CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
Our blanket under the stars. How terrified I was, fearing I’d hurt her with it being her first time. The tears swimming in her eyes afterward as she told me she loved me. How we swore we’d find a way to be together soon.
That moment with her is crystal clear, but everything that happened later that night, which has been a blur for so long, slowly comes into focus.
“Wait a minute.” My head spins, and I walk away from her as I try to rationalize the exact opposite of everything I’ve been told. Of the things I thought to be true. Of the truths I’ve believed for years. My stomach turns and my heart races. “He told you I cheated on you and you believed it?”
“I was seventeen and my world had just crashed down around me. I didn’t know what to believe,” she screeches, voice escalating and hands clenching.
“What was I to do when an imposing figure like your father shows up and tells my Pop I better stay away from you. That I wasn’t good enough for you, nor would I ever be.
That he wouldn’t stand for a girl like me to ruin the bright future he had planned for his perfectly pedigreed son.
And then when I stood up to him, when I told him he was crazy, he dropped the second bomb.
That you got what you wanted from me and had already moved on with someone else. That’s where you were at that moment.”
“That’s not true, Ash. You have to believe—”
“It doesn’t matter now. It might have back then . . . but it still wouldn’t have lessened the sting of me being a motherless, penniless girl who better stay away from you, or else.” A single tear slides down her cheek and effectively cuts through me too.
Pedigree.
That’s what she was referring to that night at Hank’s.
That’s what has haunted her and what she’s harbored for years—and for good reason.
I hate myself for the tears that spring in her eyes. For the hurt that fills them. For things I don’t even think I can begin to understand yet.
There’s nothing I can do.
There’s nothing I can say.
The man I loved and respected more than anything in the world lied to me. Lied to her.
I stare at Asher and see pieces of the girl I used to love. I also see the hurt my father caused reflected in the eyes of the woman she is now.
Needing to touch her, to soothe her, simply for my own selfish reasons, I step into her, frame her face, and use my thumb to brush the tear away. Her eyelashes flutter at my touch, her breath hitches in response.
“They were lies, Asher. All lies.” My chest hurts and emotion burns in my throat as I pull her against me and wrap my arms around her. “I don’t even know what to say.”
A Sharpe man’s words hurt her before. Humiliated her. I only hope she’ll let another’s words comfort her now.
She doesn’t move at first. She stands frozen as if she’s afraid to touch, afraid to believe me.
Asher was always like that. Physical connection was easy for her. It was the emotional side of her that she held on to. The side she locked away from the world, too afraid to be hurt again, given her mother’s abandonment.
Even I understood that at age eighteen, and I understand it even more now.
At the same time, I hurt for her. I hurt for me. Have I believed a lie from the same man who manipulated her?
I don’t want to believe it to be true.
I don’t want to think my father purposely hurt me like that.
Sometimes people do crazy things to protect the ones they love, son.
Weren’t those his words that night? His explanation for what Pop threatened? Or was it his sick justification for what he was doing?
Nothing makes sense right now.
Fucking nothing.
And just as I acknowledge that thought, Asher finally wraps her arms around me and simply holds on. She fits there perfectly, just like she used to. Just like I remember.
I breathe in everything about her. The warmth of her breath against my chest. The subtle shudder of her shoulders. The coconut scent of her shampoo.
We’re standing here together, yet I feel a world apart from her.
Helpless.
That’s how I feel in regards to the lies my father told Asher.
Furious and confused.
How I feel concerning the ones I’m pretty certain he told me too. Because after what Asher just said, I know there’s no way Pop threatened to press charges.
None.
She would have mentioned it. She would have said that Pop pushed back with that accusation.
The part of me that needs an answer on this, pushes it down. She needs to feel validated, not overshadowed. She needs to be heard, not drowned out.
Christ.
What kind of man am I that I just went along with it? That I never questioned what my dad told me? That I walked away from Asher out of fear because of the blind trust I had in my father?
The party goes on beyond the door. People shouting and laughing.
But I feel lost.
Like my footing, the foundation that I’ve built everything on—my father and our relationship—just shifted. And I haven’t even begun to process what her peers said about her after we rushed out of Cedar Falls.
Asher’s spine slowly stiffens, her muscles tense, and she pushes back from me.
Her jaw is set, her eyes guarded. “They may have been lies, Ledger, but you never got in touch with me. No texts. No emails. No letters. You knew exactly where I was, where I lived, and not once did you ever reach out. You can blame your father for the first part, but the second part is on you . . . and that’s almost worse. ”
“There’s more to it. There’s my side. There’s—”
Bang.
We both jump as a fist pounds on the door. “Come on, man. I’ve got to take a piss.”
“Asher. Let’s get out of here. I need to explain why. Somewhere that’s . . . not a bathroom.”
She shakes her head and wipes more tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, hurt and sorrow etched in the lines of her face.
Another pound. “Open the fucking door.”
I take a step toward her and she holds her hand up to stop me. “Don’t. Please.” Her voice breaks, and I swear the sound echoes through me.
She’s shutting down.
She’s putting walls up.
“It was a long time ago. It doesn’t have to define this, us, seeing each other again. Right now—”
“It defined me though.” She takes another step back and puts her hands up for me to stop. “Just . . . I need time, Ledger.”
“Time for what?”
“Seeing you again. Like this . . . I need to figure out how I feel about it all.”
I nod. “So, is this about the past? About the present? About the future? I’m confused.”
“Jesus, dude,” the voice on the other side of the door says. “I want whatever you took if you’re lasting this long.”
“Give me a goddamn second, will you?” I turn back to Asher. There’s a sadness in her eyes that nearly undoes me.
“This is about me sticking to a promise I made myself, Ledger. To never put myself in a situation to be hurt again. I’ve had a shitty couple of months.
They’ve almost broken me. I need to figure out how this—you being here, this happening tonight—all fits in.
How you fit into it. I won’t let you be the straw that breaks me again. ”
“Let me help you then. Let me be there for you. Let me . . . I don’t fucking know, but let me do something.
” Exasperated and feeling desperate to what I feel is slowly slipping through my fingers, I run a hand through my hair and pace the small space, as uncertain about what to do as I am about how I feel.
What is it that you do want here, Ledger? More sex? To resolve the past? To get to know her again? Because you sure as shit don’t know a thing about relationships.
But this isn’t a relationship. It was sex in a bathroom. It’s old feelings and a walk down memory lane. It’s a connection between us that feels like it was never broken despite the lies told.
But when I meet her gaze, I know the answer is all of the above and something more that I can’t express.
Maybe I want to wipe the sorrow from her eyes.
Maybe I want to hear her laugh more.
Maybe I want to know the woman she’s become better.
That much I know is true.
“I don’t need your help, Ledger. I can manage on my own. I have managed on my own.”
“So that’s it, then? Some bathroom counter sex and a thanks for the good time? There’s more to this than that. I know you see it. I know you feel it.”
She nods, her voice a whisper when she speaks. “You’re right. I do. But you’re here for now. You’ll be gone in two months. And I know for a fact that you’re not an easy man to get over.”
This time when she takes a step back to open the door and walk away, I let her go.
She’s heard enough lies from a Sharpe man. The last thing she needs to hear is another one telling her she’s wrong.