Chapter 43
Karla
After one too many failed attempts at getting in touch with Ash, I went straight to the one place I knew he’d be come Sunday.
The sun was barely rising, but it looked as if Ash had been settled in front of the two tombstones of his brother and father for quite some time.
“I get the feeling you’re avoiding me,” I said to Ash as I walked up to the tombstones.
He looked over his shoulder toward me and gave a half-grin. “Morning, sunshine.”
“Morning,” I gestured beside him. “May I?”
“Please.”
I sat beside him, staring at his brother’s tombstone. We didn’t say anything for a while as our arms rested on top of our bent knees. I lowered my head and fiddled with my hands. “How old are they today?”
Ash took a breath, closing his eyes. He opened them again, staring straight ahead. “Rian’s twenty-four. Dad’s sixty-four.” Then he nudged me in the arm gently. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Worrying about me. I’m fine, Karla.”
“Oh?”
He arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘oh’?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. I just didn’t know you were such a bad liar.”
“I’m not lying,” he said gruffly. “I am fine.”
“That was almost convincing.”
“Karla—”
“Do you want to be friends?” I blurted out, cutting him off.
His brows lowered as a grimace hit his mouth. Mr. Banks was in a bad mood that Sunday morning. “Don’t ask me that, Karla.”
“Why not?”
“Because you already know the answer,” he grumpily replied. “Of course I want to be your friend.”
“Good.” I nodded. “So we can be friends.”
“No,” he corrected. “We can’t.”
That broke my heart a little. “We can’t?”
He shook his head. “I can’t be your friend.”
“Why not? I’m a great friend.”
“You’re the best of friends, yes. That’s why I can’t be your friend. Because you’ll be the best one, and that scares me.”
“Why?”
He finally looked at me. “I don’t think I can be friends with you, because when I’m near you, I feel . . .”
“Sad?” I asked, with true concern. “Because I get that. If when you’re around me I’m a reminder of that hard period of your life, that’s not good, Ash. I never want to make your life harder. If being near me is hard, then we don’t have to—”
“It’s not that,” he cut in with a slight head shake.
“It’s the opposite, really. When I’m near you I feel .
. . everything. And I turned off my emotions a long time ago.
But it’s like you came back and flipped on that switch, and now I’m overwhelmed with feelings.
You make me feel . . . alive. And that’s scary after feeling like a ghost for the past nine years. ”
Oh, Ash . . .
The heaviness of life he’d been carrying while pretending it didn’t exist must’ve been exhausting. He’d been walking in the dark this whole time, and I had enough nerve to shine a flashlight in his face, begging him to wake up.
I felt guilty about that, but at the same time I was . . . relieved? Because I didn’t want him to live his life on autopilot. I wanted him to know that there was more to this twisted life than existing. I wanted him to fall in love with life again after the world lost its spark to him.
I wanted him to know that life didn’t always have to be dull. I wanted him to see the color.
Yet I also knew how sometimes the dark felt safer. The shadows probably felt like comfort after he’d spent so much time there. It was the light that felt foreign to him.
But just because something felt familiar to a person didn’t mean it was healthy.
He couldn’t go on another five years, ten years, hell, thirty years, without allowing the light back in. No person should ever live like that.
“I don’t want to lose you again, Ash,” I said, placing a comforting hand on his arm.
“Yeah, I hear you,” he said, looking down at my touch.
I shook my head and tilted his chin up to look at me. “No. I mean I don’t want to lose you.”
I saw the flash in his eyes when realization settled in on what I meant.
I knew what it was like to be depressed.
Maybe more than most people. I knew how depression moved, how it looked, how it hovered.
I knew its moods and twists and turns. I knew the signs of it, and I saw it sitting there in Ash’s eyes.
I saw the fear. The loneliness. The pain.
That must’ve been the look Chase told me about, the broken look that Ash had been displaying for the past decade.
It was so apparent, even when he tried his best to hide his hurt.
But I also saw moments of light. At times, I’d see the same sweet Ash I knew as a teenager.
I’d see sparks of life in him. And now all I wanted to do was help bring more of that light back to his world.
Unfortunately, I knew that sometimes to make it to the light, you had to address the darkness first. If you didn’t understand your own shadows, it was almost impossible to cast them away.
“How do you do that?” he whispered.
“Do what?”
“See me when the rest of the world seems blind.”
I placed my hand on his leg. “I think it’s the same way you saw me when we were young. Maybe we were just meant to see each other.”
“Maybe,” he breathed out. “Still, it scares me shitless.”
“I know.” I paused and pulled my knees into my chest. “But Ash, if we are going to be friends, we can’t be artificial ones. We have to be honest with how and what we’re feeling. I don’t want a half-friendship. I want the whole thing.”
“I was afraid of losing you,” he confessed as we sat there.
“After my dad died, I was afraid of losing everyone I cared about. My mother and I hardly talk anymore. We check in on holidays and birthdays, but after Dad died . . .” His words faded.
“And I’d have nightmares about losing my mom in some tragic way.
I’d have even worse dreams about losing you.
And . . .” He shook his head as he released a weighted breath.
“I was so terrified of losing you that I pushed you away instead. I know that’s a stupid excuse, but—”
“I get it,” I softly replied. “I’m afraid of death, too. But I would’ve liked the opportunity to be there for you all those years ago.”
“I ghosted you. I treated you like shit . . . Why are you being so understanding?”
“Because there was a time in my life when I, too, was drowning. And a sweet, weird boy had enough care to save me.”
He sighed and leaned his body against mine. The moment our shoulders brushed, I felt my whole body warm. I rested my head on his shoulder as we stared at the two tombstones in front of us.
“Karla?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad I got called to your bookshop.”
“Yeah. . . .” I smiled. “Me too.”