18. Asher

EIGHTEEN

The three daysof silence that followed were only bearable because Phoenix had stayed at Northwood for the better part of the summer break. He was experiencing city life and all it had to offer. And when he first saw me return, he knew something had gone wrong.

"I don't want to talk about it," I had told him in a tight voice. "Not now. Probably not ever."

Phoenix nodded and suggested a night out. The first one back at Northwood was the hardest. It was the first night in weeks that I expected to go to bed alone. And yet, even when I felt the pang of desire for Jordan, guilt stabbed me in the chest. It was a permanent mark on my soul, this feeling of responsibility for the destruction of all the relationships that had defined me throughout my life. What were we without the connection to others? Sacks of meat held together by skin. Skeletons trapped in a slowly rotting cage. We were nothing when we were in solitary confinement, and mine was a punishment for all the things I'd done wrong.

Phoenix respected my needs from the very first hour, which made it easy to be around him and let him distract me. We went skating, we had a few beers in the basement, we listened to music, and he told me about his conquests in the weeks we'd been apart. He never asked what had gone wrong with my life, and I never offered an explanation. In fact, I barely spoke at all, but he took it in stride and spoke for both of us.

I woke up on the third afternoon back at Northwood. The window in our room was open and Phoenix was somewhere other than our den. The heat of the day had crawled into the room and sweat matted my hair. I had been napping every day for a long while since I'd returned.

I sniffed my armpits and wrinkled my nose, then opened the windows wide to air the room out. Undressing, I left a trail of sweaty clothes from my bed to the bathroom, stepped into the shower, and turned on the cool water to wash the sweat off my body. After that was done, I brushed my teeth, dried myself with a big towel, and returned to the room. It was so late in the day that the sky was fiery orange and the green backyard appeared weary and dry like my will to keep going.

Rummaging through the closet, I found a clean pair of briefs, brown shorts that ended at the middle of my thighs, and a cream hemp shirt with rolled-up sleeves. I buttoned up to the middle of my chest and let the upper half spread open. Today, I might walk somewhere outside the campus and I didn't want to look the way I felt. Not that anything mattered. I was a shell of a human with nowhere to be and nothing to do.

I strapped on my Roman-style brown leather sandals and circled the room while a wave of temptation pulled me toward the bed. I just woke up, I growled at myself. But the bed was inviting me louder than the outside world. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could just pass out on that soft mattress and let the world go on outside this room?

I didn't have the time to decide. My phone vibrated in my pocket and I wondered if Phoenix had come up with some new idea to drag me out. My curiosity got the better of me. I pulled the phone out and my heart instantly dropped into the pit of my stomach. Mom. Not that I was allowed to call her that anymore.

My throat tightened as my thumb trembled an inch above the screen. It took me a moment to muster the strength to pick up, but that was about the extent of my courage. I was too far down to speak. And I didn't have the will to fight or even to hear more judgment in her voice.

"Yes?" I whispered. It was as far as I could go.

She was silent, breathing in and out for a few moments. "You're back at Northwood." It wasn't a question. Why she was keeping track of my whereabouts was beyond me after all she had said.

"Yes," I confirmed anyway, my voice only slightly stronger. I realized I hadn't spoken at all today. Phoenix had let me sulk over breakfast, and when he brought us lunch, he talked about his evening plans instead of prodding me with questions. I had murmured and grunted a few times since this morning, but these were my first words of the day.

My gaze moved to the window. The fire was waning and night was approaching. I might drag myself to the backyard and watch the stars tonight.

"Asher…" Her voice cut off abruptly.

In the silence, I found the barest minimum of what I needed to tell her. "If you're about to remind me of what you said, you don't have to. It never left my mind."

A sound. I didn't know what it was. It was too short and high-pitched to make sense. "Is he with you?" she asked after a beat.

"No." It was the driest my voice could get. Couldn't she say his name? It didn't matter.

"I see," she said. "You shouldn't be alone."

"Why do you care?" I demanded, fire bursting to life inside of me. "You walked out and told me not to call you my mother anymore. Why do you care if I live or die?"

Another sound. It was not an angry sound but a sob held deep inside, rising and being forced away. After she found her voice, she spoke, but it wasn't answering my questions. "Jordan visited me."

So that was how she knew where I was. He'd probably gone there to gather his things before she changed the locks. Still, my heart leaped at the mention of his name. I would have to see him soon. He would return here in a week or so to start the drills like everyone else.

"He came in the morning the day after I returned," she spoke in a softer voice. I couldn't read any of her emotions. "He must have been driving since before dawn. He walked in, sat down in the living room, and scared me to death when I saw him. I told him to leave, but he wouldn't. Stubborn boy. I didn't want to see him, but he said it was his home as much as anyone's." I could tell now that there was frustration tightening her voice. I let her silence go on for as long as she wanted. Whatever fight they had, she would either tell me or wouldn't, but the outcome was the same. "I threatened to call the cops when he stared at me in silence like some psycho. I didn't know he could be so scary, Asher. That sweet, clever boy, he looked like…I don't know. I didn't feel safe."

"Are you seriously calling me to complain about Jordan? I didn't even know…" I tried to vent my anger, but she ignored me.

"He just said it was his legal residence and he could sit there for as long as he wanted. So I let him. What else could I do?"

My heart clenched. Where was she going with this? The tingling of suspense rose from my heart, but I pressed my lips tight and didn't make a sound.

"He sat there all morning, arms crossed, eyes on me whenever I passed through the room. Every now and then, he just said we had to talk, but I wasn't going to be bullied, Asher." Anger reached all the way up to my throat, hot and bitter. "And when I finally couldn't wait anymore — he knew he was waiting for me to break, I tell you that — I demanded to know what he wanted from me. But he just looked me dead in the eyes and said: ‘You broke his heart.'" She choked up, that sob bursting from her tight throat and splitting my ear. If there was anything left of my heart, it might have cracked at hearing this. But there wasn't. It had already been shattered into sand and dust. "Did I?" she demanded, her voice quivering. "Don't you understand how I feel?"

Why should I?But there was no point in asking that.

"You boys…you were brothers in all but blood. For seven years, Ash, we were a family. And isn't it bad enough that I should have lost seven years with a man I no longer loved? Isn't it too much to see our sons do this…this…this thing that brothers should never even think of?"

"Stop saying that," I growled.

She stopped speaking altogether for a moment, then regained some control over her tone. "You sound just like him. ‘We were never brothers. We were never even friends.' That's what he told me. He told me how little you spoke to each other all these years. We knew, George and I. We knew you weren't getting along, but b…stepbrothers are like that. You were both changing and you were growing up; it was hard enough as it was."

"What do you want?" I asked. I couldn't go through another round of this. I couldn't listen to how my carelessness had cost us the lives we had known.

She was silent for a few heartbeats, then sniffed a little. In a calmer voice, she spoke again. "I didn't mean for everything to go the way it went, Ash. My life's falling apart around me. Jordan says that this woman from work isn't even straight. That she's married to another woman. I know I have to face some hard truths."

I would have cut her off there if I could. She was speaking about things that meant nothing to me. I didn't want to listen to her rambling and I didn't want to be her therapist.

"I let my years go by, baby, and it's turned me into a bitter person." The whimper that followed made something vibrate and throb inside of my chest. "I didn't mean to push you away. I just…couldn't stand the thought that you and Jordan could have what we lost along the way."

"You blame us for your wrong choices," I stated in my flattest tone.

"No," she said vehemently. "I was shocked, Ash. Can't you see that the world as I knew it turned upside down when I saw him in your bed? Maybe you weren't close when you were younger, but we saw you differently. To me, you were family no matter what you say." She hesitated a moment. "I've gone too far. I know that now. Jordan showed me."

My chin quivered before I could stop myself. I blinked angrily and pressed my lips into a tight line.

Mom's voice softened further. "I don't expect you to forgive me for the things I said."

She was right about that.

"Not yet, anyway." Or ever? But I'd stopped breathing a few moments ago and I couldn't spit out that venomous suggestion. "What I said…it was wrong. I…I think you can understand even if you don't want to, but…I can't ask that of you. I failed in so many ways, but Ash…" Her voice was fading as she tried to get through the words. I was incapable of speaking. Instead, I just pressed the phone harder against my ear until it hurt. "Ash…I have no right to tell you what to do, but you shouldn't be alone. If he's not there, you should go back. You should go to him. Clearly, he's better for you than I have been."

I frowned, my heart throbbing and teeth clenching. Jordan had been the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. He'd defined my life and made everything make sense when he finally kissed me.

"I see now that I was wrong," Mom said. "I hope you'll be able to forgive me. Someday." After her breath hitched, she added, "And I hope the damage I've done isn't irreparable, Ash."

I struggled to inhale through my flaring nostrils but managed somehow. "You made me feel like it's my fault our family fell apart." I couldn't keep the accusation out of my voice. "You made me feel like I depended on your blessing, and because I couldn't get it, it ruined everything."

"I know," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

"At least you're sorry," I said sourly. "But that doesn't change anything."

"You have the right to feel that way," she said. I hated that she was accepting this. I seemed to still have some fight left in me. "If it's my blessing you want, you got it now, Ash. But that's not what you need. And I don't have the right to give it or withhold it."

She was right about that. Except, I couldn't let this anger out when she was happy to take it. In accepting it, she disarmed me. "I can't forgive you. Not yet. But…" It was my turn to swallow down the sob that was rising. "This phone call's a good start."

In the silence that followed, she sniffed again. "I understand that."

My heart thundered as it sank in. Jordan had gone there, forced her to rethink all of this, and helped fix what little he could. The wreckage we left around us was too huge to be put back together, but he salvaged what he could. "I need to go," I said tightly before I could break.

"Will you see him?" she asked.

I wasn't sure that was any of her business. "Eventually."

"You should see him," Mom said hastily. "I told him that, too, if my opinion matters at all. I told him what I told you, and he…listened."

"I need to go now," I repeated. She had broken my heart, but the things she had said to Jordan were unforgivable. I wasn't sure I could ever look at her the same way. And yet, of all the things that could have happened this afternoon, this call was probably the best. Acceptance of responsibility was the first step to forgiveness. It mattered even if the second step wasn't guaranteed.

"Okay," Mom whispered. We ended the conversation there and I paced back and forth in the room with a sense of urgency and nothing I could do about it. The last of the sunlight was escaping, and the darkness gathered outside.

When I could no longer stand being inside, I walked out of the room. Watch the stars, I told myself. For a little while, just watch the stars. I needed to do anything other than walk in circles.

In all the anger I still had for her, I was worried about Mom. Where had it all gone so wrong? When had she become so unhappy with her life?

It was obvious to me that I was thinking about her because Jordan was battering at the walls I had put around my thoughts. I was keeping him out because letting him in hurt too much.

So I walked out and around the house to the spacious backyard, where the ground was dry and warm from the scorching days that preceded this night. The brightest stars were beginning to glimmer against the darkening sky.

I sat down and slouched, my chin lifted high, my gaze wandering over the clear, dark expanse. I didn't know for how long I sat there, but Phoenix's footsteps made me aware that I wasn't drifting through the cosmos. I was still in the team house's backyard and all the light of day had disappeared.

Perhaps it was at the same time he spoke the first word, and perhaps it had clicked in my head a moment earlier, but my heart shuddered so hard that I could barely keep myself from crying out. "I was so scared you weren't here when I went to your room."

My head spun and I looked up at his breathtaking figure. "Jordan." It was the tiniest whisper.

"Then I saw you from the window," he said softly, cocking his head as if he was pleading with me for something.

I scrambled to my feet and made a pace toward him but stopped myself before I got too close.

He was big and rigid, looking at me with an odd, unreadable expression on his face.

"You left me," he said. "While I was out, you packed your things and left."

"You visited her," I said.

Jordan blinked slowly. "So she called." He shook his head in disappointment. "I'm sorry, Asher. I didn't mean to add oil to this wildfire."

"She wants forgiveness," I blurted. Jordan didn't know. He didn't know what he'd done. He thought it had failed. And the surprise that painted his face only confirmed what I knew. "What did you say to her?"

Jordan shook his head slowly, then took a step toward me. "I said I knew that we hurt her."

I wanted to snort at it, but I knew it was true. We had hurt the people we loved.

"I said we didn't mean to hurt anyone but that I understood what it must have felt like. She didn't like that. Not right away, but she listened." Every word he said was carefully chosen and deliberately used. He spoke slowly, taking another step toward me.

"You said she broke my heart," I whispered.

"Yes." Jordan's gaze locked onto my eyes, his head held low, his shoulders slouching. "And I said it wasn't too late to fix it if she wanted to. When you love someone, getting hurt shouldn't make you give them up. It shouldn't make a difference. If you really care about them, you love their flaws just like you love everything else about them."

"You said that?" My voice quivered as I took a small step toward him.

The corners of his lips ticked ever so slightly upward. He leaned his head deeper down and nodded.

"I'm sorry I left," I said.

He took my hands and pulled me in a few inches. "Asher, I thought a lot about this." His deep voice burned with fiery passion now. "You are my everything. You are all I want and can't have. You're the dreams I dream and the song I hear in total silence. You're my happy place and I can finally tell you that."

His beautiful face blurred when tears brimmed in my eyes.

"There was a time when I had to push you away because my own feelings terrified me. You have no idea how much I regret that," he said, the distance between us closing with every word that left his lips. "I regret missing out on you. We should have been friends all these years, not strangers. I should have been there to support you, not push you as far as I could. Because I love you, Ash. I love you so much that I don't know where to put all these feelings."

I didn't feel any shame when tears spilled from my eyes. I blinked fast and looked at him, my vision clearing up. Then I realized I wore the silliest smile ever. My teeth clamped around the lower lip to keep my mouth from tearing apart and I couldn't stop grinning.

"I should have let myself love you so much sooner," he said. "And if you feel the same, then I promise to make up for all the time we could have had already."

The perpetual sense of melancholy that had accompanied all my feelings this summer lifted away. I hadn't been sad for the years we could have had, I realized. No. I had been afraid that we wouldn't last. But how could I be afraid of that now? How could I ever think Jordan and I wouldn't stand the test of time after this?

"I love you too, Jordan," I said. "I fell for you when I was thirteen and I only loved you more the older I got."

His face was filled with relief. His hands released mine. Before I knew it, he was holding my hips and lifting me off the ground. I wasn't small by any means, except when compared to Jordan, so he took my breath away when he lifted me so seamlessly and brought our bodies together.

I must have laughed. The sound of my voice cut through the night as I wrapped my legs around his waist, arms flung around his neck, and my head leaning down. For once, Jordan had to look up if he wanted to kiss me, and I loved the view from up here.

My butt rested against his abdomen as I leaned in. Jordan's arms were securely around my waist. Our lips slammed together in a moment of brilliant passion.

I kissed him deeply, whimpering once shortly with all this need for our souls to touch, to mingle. I wanted all of him for myself and until the end of time.

As I kissed him, all the other things made a little more sense. In my heart, I knew we would find a way to work it all out. I could see a glimmer of a chance to forgive my mom for the things she'd made me feel in these last few days. I could see our friends discovering about us and being as ready and supportive as they had ever been. I could see us back by the lake, making love until our souls left our bodies, traversed the galaxies, and returned to us.

I could see a life with Jordan so clearly that I knew it wasn't a mere fantasy.

We kissed deeper and slower. Jordan let me slide back to Earth and rested his big, strong hands on my face, kissing me from above, pressing his body against mine. I held him around his torso, not wanting to ever let go.

And when the kiss passed, Jordan pulled away from me by a couple of inches, looking into my eyes lovingly.

"And George?" I asked.

Jordan nodded. His eyes were shining as if they were brimming with tears. "He gave me the courage to come after you."

I hugged Jordan and lowered my head on his shoulder. My hands rested firmly on his shoulder blades, his upper back rising and falling with each breath.

We were incredibly lucky. For all that had gone down in the last few days, this could have ended in a million terrible ways. I had been so sure that Jordan and I were destined to never consider giving us another chance, but he bet on us. He had promised to fight the whole world for me, and he had. He magicked us a second shot, and I wouldn't gamble it away.

"I love you," I whispered, tasting the words and memorizing what they felt like. "I love you. I'll be yours for the rest of my life."

"And I'll be yours," Jordan said.

The stars glimmered against the dark, moonless sky when he moved a little further away from me, tipping my chin up with a gentle pinch, making me look at his beautiful face.

"I am yours," he said, leaning in again. And when his lips touched mine, my heart was whole. The cracks healed, welded together by the heat of his love. It gave me hope. It gave me life. It gave me a purpose.

We had traveled this road for a long time, crossing paths blindly in the dark and taking all the wrong turns. But now I saw the light we had been looking for. I saw the end of wandering and the start of an adventure.

I was ready for it. As I kissed him, my soul met his, and they merged together so finely that I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. I didn't need to, either. We were simply us, and nothing else mattered.