24. Chapter Twenty-Four
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MAVEN
Imake record time as the door closes behind me four minutes later. With the jar tucked against my ribs, I descend the stairs two at a time and groan when my jacket only zips halfway. The pull tab is being a little bitch.
Places. That simple thought gave me the energy to move—he’s always appeared when I leave the house lately. Especially places I didn’t want him to. It may be a stupid plan, but it’s the only one I have. I’m going to visit every place I’ve seen him outside my apartment.
Starting with Mount Royal.
My shivering increases as I board the metro as not one person looks at me.
A woman with a stroller parks it right over my feet without apologizing or even acknowledges me; I make a face as she continues to scroll on her phone while her toddler stares through me.
This has to be him—Ash’s influence. It’s like I’m completely invisible to everyone.
With a shake of my head, I depart at my stop and run. A cough heaves from my throat from the icier than normal weather and steals whatever air my lungs had left. Not much, with the running and all.
Snow’s packed hard on the path, glazed with ice, and my sneakers—because of course I didn’t put on boots.
I’m an absolute genius—slide out from under me twice on the way up.
The second time, I land on one knee and squeak as the jar nearly shatters.
I catch it just in time, shoving it hard against my stomach.
“Sorry,” I gasp at them.
By the time I reach the lookout, my thighs burn with a prickling heat and there’s a metallic taste flooding my mouth.
The balcony is half empty, thankfully. No need for me to look crazier than I already am—well, if people could see me.
My gaze catches the river, a dull ribbon out past the towers.
The frosty buildings and deserted streets. None of it means anything.
I set the jar on the stone railing as I suck in one deep breath after another. My hands shake so hard the glass clacks against the surface.
“Okay,” I say, peering around me to make sure no one can listen. “Okay. I know you can hear me. You said you could and there’s no way you just—stopped.”
Nothing but wind and a hint of laughter down the trail.
“Ash.” My voice cracks on the single syllable. “Please. I was wrong. I was so wrong, and I need to say it to your face, or your veil, or whatever, I don’t care, just—fuck, this isn’t working.”
I wait and count to sixty. Then count to sixty again. My eyelashes stick together, and the feeling in my fingertips slowly melts away in pinching increments.
Still, he doesn’t come. Sighing, I grab the jar and run in the other direction.
This is the same route I took last time—to the oratory. Getting there is a special kind of hell, the path unbelievably slippery. Finally I manage and stare up at that enormous dome, all that gray stone stacked high, as I ascend the stairs. At least these seem serviced; no ice in sight.
Inside, it’s hushed and dim. Cavernous in nature. My nose scrunches at the smell of cold wax and dusty stone. I march to the votive chapel, where the candles are, and things I’ve never seen hang along the walls.
Heat floods my cheeks before I manage to whisper, “You brought me here, Ash. Well—I brought me here, but you know what I mean. You were breathing down my neck on those stairs. Remember?” I gesture behind me, rolling my eyes. This is stupid. Why the hell would he show up here of all places?
A man in a heavy coat kneels several feet away, head bowed, hands laced. Now there’s an idea—could the Bright Gods hear me from here? With a shrug, I set my jar down on the tile next to my knee and press my forehead against the wooden rail.
“His name is Aakanksh,” I say, quiet, to no one in particular. Do the Bright Gods have names? “That’s what he’s called. I’m not asking you to help me, I know he’s not yours to command. I just—if you can hear it, if any of you can, tell him I’m sorry.”
The candles keep burning with no extra flickers of acknowledgment. My knees ache against the tile, and I think my prayer over and over as the man near me finally leaves after gazing in my direction.
I sit there for an hour. Maybe more. Partly because I hope he will show, but mostly to warm my limbs.
He doesn’t come.
After that, I quit thinking so hard about it.
One metro ride before I just walk, yelling his name on the sidewalks of Sherbrooke and Saint-Laurent and every side street that looks like it might be somewhere he’d hide in the shadows.
I pass the crystal shop and pause to stare at the exact patch of pavement where he stood in the middle of a blizzard.
One of the first times I saw him in the wild.
The concrete probably thinks I’m abusing it from how hard I stare.
“Ash!” A guy crosses to the other side of the street when his dog yelps repeatedly in my direction.
“ASH! I said yes, do you hear me? I’m saying yes!”
My throat’s as raw as my heart—which is so fucking cheesy to say, but it’s true.
I hurt. Tears stream down my face and freeze at my jaw while my nose drips over my lip.
Here I am, screaming, crying, snotting, and holding a mason jar of dead flowers like a lunatic, and honestly?
If someone called a wellness check on me right now, I’d have to admit they had a point.
Nobody calls anyone, though. Nor do they stop to check on me.
My ribs crack themselves apart as I fold over the back of a bench. Am I more upset about being invisible or Ash not appearing? I don’t even know—
Actually yes, I do. He’s the only one who ever looked at me and saw something. And I screamed at him until he left.
The sun’s drifted under the horizon by the time I get back to my apartment.
The stairwell light’s out on the fourth landing, so I climb the last leg in the dark with my hand skimming the rail.
I don’t cry at how shit today has been, because I’ve run out of tears.
There’s just this dry, scraped-clean feeling behind my eyes.
My feet pause at my door as my eyes drift to the ceiling, and the thought solidifies.
There’s one place left.
He fully crossed over into this world when I jumped from the roof. No other time that I remember has he been able to do that. I doubt he would’ve ignored the chance if it presented itself prior to this life.
So maybe that’s what he needs to finally come back.
I rush into the apartment and snatch the nightgown.
The sexiest thing I own by a wide margin, which is a low bar since the competition is a sports bra with a hole in it.
I wore this the night I finally let myself have something.
The night he took me apart with his hands and his mouth and told me, over and over, that I was wanted.
I shudder as I recall his voice that night. So reverent and focused.
The sweater and leggings drop to the floor as I don the silky fabric, the cold air raising every hair on my arms. My scars catch the light from a streetlamp, almost shimmering in their brightened color.
He kissed every one of them. Every single one. And he didn’t ask about a single one of them either, because he was already there when I carved each into my skin. He’s always been there.
With the jar in hand, I manage the final stairwell to the roof.
It’s musty, and each step sends a jolt through my bare feet, the concrete so cold it burns.
The door at the top sticks, and I have to shoulder it, my jaw dropping at the wind that surges over the building.
It almost feels like it’s aiming for me directly, attempting to shove me back to my apartment. Not today, wind.
It’s a struggle to push through the onslaught, but I make it to the lip and set the jar down beside my feet, where it can’t tip.
“Hi,” I say.
My voice sounds so small out here. The wind eats most of it.
“So…I’ve been all over the city today, in case you weren’t watching.
I fell down twice. I yelled your name at a dog.
” A laugh leaves me, wet and ragged. “You would’ve hated it as much as me.
You’re a homebody, just like me, but it’s also so cold—is it cold in your world?
I never asked.” My throat closes. I press the back of my wrist against my mouth until it opens again.
“You’re just so patient with me. You’ve always been so patient with me, and I threw it at you like it was garbage. ”
The lip of the roof is maybe four inches high. Just enough to feel it under my toes, and the threads in my breasts tighten until I struggle to breathe.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry I told you to go. I’m sorry I decided what was best for you without asking. I’m sorry I made you the villain when the only thing you ever did was refuse to stop showing up.” Until now.
Something in my chest cracks wide, and I let it.
“I remembered the greenhouse. The dahlias. You said they reminded you of me, and I laughed because I didn’t know what to do with being called beautiful.” A sob shakes through my hunched frame. “I know what to do with it now. I’d know what to do with it now, if you came back.”
Nothing.
“Ash.” His name tastes like the inside of a memory I scraped up from the depths of my soul. My whole body heats the moment I say it, from my scalp down to the soles of my burning feet, and for one blazing second I think—there, that’s it, he’ll come now—
But the roof remains empty.
“Ash,” I say again, louder this time. “I love you. Do you hear me? I love you, and I have loved you in every single one of those stupid lives, I know I have—I can feel it in my ribs. It aches like a sore muscle, and I was too scared and broken to say it. So I’m saying it now. I love you.”
I lift one foot and set it on the lip. The concrete’s gritty and wet, and my toes curl over the edge as my pulse throbs so hard in my throat I hear it over the wind.
More words rip out of me. “And yes, that’s your answer. That’s always been the answer; you can have me. I want to be in your world. I want the garden and the twilight and the food you keep talking about. I want to wake up in your bed and not be too tired to think about tomorrow. Yes.”
My eyes slip closed.
“So if you’re not coming, if this is it, and you’re done with me in this life—I don’t blame you—then find me in the next one.
Find me fast, okay? Don’t wait for me to fall apart first. Come while I’m still bright, if I ever am.
I swear on everything I will remember you, and the very first thing I’ll say is yes. ”
My hands rest over my heart, the muscle having slowed considerably. There’s no fear in me any longer. I’ve stood in this exact spot with my body screaming at me to step back, and now there’s nothing but a wide-open ache pulling forward, and it feels like leaning into a warm doorway.
“Please come,” I whisper. “Please, please come.”
I lean. The wind catches my nightgown and hair in its grasp, and gravity grips me before I’ve finished falling forward.
The roof slips away—fast, so much faster than I thought—a straight dark line shrinking against the sky, and I focus my eyes on it.
I keep them right on the edge, waiting for a shape to appear; for a long black coat and two arms to come out of nowhere and yank me back with a voice at my ear telling me I don’t get to leave him.
Come on. Come on.
The edge narrows.
He’s not there.
Somebody screams. Not me, someone below me.
As the floors of my building fly by, and I sense the ground approaching, my eyes take one last look at the roof as I whisper, “Yes.”
Then pain, white-hot and all-encompassing, drenches me for a fraction of a second before everything goes black.