Chapter Seventeen #2
He moves closer, close enough that she has to tilt her head up to look at him.
Until this moment, she hasn’t let herself realise just how attracted she is to him.
She tries to remind herself of the reasons not to go there.
He’s Mark’s friend. She’s not ready for a relationship.
He’s only here temporarily, and she doesn’t want to fall for someone who will leave her.
But right now, there is a buzzing in her mind, eclipsing those thoughts.
So when he leans in, closing the distance between them, she meets him there, so that she’s not sure who it is who kisses who.
She feels that first shock to her system as his mouth captures hers, hears the sound she makes as he tugs her hips flush to his.
She grips his forearms tightly, nails biting gently into flesh.
Her lips part for his, and she can taste the alcohol and something deeper, something that is distinctly him, both electrifying in its newness and somehow comforting in its familiarity.
Her outline feels like it’s dissolving, her whole body turning to liquid.
She knows that if she were to open her eyes now, it would be impossible to tell where she is.
Her hands are hooked behind his neck, holding him to her.
She doesn’t remember moving them, but she must have.
She scrapes them through his messy hair and he lets out a quiet hum of appreciation.
Somewhere very far away – or that’s how it feels – there is the sound of a glass shattering. The sound of cheering and whooping. They move apart, and Ash glances over in the direction of the noise. Lissa blinks, coming to her senses. What is she doing?
She lets go of his neck, backing away. His hands fall away from her at once.
‘I need some air,’ she mutters, unable to meet his gaze. She grabs her jacket off the stool where she left it and practically runs out of the pub.
Only once the cold air hits her does she realise how hot her skin has become. She takes a steadying breath, then another, needing to chase away whatever she felt in there. She shouldn’t have done that. She shouldn’t have kissed him.
She hears his footsteps behind her. He’s followed her, as she knew he would. She can’t turn to look at him, though – not yet. Her emotions still feel rocky, out of control, and she knows what happens when they get like that. Drinking with him was not a good idea, she realises in hindsight.
‘Do you want to head home?’ he asks, and his voice is neutral, no hint that he’s embarrassed or hurt.
She bites her lip, glances back at where he’s standing a careful distance away from her. ‘Yeah. I think so.’
‘I’ll walk you.’ She hesitates, then nods, falling into step alongside him.
For a moment they walk in silence, away from the buzz of the last few open bars and towards the quiet residential streets.
‘Lissa, I …’ She thinks, from his tone, that he’s about to say something about what happened and finds herself tensing automatically. But he doesn’t. ‘You want to do something tomorrow?’ he asks instead, tone easy once more. ‘Lunch, maybe?’
‘I can’t.’ He gives her a critical look at this. ‘I’m not evading, I promise.’ He keeps looking at her, and she lets out a small laugh. God, her head still feels unsteady. Her skin still feels too tight. ‘Well, okay, maybe partly that.’
His lips twitch. ‘At least you’re honest.’
‘It’s just I have to take my mum to the garage – her car needs fixing.’ She leaves out the part about her saying she’d pay for the repairs. She knows how that will sound.
‘Fair enough.’
He says it casually enough, but she can’t help thinking of the look she gets from Mia every time she does something for her mum.
And even though it’s a perfectly legitimate excuse, she can’t help wondering if he thinks she’s making it up to avoid dealing with what happened.
So she tries to explain. ‘It’s just, it’s important that I look after her. You know, after what happened.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay?’ They are nearing her street now. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He raises his eyebrows. ‘Umm … okay?’
She pushes her hair back from her face impatiently. ‘You don’t get it.’
‘Oh? What don’t I get, exactly?’ His voice is still calm, but now there’s a touch of her own impatience reflected back at her.
And with her emotions in flux like this, with the alcohol fuelling her, she finds herself spitting it out. ‘I left Chloe alone. Okay?’ She turns to him in the middle of the street, a few doors down from her flat. ‘I left her playing by the pond, and because of that, she died.’
He steps towards her, reaching for her. ‘Lissa—’
‘Don’t.’ She swipes him away. ‘I’m just trying to … No one gets it, why I have to do things for my mum, why she needs me. But it’s my fault.’ Angry tears spark her eyes – God, what is wrong with her this evening? ‘It’s my fault my sister died.’
He looks at her for a long moment, and she thinks this is it – this is when he realises just what kind of person she is.
This is why she never tells people exactly what happened.
And maybe, if he knows, then he’ll go, leave her alone.
Maybe it’ll drive him away, and she won’t have to deal with this any more, whatever this is.
But he doesn’t leave. Instead, he moves closer to her, slowly. Then he reaches out and takes her in his arms. She’s so surprised that she doesn’t push him away, holding herself stiff as he rests his chin on top of her head.
‘You were only a child, Lissa.’ She can feel the vibration of his voice against her chest.
She shakes her head as best she can. ‘I was twelve.’
‘A child,’ he repeats firmly. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’
‘I can.’ Her voice is bitter. ‘I do.’
He pulls back just a little, so he can see her face. ‘How did she die?’
She hesitates. ‘She drowned.’
‘An accident?’
Lissa frowns, shakes her head again. ‘No.’
He looks like he might contradict her on that, but instead he reaches out, brushes a strand of her hair back from her face.
‘I’m so sorry it happened to you, Lissa.
I’m so sorry that it happened to your mum, too.
But it’s not your fault.’ He repeats it like that’s all that’s needed for her to believe it.
Like all he needs to do is say that, and it will magically be better.
‘You don’t get it,’ she repeats. She pushes him away, then starts to walk again, heading towards her building.
‘Maybe not,’ he says evenly. ‘But I lost someone too.’ She looks around at that – she can’t help it. ‘My mum,’ he continues. ‘She died when I was a teenager.’
She turns all the way round, and it’s her turn now to step towards him. This is why he speaks of loss like he knows it. ‘Ash—’
He holds up a hand to stop her. ‘My dad didn’t ever recover from it.
That’s why I’m here, in Bath. Because he needs me.
Because he’s not okay – he hasn’t ever been, not really – and I’ve been trying to run away from that.
So I do get it,’ he says, with a self-deprecating smile.
‘The guilt. It’s not the same, but I think I do get it. ’
Her heart twists for him, but she doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know how to take back what she spat at him. For a moment, they just stare at each other. Then Lissa swallows.
‘We shouldn’t have …’ She sighs. ‘This can’t go anywhere, Ash,’ she murmurs, keeping her gaze on his.
‘Between us. You don’t … When you look at me, I don’t think you see just how broken I am.
I think you see a version of me that doesn’t exist.’ And it’s best, isn’t it, to admit that now, before anyone gets hurt.
Before he realises how damaged she is and takes off, or before she does something to hurt him because, as Saskia pointed out to her, she is so lost in the past.
He looks at her for another long moment, and she feels her pulse beating against her wrist. She tenses as he moves towards her, but all he does is lean down and press a chaste kiss to her cheek. There’s a whisper of his breath against her ear as he pulls away, and her muscles tighten and quiver.
It feels like a goodbye, she realises. She doesn’t know why that should hurt quite so much.
‘It doesn’t have to go anywhere,’ he says.
‘Not if you don’t want it to.’ He backs away, ready to turn, to leave.
‘But Lissa? Just so you know, I’m pretty sure that when I look at you, I do see the broken parts.
’ Her breath hitches just a little as he holds her gaze.
‘I’m pretty sure that when I look at you, I see all of you. ’