Chapter 21
twenty-one
Dylan
I hurry up the path to Ash’s house, panting to catch my breath amid the judging stares of his aunt’s garden gnomes. I practically ran here from home, and I’m still over an hour late.
First, the pork chops took way longer to bake than I expected. Then, Patrick needed help with his algebra homework, and fat chance Tommy would’ve had a clue how to solve for x. Not that that stopped him from giving me a hard time on my way out the door for ‘leaving them high and dry again.’
Guilt curdles my gut as I knock, shifting anxiously from foot to foot while the wind chimes perform their tinkling dance. Tommy’s an ass, but I really do wish I could do more for Mom. She’d been disappointed when I cut back my hours with Dr. Jenkins, but I can tell she appreciates the extra help.
I’m sure it’ll be the same when I eventually muster the courage to tell her I’m delaying college. That extra money will do wonders for her and Patrick.
Of course, tonight it’s Ash that needs my help.
The lock clicks, and I straighten my back, plastering on a smile as the door opens to reveal Ash’s aunt. “Hi, Ms. Brown. Sorry I’m late. Saturday nights are always pretty hectic at my house.”
“I can imagine.” She frowns and shakes her head, her heavy jewelry clattering. “I still can’t believe Frank would leave you all high and dry like that. What a terrible thing to do to one’s family.” She gets a slightly distant look in her eye. “If we won’t look out for each other, then who will?”
I swallow a sudden lump in my throat, unable to formulate a response.
After a few heartbeats, she seems to notice my reaction and smiles apologetically, gesturing for me to enter. “Forgive my big mouth. Your family life is none of my business. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“It’s okay,” I say, following her inside. “You’re right—things have been rough since Dad left. But we’re managing.”
“Glad to hear it. Have a seat. I’ll let Ash know you’re here.”
I sit on a plush chair in the living room, admiring the esoteric knickknacks on display while Ms. Brown moves to the stairs.
It’s really too bad Ash isn’t more into the occult—I’d have loved to look through all this stuff with him.
Then again, now that I know his secret, I can understand his hesitation.
Ash’s aunt reaches the bottom of the stairs. I expect her to start up them, but instead, she rests a hand on the banister and shouts, “Ash! Company!”
A few seconds later, I hear the creak of a door opening, followed by stomping footsteps. I grin when Ash comes into view, already dressed in plaid pajama bottoms and a plain white t-shirt with his black hair a tangled mess. Onyx trails after him, winding around his feet.
“You know, you could come knock like a normal person,” he grumbles.
His aunt snorts. “And risk interrupting a teenage boy doing God knows what with his door closed? No thanks.”
Crimson creeps over his cheeks. “I was drawing.”
“Then, I guess it won’t kill you to come down and greet your friend,” she retorts, a twinkle in her eye. “Saves my knees a trip up the stairs.”
Ash rolls his eyes, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Be honest—you just like the excuse to yell.”
His aunt matches his grin with one of her own. “What can I say, I’m a simple gal who enjoys simple pleasures.” She turns and nods at me. “You know the routine by now, Dylan—go ahead and make yourself at home. If you boys need anything, I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Thanks, Ms. Brown.”
She hobbles past me into the hall, and I turn to Ash. His face softens as he regards me, his entire body relaxing as some hidden tension eases. My heart warms at the obvious proof of how happy he is to see me.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hey,” I reply.
We stare at each other for one heartbeat, two, before he finally breaks our linked gazes, clearing his throat. “Well, come on. You’re late enough as it is.”
“Sorry it took me so long,” I sigh, following him up the stairs and into his room. He shuts the door behind me as I plop into his desk chair. Onyx wanders over from where she’d been batting at a toy under his bed, and I obligingly scratch behind her good ear. “My house was a shit show.”
Ash shrugs and sits on the edge of his bed facing me. “It’s fine.” A grimace mars his sharp features. “It’s not like Greta’s going anywhere anyway.”
I frown, furrowing my brow. “Hey, stop that. We need to stay positive, remember? It’s only been a week.”
“You sound like Alexis.”
“Good.” I fix him with a faint grin. “That means I’m doing it right.”
He snorts and shakes his head, but I can tell he’s trying to take my words to heart. I’m glad—with what we’re about to do, the more positive his frame of mind, the better.
“Things seem good with your aunt,” I note, recalling their brief interaction downstairs. “You looked like you’re getting along.”
“I guess.” He hesitates, reaching up to scrub a hand through his messy hair. “She’s been a lot nicer than I expected for someone who suddenly had a teenager foisted upon them, especially one they didn’t give two shits about before. I might actually miss her when I leave.”
He says it jokingly, but that doesn’t stop the pang that reverberates through my chest at the reminder of graduation and all the unknowns that come after.
You’ve got plenty of other things to worry about first, I chide myself. Forcing my mind back into the present, I turn and search his desk, hefting up the folder of dreamwalking research when I find it.
“So, did you actually read all of it this time?”
“I did…though most of it sounds like bullshit.”
I chuckle. “It probably is. Still, you never know—maybe something in it will prove useful.”
“Maybe.”
Whatever tension had faded when he saw me is back now full force, hunching his back and drawing in his shoulders. Setting the folder on the desk, I rise and approach until I’m standing right in front of him. Reaching down, I cradle his head in my hands and pull it against my stomach.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” I say, stroking the back of his neck. “You already did more than anyone else could have to save her. No one would blame you for stopping here or waiting to practice another night instead.”
He’s silent for a moment, his breaths gusting against my shirt.
“I would blame me,” he says at last. He shifts, rubbing his cheek against my belly.
“I felt so useless when I visited her dream—so out of my depth. I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do or how to help. I might still loathe my ability, but if practicing how to control it gives me a better chance to help Greta someday, then I’ve got to do it. ”
My hands tighten in his hair as I tip his head up so I can see his face. Leaning down, I press a tender kiss against his lips. Ash’s breath catches as he returns the kiss with a desperate sort of need.
“I think it’s really brave what you’re doing,” I murmur when we part. I rest my forehead against his. “I may not know exactly what happened when you were younger, but I know it must have been pretty rough.”
Ash exhales, his heavy breath gusting against my shirt. His fingers find my arm, stroking lightly over my skin and spreading heat in their wake.
“I think I’m finally ready to talk about it.” His voice comes out barely a whisper. “If…if you want.”
My heartbeat quickens. “You don’t have to. You don’t owe me anything.”
“I know.” His fingers play absently with the hairs on my arm. “But I want to. I…I think it’s long past time I did.”
I take a seat on the bed beside him, stroking the back of his hand while he visibly gathers himself.
Onyx jumps up to join us, sprawling lazily between our laps.
Sudden apprehension grips me when Ash’s emerald eyes lock onto mine.
I’m certain that whatever I’m about to hear will be rough to process.
Still, if it helps Ash to get it off his chest, then I’m here for him.
“You already know some of it,” he begins, his voice shaky.
“I was around five or six when I realized I could control my own dreams and decide what happened in them. My parents didn’t believe me at first. They thought I just had an overactive imagination.
Then when I was eight, I visited them in their dreams for the first time. They believed me after that.”
He snorts a strained laugh. I keep quiet, though I grip his hand tighter in mine to signal my support. Shooting me a grateful smile, he continues.
“I took them on all sorts of wild adventures with me. As I got older, I learned how to shape their dreams to fit their requests. For a while, everything was perfect. Then when I was eleven, Dad got sick. The doctors gave him a few months at best. That’s when I first realized how easy it is to turn a dream into a nightmare. ”
He puffs out a breath, bowing his head. “I…I tried to make things easier on him. To give him wonderful dreams that would make him forget what was happening. I thought Mom, Dad, and me could still pretend to be a regular family awhile longer. But my dreams grew dark. All my fear and anger and sadness bled into what I created and played off his own. My power didn’t kill him—but it certainly made everything worse right up until the end. ”
“Ash—” I begin, cutting off when he mutely shakes his head. Swallowing down my own sympathetic pain, I cling to his hand. As if sensing our distress, Onyx rubs her head against our linked fingers.
“Things weren’t great after that. Mom and I never really recovered from Dad’s death, and the recurring nightmares didn’t help.
Sometimes, I managed to stop them from becoming too bad or even keep them from happening at all.
But most nights, I didn’t, often dragging Mom along for the ride.
I was thirteen when I came home from school and found her body. Overdose.”
The tremble in his voice finally gets the better of him, his words shattering. I tug him close, cradling him to my chest while he steadies his breathing.
“Maybe it was an accident,” I venture hesitantly, recalling the heartbreaking vision I’d seen of a younger version of him cradling a woman’s lifeless body in our first shared dream.
His head shifts against me as he shakes it.
“She might not have left a note, but I know it was the dreams that really killed her. The nightmares that lingered with us ever since Dad died. Her funeral was the last time I saw Aunt Claudette until I moved here. The Ellingtons took me in, and while they refused to ever acknowledge it, I’m certain I must’ve visited their dreams at least once.
They took me to a doctor the very next day, and with the help of their sleeping pills, I did my best to lock that part of myself away forever. ”
Until now.
The unspoken words hang between us. For the first time, I feel as if I truly understand Ash’s hatred for his power.
To me, dreamwalking seems like the most incredible gift.
But if I’d seen what he had, watched helplessly while my lack of control tore apart the people I loved… well, I’d turn my back on it, too.
“It’s not your fault,” I say, rubbing soothing circles into his back. “You can’t blame yourself for what she did. It was her choice, not yours.”
“Maybe.” Ash shudders against me. “But my power definitely didn’t make things any easier on her.
Without the nightmares influencing her, who knows?
Maybe she would’ve gotten better, been able to move past Dad’s death.
Instead, I lost everyone I cared about…and everyone who cared about me.
To the Ellingtons, I was never anything but an unwanted obligation—a burden. ”
A burden. Tommy’s past taunts reverberate through my skull.
“I can relate,” I say quietly. “Ever since my dad peaced out on us, I’ve felt that way myself. I do everything I can to help out, but it never seems like enough, and college…” I shrug helplessly. “I owe it to them to do everything I can to keep my family together.”
“Bullshit!” Shock ripples through me as Ash twists in my arms, displacing Onyx and forcing my face around to meet his glare.
“You already give way too much of yourself to everyone else around you, me included. I know that’s who you are, and I won’t try to convince you to stop caring.
But it’s just as important that you don’t lose yourself in the process of saving others. ”
His words ring through my ears like clanging bells. I jerk a nod, swallowing roughly. Ash glares at me a moment longer. Then, his face softens as he presses a kiss to the bridge of my nose.
“Just take care of yourself,” he murmurs, his lips ghosting down my nose and hovering over my cheek. “That’s all I ask.”
I nuzzle my cheek against his, relishing the scrape of his rough bristles. “Right back at you.”
We sit there, holding each other for a long moment until Ash pulls away, clearing his throat. “Right,” he says, covertly swiping at his eyes. “Let’s get this practice session underway.”
We open the door for Onyx while we take turns in the bathroom getting ready for bed, then turn out the lights and snuggle under the covers. This time, I end up the little spoon.
Ash squirms behind me. “Maybe this was a mistake. I never should’ve involved you in all this. It’s not too late for you to back out.”
I bite my lip, trying to muffle the growing excitement in my pajama bottoms from all his wriggling and focus on his statement. “I’m not Harvey or your parents, Ash. This is my choice. I want to help Greta just as much as you do. So shut up and stop trying to push me away. Okay?”
I lace my fingers through the hand he has draped over me to soften the harshness of my words. Behind me, he sighs. “Okay.”
Tugging his hand higher, I press a kiss to the back of it. “Sweet dreams, Ash.”
After a few seconds, he replies, “You too, Dylan.”
Still holding Ash’s hand, I close my eyes and wait.