the cemetery every Sunday evening. For a long time, I’d imagine you showing up to talk to your dad and brother. I’d hoped I’d randomly run into you.”
“You go every Sunday evening?”
“Rain or shine.”
“That’s funny . . . because I go every Sunday morning.”
Karla’s eyes widened. “So we’ve been missing each other every single Sunday for years?”
“I guess so.” I lowered my head. “I check in on your mom every time, too.”
She smiled. “I check in on your father and brother, too. I ask them to look over you.” My heart was doing that newish thing it’d been doing since Karla came back into my life—beating faster.
Dammit, stop beating faster . . .
As I stared at her, I felt fear building in my chest. We hadn’t even spent much time together. It made no sense how she managed to make me feel.
Then again, that was what it was like when we were teenagers, too.
I felt so much toward her from reading the letters she wrote to her mother. I felt so much toward her before I even knew her name.
Karla nibbled on her bottom lip. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Why didn’t you come to look for me after you moved back to Chicago?”
Anything but that.
My gut felt a punch with her question. I’d thought about it for a long time, and I knew my reasons. I just wasn’t ready to bring those reasons up and share with her. I tried so hard not to think about that period of my life. I couldn’t go back there. Not now.
“Karla . . .” I whispered with a slight head shake.
She frowned but shifted. “OK, new topic.”
I thanked her for that as I began preparing drinks for us. I needed more alcohol because I felt my thoughts building more and more. I handed her the drink with a smile.
Karla tilted her head and stared at me with a look of wonder in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything else. She was reading me. Geez, Karla, please stop reading me. I didn’t need her to see how messy my pages had been.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“What’s what?”
She pointed toward me. “That! There it is again.”
“There what is?”
She shook her head. “Never mind. Sorry.”
I downed my drink. I picked up my fork and sliced off a piece of the brownie in front of me.
I shoved it in my mouth, trying to get the heavy thoughts sitting in the back of my mind to retreat further back.
But there was something about Karla that made me feel things deeper than I’d felt in a long time.
Just being near her made me feel more alive. I was debating if that was a good or bad thing.
“There it is again!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together.