If You Love Me

31

a v e r y

EVERYTHING IN THE NEXT two hours seems to have happened in slow motion. Asher showed up with tattoos exposed wearing jeans and a band t-shirt finding Olivia and I where we had been sitting with words unspoken for twenty minutes. Without any sense of hesitation, he lifted her off the ground and walked ahead of me and out of the dorm. He held on to her the entire time on the way down the hallway, in the elevator ride as a boy with glasses too big for his face watched us with a curious gaze, and as we walked to his black pickup that was parked illegally in one of the designated faculty parking spots. His eyes made contact with mine every so often as he watched us from the rear-view mirror, both of his hands gripping either side of the steering wheel as he drove faster than the streets were marked. He sat next to Olivia with both palms on the thighs of his jeans among the people in the ER waiting room as I spoke to one of the receptionists. He stayed quiet as I ventured back, helping put Olivia's head on to my lap and her legs on to his. He denied my offer for him to leave once Olivia had allowed her body to become at rest, everything in his words and body language revealing how adamant he was on staying. And he sat next to me in the quietness.

"You're a great friend." He says after a prolonged moment of silence.

I look towards him to find him already watching me, his arms crossed over the front of his chest and his back resting comfortably against the armed chair.

"Thank you for being here Asher."

"Don't mention it." He responds and I know that he means every bit of it.

"Were you busy?" I ask, referencing to fact that he had answered on the second ring and got to the dorms faster than I had anticipated him doing.

"If you call staring down at a blank notebook busy," he speaks. "I was trying to come up with a new song for our next set."

"I didn't know wrote songs."

"Trying to." He answers.

As he pushes himself back further into the chair, I take notice of the blue pen markings on his fingertips. The ink sinks deep into the pads of his fingers, lining it just before it reaches his nails.

"It would help if the ink was on the paper, not on your hands."

He releases both of his arms, holding his arms extended a couple inches as his palms face him. A lopsided smile takes over the bottom half of his face as he stares down at the sight.

"I guess that would help," he places his hands back where they once were. "How have things been with you?" The question leaving his lips with a slight hesitancy as the last time we had talked about me it hadn't began so well.

"I transferred to English Lit."

His blue eyes are quickly to lit up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," I nod. "I guess I owe it to you."

"Not at all, Avery," he shakes his head. "You would have done it eventually, I know it."

"Still...thank you."

I look away from him and at the waiting room. A redheaded boy sits on the foam-mat in the corner, toys thrown all about around him. He holds on to airplane, examining the plastic grey and white toy as it sits in his hands. His eyes stare at the front of the plane the longest, a look of longing in his eyes. I can only imagine the thoughts that run through his prepubescent mind — thoughts of going on his next vacation; thoughts of one day becoming a pilot.

A redheaded woman who I assume to be his mother sits on the chair above him, her eyes watching his every move. Her eyes are swarmed with tears, her brown irises tinged with a red that matches the strands on her head. She reaches for the purse that she holds at her side the minute a phone begins to go off, one of her hands rifling through the black leather as the other attacks the tears that have begun to make their way down her face. She stands as she answers the call, not trailing too far away from the little boy that didn't even budge at her sudden movement.