Chapter 11 Asher
Asher
Despite knowing the date of my follow-up appointment in Climax for a week, I have done nothing to secure a ride.
I am eager to meet with the orthopedist and learn when I can start a walking boot, but I am less keen to figure out how to get to the meeting.
I tried to schedule it as a Telehealth appointment, but Climax Hospital isn’t set up for that.
I make a note to reach out to Clayton about Meow Mobile supporting rural and semi-rural healthcare.
Then I text my sister, assuming she will happily drive me to the doctor since I hauled her around to appointments for many years. She immediately shoots me down with some nonsense about Porter’s nap routine.
I text the Bedds one after another, eventually resorting to a fucking group text and offering money, but the negative replies come faster and more furiously.
Ethan
No can do, bud. Big delivery coming in.
Gran
Oh, sorry, dear. I’m taking a pottery class with Wesley. We’re recreating that scene from Ghost.
I stare at that message for a good while, realizing I’m half jealous and half proud that Gran is still this jazzed about physical intimacy at her age.
One by one, the Bedd siblings decline my ask, telling me they’ve all got goats to milk or conferences in Albany or books to edit. Each of them uses multiple exclamation points in their stingy refusal to take me to the doctor.
Then they all send my calls to voicemail.
I stare at my phone, the horrible realization dawning. My entire community—my meddling, interfering, apparently coordinated family—has conspired to make me ask Eva for a ride.
I could cancel the appointment. I consider this seriously for about ten minutes. I’m about to call Tiddy and Diego or even Latonya, but the Bedds have very likely activated some sort of town-wide spy network after Ginny upped her game with a casserole.
I need this appointment. My ankle has been aching differently the past few days—less sharp, more dull—and I don’t know if that’s good healing or bad healing or something in between.
And there’s work. I can’t focus on code when half my brain is calculating how long until I can walk without crutches.
I need this appointment. Which means I need a ride.
Which means I need to ask Eva.
I wait until evening to hobble over there, recognizing that this requires an in-person ask. I fruitlessly hope she will be less likely to be sweaty and flushed in her work clothes, and I might succeed in not staring at her ass.
More chance of me surviving this conversation with my dignity intact.
I try to look casual. Like I’m just popping over for a friendly chat and not because my entire family has staged an intervention via schedule conflicts.
I knock, and the sound echoes in the quiet evening. Somewhere in the maple grove, an owl hoots, potentially mocking me. I swallow a lump as I hear footsteps, a pause, and the creak of the door opening.
Eva looks… not great. Not bad—she couldn’t look bad if she tried—but tired. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun; she’s wearing an oversized sweater that swallows her frame, and there are shadows under her eyes.
Did I cause that? Her exhaustion and wariness?
“Asher.” She says my name like it’s a word she’d rather not use. “What do you want?” No “hey.” No “come in.” No warmth at all. I deserve that.
I try to lean on her porch wall, but the crutches get in the way. “I need a favor.” The words come out rough. I clear my throat. “A ride. Tomorrow morning. To Climax.”
Her expression doesn’t change. “What happened to your sister?”
“She’s busy.”
“Ethan?”
“Busy.”
“Gran?”
“Pottery class.”
Something flickers across her face. It might be amusement. It might be disbelief. “Pottery class…”
“With her boyfriend.”
“Ethel Bedd is taking a sexy pottery class?”
“Apparently.”
Eva leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. She’s not inviting me in or making this easy.
Good. I don’t deserve easy.
“So everyone in your life is conveniently unavailable,” she says slowly, “and I’m your last resort.”
“Yes.” There’s no point lying about it.
“Your last resort… and you won’t even share your Wi-Fi.”
I wince. “Eva—”
“No, I get it. I’m the neighbor. Neighbors help each other out. That’s what neighbors do.” Her voice is light, almost casual, but there’s an edge underneath. “What time?”
I blink. “What?”
“What time is your appointment?”
“Nine, but we should leave by eight-fifteen to be safe.”
She nods once. “Fine. I’ll pick you up at eight-fifteen.”
“Eva—”
“Was there something else?” She straightens, hand on the door. The words land like a slap.
I shake my head.
“Eight-fifteen,” she repeats. “Don’t be late.” She closes the door before I can respond.
I don’t sleep.
Eva Storm enters my life, and suddenly I’m an insomniac, lying awake replaying conversations and imagining different outcomes and generally torturing myself with what-ifs.
What if I’d kissed her that night in the golf cart?
What if I’d given her my Wi-Fi password?
What if I’d told her the truth—that I pushed her away because I’m broken, not because I don’t want her?
None of it matters now. She thinks I’m an asshole who used her when it was convenient and discarded her when it wasn’t. And tomorrow I have to sit next to her for forty minutes while she drives me to Climax and back.
The universe really has a sick sense of humor.
She’s exactly on time. I’m waiting on the porch because I couldn’t stand being inside anymore. She doesn’t get out to help me. Doesn’t even look at me as I make my way to the passenger side, wrestle open the door, and collapse into the seat with my crutches awkwardly jammed in the back.
“Morning,” I try.
“Seatbelt,” she says.
I buckle my seatbelt.
She smiles half-heartedly and pulls out of the driveway.
The silence is immediate and unlike her. I managed to dim the light of the brightest person I've ever met.
I stare out the window as the scenery rolls past, trying to think of something to say to cut through the tension in this car.
Eva turns on the radio. Some pop station plays a song about heartbreak and moving on. She changes it immediately, and I hear the croon of Jackson Bedd’s voice.
“You know that’s Ethan’s brother.” I glance over at her, hoping this offering will be a welcome piece of trivia. She purses her lips, and I watch her process the information.
“Well, that’s pretty freaking cool. I guess I should use his songs when I make videos for Alex and the dairy.”
I’m not sure how to respond. I don’t really do social media, but I know I should say something. Apologize, maybe. Explain. Try to salvage whatever’s left of… what? Our friendship? Our almost-something? The easy warmth that existed before I ruined it?
But every time I open my mouth, the words stick. I’ve never been good at talking about feelings, at admitting I was wrong, at being vulnerable in any way that matters.
“So,” Eva says suddenly, making me jump. “How’s work?”
It’s such a normal question. Such a mundane, everyday, small-talk question. The kind of thing you ask someone you barely know at a party. We were more than that. And now we’re less.
“Fine,” I say. “The launch went okay. Minimal bugs.”
“Good.” Silence again. “What do you do, exactly? I get that you work for the phone company, but I don’t understand it.”
“My… friend, Clayton, got startup money through a company called Trede. They’re based in Climax, and they wanted better internet.”
“So it was selfish?” She sticks her tongue out adorably as she turns onto the highway, which is more of a byway.
“Sort of Meow Mobile specializes in rural service. It’s for everyone. Ethan and Diego and the whole dang town can use FaceTime, and Gran can put her sheep on YouTube.”
Eva grins. “And people can call 911 if they break a leg?”
I roll my eyes. “It would still take a long time to dispatch an ambulance.”
We’re halfway to Climax, and I’m already exhausted. Every word feels like navigating a minefield. Every silence feels like an accusation. But sometimes Eva slips into her easy banter with me, and that feels so good it’s worth the discomfort in between.
I watch her profile as she drives. The set of her jaw.
The way her hands grip the steering wheel just a little too tight.
The tension in her shoulders that wasn’t there when she used to drive me places, when she’d chatter about her sisters and I’d pretend to be annoyed while secretly loving every word.
I miss her.
The thought hits me like a physical blow. I miss her. Not in the abstract way I’ve been missing her all week, watching from windows and feeling sorry for myself. I miss her specifically, viscerally, right now, sitting eighteen inches away from her in this car.
I miss the way she’d laugh at my grumpy comments.
Miss the way she’d push back when I was being difficult.
Miss the warmth of her shoulder bumping mine on the golf cart, the smell of her shampoo, the way she looked at me like I was worth looking at.
She’s right there, close enough to touch, and she’s never been farther away.
“You’re staring,” she says without looking at me.
I jerk my gaze to the window. “Sorry.”
“We’re almost there.” Her voice is neutral again. “Should I wait, or do you want me to come back?”
“I don’t know how long it’ll take.”
“There’s Wi-Fi and a cafeteria. I can work from there. Come find me when you’re done.”
She’s giving me an out—a way to have space, to not force her to sit in a waiting room with me.
“Okay,” I say, taking the offer. “Thanks.”
“That’s what neighbors are for.”
The word lands exactly where she means it to.
The appointment takes forty-five minutes. The orthopedist is cheerful and declares my ankle “healing beautifully.” I can start bearing partial weight and graduate to a walking boot in two weeks if everything continues to progress.
I’m relieved somewhere underneath the fog of exhaustion and emotional turmoil.
But mostly I’m thinking about Eva sitting in a shitty hospital cafeteria, probably reveling in good cell service.
She could call whoever she wants, complain about her annoying yeti neighbor who led her on and shut her down.
I hobble my way through the hall, staring at the sun shining through the windows. It’s a beautiful day. The kind of day that makes you want to do something outside—walk through the woods, sit on a porch, share coffee with someone, and watch the light change.
The kind of day I might have spent with Eva a week ago.
She looks up when I enter the cafeteria, which smells like mystery meat and bad coffee. I tip my head toward the door, and she gathers her things, looking sexy and out of place and right at home all at once.
We walk to the car in silence, but I can’t take another thirty minutes of this suffocating politeness.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Eva’s hands squeeze the key fob. She doesn’t respond.
“For what I said about being neighbors. For pushing you away.” The words are rusty, awkward, like machinery that hasn’t been used in years. “I was an asshole, and you didn’t deserve it.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Why did you?”
“Why did I what?”
“Push me away. What did I do?”
“Nothing.” The word comes out too fast. “You didn’t do anything. It wasn’t—it’s not about you.”
“Then what’s it about?” She unlocks the car, and I’m able to back myself in and wedge the crutches in with practiced ease. I stare at the dashboard. At my hands. At anything but her face.
“Me,” I finally say. “It’s about me. My stuff. My… issues.”
“Your issues…”
“Yeah.”
“You’re apologizing, which is asking for forgiveness, but you don’t want to elaborate?”
How do I say: I pushed you away because I wanted you too much, and wanting things has never ended well for me?
“I know,” I say. “I know it’s not enough. I just…” I run a hand through my hair, frustrated with myself. “I’m not good at this. At talking. At… feelings.”
“No kidding.”
Despite everything, I almost smile. There she is—the Eva who didn’t let me get away with my bullshit.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” I say. “I just wanted you to know I’m sorry. And it wasn’t your fault.”
Eva grows quiet. Classical music plays softly. Trees blur past the windows.
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay?”
“I hear you. I’m not ready to forgive you yet. But I hear you.”
“Thank you,” I say. “For the ride. For… hearing me.”
She nods, her eyes on the road.
We drive the rest of the way in silence, but it’s different now. Less empty. Less hollow.
Like maybe there’s something left to work with.
When she drops me at my house, I pause before getting out. “The Wi-Fi password,” I say. “It’s Meow2015. Capital M.”
She stares at me.
“In case you need it,” I add. “For work. Or whatever.”
Something flickers across her face. Surprise, maybe. Or the ghost of something softer. “Thanks,” she says. “Neighbor.”
This time, the word doesn’t sting quite as much.