Day 36
Sidney
Asher wakes me up with kisses along my shoulder, and fingers running over my back. They loop and curve and slash across my threadbare T-shirt, and they feel purposeful. “What are you doing back there?” My voice is thick with sleep.
“Your voice is different right when you wake up.”
“I guess so.” I’ve slept in his bed a few times, but I’ve never stayed through the night. I always set an alarm and go back to my bed after a few hours. Even with our doors locked, I can’t relax enough to really sleep together in the same bed with our parents just down the hallway.
“I like that I know that.”
I don’t say anything, because “I like that you know, too,” seems like too much. So instead I whisper, “That’s because you like to collect random facts about me.”
“I’m writing secret messages.”
“Really?”
“Here, try to guess.” His finger dips and trails over my skin, and I try to picture it in my mind, but the word that forms there is probably not right.
Asher’s finger stops, and I know I’m wrong but say it anyway. “Potato?”
“Yes, I’m lying in bed with you and writing potato on your back.” His chin rests on my shoulder, and I can feel his breath on my neck. “I have another question.”
The panic doesn’t hit me this time. “I’m too tired to dance.”
Asher shakes his head. “Why are you fighting this so much?”
“I’m lying in your bed right now. I would hardly call that fighting.” I smile sweetly at him and kiss his forehead, only because his lips are out of reach. Covering his mouth would be so much more effective. “You scare me.”
“You scare me more.”
“Yeah, but I scare you because you think I’m the person you know most likely to be able to hide a body. You scare me because you’re basically one big heartbreak waiting to happen. You’re like all of my relationship fears wrapped up in one pretty package.”
“You think I’m pretty.”
I could kiss him right now for making a joke. “You think you’re pretty.”
“I’m not sure why it’s always me breaking your heart,” Asher says, his eyes pinched in frustration.
“The opposite seems much more likely here. If it weren’t for me, things would have ended three days ago.
And, if I hadn’t asked you to meet me at midnight, you’d still be tormenting me.
” He jumps when I poke a finger into his side, and grabs my hand with his. “See, you’re still coming after me.”
He shifts to his side and wraps an arm over me, rolling me onto my side with a hand to my back. Now we’re face-to-face, in a cocoon of blankets and body heat. “Let’s talk worst-case scenario,” he says finally. “This whole thing ends in a fiery blaze of heartbreak.”
I nod. His tone implies he’s having to stretch his imagination right now, but this is the only scenario I can see, currently.
We’re eighteen, not even in college yet.
What are the chances that this lasts a year, or two, or three?
What are the chances that we get married?
Because that’s the only way this whole thing isn’t eventually a disaster with our families. And what are the chances?
“We’d be right back where we started, then,” he says.
I nod, but I don’t think it’s anywhere close to the same thing.
I think about seeing Asher every day, about actually hating him.
Not the play-hate of the last five years, but actual, visceral brokenhearted hate.
Is there any chance that one of us doesn’t feel that way in the end?
And beyond that, what about seeing him with someone else after I’ve loved him? Really loved him?
I can totally see myself falling in love with Asher.
I know it’s coming, the way I know I’ll take another breath.
Loving Asher Marin feels like an inescapable inevitability.
And to think of seeing him with someone else?
I hate the thought of it, even now. Could I actually stomach weeks of that?
Him treating someone the way he’s treated me?
Being witness to it? The notes on the mirror, and the temple kisses; the way he’s always idly touching me, like it’s a reflex for him.
The way he winks at me over the kitchen table when he knows I’m the only one looking.
I definitely couldn’t handle it, which means I’d avoid him.
And the thought of not seeing him at all? It’s hard to even imagine now.
“You’re thinking horrible things, aren’t you?” His voice is soft, concerned. He pushes up on an elbow, and as if he could read my thoughts, presses his lips against the soft skin along my hairline.
While his lips tingle against my skin, I try to think about the best worst-case scenario.
We don’t have the houses at Five Pines anymore.
This year’s house is temporary. And sure, maybe our parents will rent something together in the future, but if everything goes south with me and Asher, who’s to say they can’t get separate houses again?
Surely my parents wouldn’t force me to share a house with an ex if they could avoid it.
And if we weren’t forced together, maybe we would eventually return to something like normal.
Something about having that backup plan in my mind loosens the tightest knots of dread inside of me.
A warm finger taps my temple as Asher says, “What’s going on up there?”
I can’t tell him the truth: I’m running through all of the possible outcomes of our future demise. But good news! There’s at least one worst-case scenario that doesn’t make my skin crawl!
Instead, I say, “I think our parents would flip if they knew we were together.”
Together. The word hangs in the air, and neither of us wants to touch it. I said it to lighten the mood, but it’s done the absolute opposite. I can feel the tension buzzing between us. The fingers that were idly tracing a circle on my back have stopped.
“Are we—” He sounds genuinely nervous for the first time since we left the pool yesterday. “Together?”
“I…” I don’t know what to say. I wasn’t fishing when I said it.
I didn’t think it through, didn’t weigh the words ahead of time and consider them for three days, like I usually would.
This is the verbal version of spontaneously hiding that frozen fish in his room.
Being in his bed is doing something to me.
Or maybe he’s finally gotten me to lighten up. And look what it’s doing to you.
“I think we could be,” Asher says. “Should be,” he corrects himself.
“Yeah?” There’s a little flutter in my stomach, and I’m not sure if it’s telling me to go for it, or warning me that this is the worst idea ever. Right now, everything feels equal parts scary.
“Are you going to make me say it … officially, or something?” He says it like he’s being tormented, but there’s a certain warmth to his eyes that tells me he would.
That the idea of it doesn’t scare him one bit.
He’s so much braver than I am. I add it to the long list of things that Asher Marin surpasses me at.
“Like a prom-posal?” I smile thinking about how funny it would be to see Asher plan some sort of elaborate set-up to ask me to be his girlfriend. Like the opposite of all of the pranks we’ve played over the years. “Did you ever do one of those?”
“Absolutely not.”
I squish up my nose in mock disgust. “Prom. Yuck.” But I am sort of surprised. Asher totally strikes me as the kind of guy who would do something elaborate and sweet for a girl. I think back to those stars on my ceiling.
Asher smiles. “I will, though, if you really want me to.”
I bite my lip to hold back the smile that would give away how incredibly giddy I am about the turn this trip has taken. “I don’t think we need to bring any more attention to ourselves while we’re still living in the same house.”
“Deal,” he says, but he looks unsure about it.
We lie in bed for another hour, until Asher leaves for the bathroom, and I contemplate how I went from coming here under duress to leaving with a boyfriend.
Asher insists I shower first, and down the hallway, as I groggily stand in front of the sink, Will you be my girlfriend?
is scrawled across the mirror in what has become our color.
Red. The color of love notes, cherry Kool-Aid, and bleeding, broken hearts.
The tube still sits on the counter—a much more expensive brand than our usual tube, obviously stolen from his mom. Sorry, Sylvie.
Before I get in the shower I pull the cap off of the tube, and write back one word, three letters. And just for now, I’m going to let myself not think about how badly this all could end.