Chapter 21 #2
I miss Ash, I realize. That’s the reality. That even while just driving around I miss him. In fact, the car seemed so terribly empty without him and I realize this is the first time I’ve been without him in literal days. It’s always been the two of us. Constant close proximity.
“Sam, I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. You have a boyfriend now? You left with a girlfriend and you’re coming home with a boyfriend?”
“I don’t know. I guess. Maybe?” There’s suddenly a lightness in me. A colossal weight’s been lifted. Ash was right—this shit was eating me alive. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll be home—I dunno, as soon as I can. I’ll call you. Give my love to everyone.”
The storm breaks just as I make it to the Mustang, and I practically throw myself into the driver’s seat.
I miss my butterfly. I don’t wanna go home without him.
The rest of this shit, we can figure it out.
Still hurts, yeah. Still sucks. Still wince when I think about it and my stomach twists and I have to swallow and wish it weren’t so, but fuck it. It’s a speed bump.
I miss him, and he didn’t mean it. We can fix this. We can.
The money—I don’t know. Maybe we can get rid of it. Bury it. Or even return it somehow. There has to be something we can do with it that keeps him out of trouble. He doesn’t need that shit to get started in Miami; I’ll help him.
And the hustler thing is…whatever. Not that I love it. ‘Course I don’t. I hate the thought of him with other guys; makes me insane, actually. I’m a jealous prick.
Mostly, though, I hurt for him. That he had to start so young, that he’s never ever known love in his whole life because he’s had to sell himself just to stay alive.
But that can be fixed, too. He’ll never have to do that again if I can help it. And I want to show him that no matter what he thinks, I positively adore him.
Because I do.
The sun’s shining again by the time I make it back to the hotel and I can’t get to the tenth floor soon enough. The elevator takes way too long. I’m about to vibrate out of my skin as I trot down the hall to jam my key into the slot. “Ash,” I call through the door, “it’s me. I’m back.”
The room’s empty, though. And clean. Housekeeping’s been through, clearly; the beds are made and the towels have been refreshed. The carpet’s vacuumed.
And all of Ash’s stuff is gone.
I stand there, dumbstruck.
No, he couldn’t have left. Why would he?
I told him not to. I told him I was coming back.
I sweep the room as if it’s possible he’s hiding somewhere: behind a bed, in the bathroom, or out on the balcony, waiting to jump out and yell gotcha, but no.
He’s nowhere. Not down by the pool deck or the beach, as far as I can tell. And all of his things are fucking gone.
“No,” I whisper, fisting my hair. “No, no, no. Ash, you idiot. Why?”
No answer, of course. Because he’s not here. He’s left his keycard behind and everything. He’s gone for real. He’s not coming back.
I bang back out into the hallway anyway. I almost take the stairs but no, ten flights is stupid, so I get into the same elevator which has yet to leave this floor, thank god, and ride it back to the lobby. I approach one of the concierges who glances up with perplexed eyes as I bear down on her.
“Did you see my friend come through here?” I ask. “Guy, blonde, blue eyes, maybe a couple inches shorter than me? Big black backpack?”
She blinks once. “No,” she says carefully. “I haven’t seen anyone like that, but I just came on my shift. I’m sorry, sir.”
Fuck. “Okay.” I turn to leave and go—where? I don’t know. I have no idea when he left precisely. If it was recent maybe I could catch him on the road, but I don’t know that.
I try, anyway. Blunder past a bunch of people wheeling suitcases in on one of those fancy little carts and make my way out to the A1A beyond the parking lot.
I squint against the sun and look both ways, desperately trying to spot any wayward hitchhikers on the side of the road, but no one stands out.
Some people in bathing suits holding umbrellas and things, sure, but no blonde boys in flannel with a backpack.
He’s gone. He’s really, truly gone.
I trudge back inside, feeling beyond lost. No—empty.
If I’d thought I couldn’t feel any more shattered than I had this morning, well.
I was fucking wrong. My heart wasn’t breaking then; it’s breaking now.
Actually, it’s like someone tied a brick to it and pitched it out a window. It’s been torn entirely from my chest.
Back in the room I sink heavily onto one bed and close my eyes.
Even clean the room still smells, faintly, of him.
Of us. Together. Jesus, just last night I was making love to him, watching his beautiful face in the mirror as I made him come a second time.
Not much later him telling me that we could try and be together, that he’d stay with me when we got back home.
How is it that he’s up and left me? Not even twenty-four hours later.
I think of how he turned away from me to put his clothes on. Like he couldn’t even stand me seeing him like that anymore. Like it was a violation.
The tears start and I can’t stop them. Don’t bother to. They leak beneath my lids and streak down my face and wind up somewhere in my hair.
He’s out there somewhere alone, thumbing rides off of strangers. With his condition, with all that money. Vulnerable as all hell. What if he has an attack and someone takes his things? Or worse? What if he has to sell his body to get a ride?
And he left because he thought, what? I wasn’t coming back? That I didn’t want him anymore? Oh, god. The thought of it fucking kills me. Why didn’t I just stick around?
I push myself upright, knuckling the tears out of my eyes. That’s when I see it, beneath his keycard. A note, written on the pad of hotel stationary. I realize until now that I haven’t actually seen Ash’s handwriting before, but the moment I lay eyes on it, it seems so perfectly him.
Went home.
Sorry for everything.
Home. Back to Providence? So he didn’t go to Miami after all?
But where in Providence? It’s a big ol’ friggin’ city, isn’t it?
I don’t have a clue where he lived and of course I never asked and it’s not like it was relevant, since he was supposed to be starting a whole new life in Florida and everything.
There’s cash, too, a fuckload of it, folded and tucked beneath the stationary pad. Well, I don’t really want that now that I know where it’s from, but I shove it in my pocket anyway. I don’t know what else to do with it. Flush it down the toilet? No, it could clog.
Providence. Could I intercept him there? Is that insane to do? The only other option is going back home to Miami alone, and that’s unacceptable to me. I made him a promise, after all. That I would get him there. I have no intention of breaking it.
My gaze roves and falls on something leaning against the TV.
At first I think it’s a card from the hotel’s hospitality, but then I realize it’s one of Ash’s postcards.
The ones that came loose when I dumped his whole bag.
The whole rubber banded stack’s there, actually, by the TV.
The cleaner must’ve not wanted to throw them away.
The loose one depicts Ocean Drive in the evening, lit up like a rainbow, and on the back the handwritten message reads:
Ash
Wish we were here!
Miss ya like crazy
XOXO Ben
It has Ash’s address on it, I realize. The one back in Rhode Island.
Which means I could drive there myself. I could really go hunt him down. I could get him and bring him back with me to Miami.
Might be dumb as shit but I don’t even stop to think about it.
I gather all my shit and cram it in my duffel, zipping it up, before I go back down to the lobby.
I check out, even though it’s past time and they charge me for another night—and I’m sure they will fill the room anyway, so it’s a fucking racket, but whatever—which I pay for with my own dwindling funds.
The dead man’s cash stays shoved in my pockets.
What I’ve got will get me through the rest of this trip, at least. I think.
I don’t know if I can drive it straight through.
But I can get a cheap motel somewhere and a couple of fast food meals, fill up the tank here and there.
It’s enough. The way back will be another story and I don’t know what to tell Ash to do with his enormous portion, but it’s a problem for when I get there.
I toss the duffel into the Mustang’s backseat before I pull the road atlas out of the glove box and spread it across the passenger seat, flipping through the worn pages. And I chart my course right back up the I-95.
To Providence.
To Ash.
1 Where are you?
2 What’s wrong, son?
3 What the fuck is that?