Fragile Bones

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"What are you making for yourself?" I asked innocently, making sure he knew that I wouldn't be partaking in this activity. He seemed to have other ideas.

"I'm just gonna make some Mac'N'Cheese for us," he answered, giving me a warning look. "Clear off the island, will you? I'll need somewhere to set the bowls when I'm done."

"You could at least say please," I huffed under my breath, folding my arms over my chest.

"Will you please move the shit off the island sweetheart?" He said, smiling in a sarcastic way and rolling his eyes and grabbing a pot from a cabinet.

"It doesn't count if you swear," I commented.

Asher set the pot down on the stove and walked over to where I was sitting and spun the chair over to face him. His arms gripped either side of the chair, touching my thighs, and he leaned in close to my face. "You're feeling a little bold tonight huh?"

My heart thundered in my chest in response to our proximity. I slowly shook my head, not breaking eye contact. He gently brushed the back of his hand against my cheek and I involuntarily leaned in to his touch. "You look tired. Maybe I should've let you sleep."

"It's fine," I stammered. Patting my bag (which I had set on the floor) I continued, "I brought stuff to sleep over anyways." As soon as I said it, I wanted to slap a hand over my mouth.

One side of his mouth turned up, and he cocked his head to the side. "Interesting. Now, please move the stuff." He dropped his hand, and left to fill the pot up with water.

I got up to do my job, and set a couple of magazines on the sideboard in a neat stack. A pile of envelopes were in disarray on the island as well, some opened and some not. It didn't seem like his mom to leave such a mess anywhere, so I assumed he was the one retrieving the mall everyday and throwing it in the kitchen. I started to pick them up one by one so I could make them look a little nicer, but one envelope caught my eye. It looked like any regular mail, except for the return address. While the other casings of white were bills or school documents, this one was from a prison.

My mind raced back to one of the times I was here and I had asked about Asher's dad.

Asher sighed and leaned away from me. "Is that what we're gonna do- talk about our families?"

"You don't have to," I started. "It's just that I've only ever seen your mom and you haven't talked about your dad at all, and the doesn't mean you have to if you don't want to but I've just been a little curious about it I guess and-"

"He's in prison," I heard Asher say, effectively cutting off my rambling. I didn't have anything prepared to say for that response.

The letter was addressed to Asher, and the name in the corner read Hendrix King. It was open, the too torn through messily, and there was what looked like a single sheet of paper inside.The envelope was snatched out of my hand in a flash, and I jumped back. Asher was looking at me with a harsh look, which was slightly offset by the fact that he was holding a wooden spoon in his other hand. "Why do you always feel like you must indulge yourself into my life?"

"I-" What could I say? This wasn't the first time I'd acted on my feelings rather than my brain. "Aren't we friends?"

This was the wrong thing to say.

"I don't know. You're all over the place, all the time. I can never get a reading on you, and that bothers the hell out of me. You seem like you want to hang out with me, but other times you seem like you're nothing. I'll say something to you, and you'll be looking off somewhere, like there's nothing inside of you. I know that Spencer's been cruel to you, and I know that your family isn't perfect. Nobody's family is fucking perfect," he said, tossing the letter in my direction. "Do you think I can't see what you're-" He stopped himself, and sighed, rubbing his forehead in a way that suggested this speech tired him. Against my will, tears had started lightly forming in my eyes, and I did everything I could to prevent myself from blinking lest they spill over.