Ash
"Ash!" Jay's voice penetrated my thoughts.
I look around, realizing that I am completely surrounded by trees. Jay walks toward me, but I can't focus on his face. "Get away from me." I say, my voice coming out weak and out of breath.
Jay stops a few feet away from me. "I'm sorry." He says.
I squeeze my fingers into a tighter fist, letting out a mangled scream as I punch a nearby tree. My knuckles instantly erupted in pain, the fire racing up my wrist.
Suddenly I am swept away from the tree, my other fist swinging in the air. "No!" I scream, fighting against Jay's arms. "Let go of me!"
"You're going to hurt yourself." Jay said icily, his chest a wall of solid muscle behind me.
"Let go!" I wailed, the tears coming out of my eyes.
I pulled and jerked against Jay's strong arms, trying to get out of his grasp. "I know it hurts." Jay says softly, his grip not faltering.
"Let me go!" I scream again, but my body fails to fight against him any longer. "Let me go." I choked on a sob, my voice failing me as I collapsed. Jay's arms scoop me up before I could hit the ground, he holds tightly onto me as we sit on the forest floor.
"I know." Jay says, his hands holding me tightly. "I know."
I hate the few tears that escape my eyes, every silent sob that wracks my body, every shake that sends tremors through my hands. I hate that I'm so weak. So helpless.
Jay's hand moves to my head, smoothly running his fingers down the length of my hair in soothing strokes.
I gasped in breath after breath, willing the air to enter my lungs. Jay brushed two fingers under my chin and guided my face up to look at him. His ocean blue eyes searched my face. Jay lifts a thumb and traces my cheekbone.
"Can you t- take me home?" I stutter unattractively.
Jay doesn't say anything, he only pulls me into his chest, resting my head in the crook of his neck, his chin resting on top of my head. His arms snake around me and hold me tightly to him. I let out a shuddering breath as his fingertips dig into my skin protectively.
Home was the last place I wanted to be right now, but I had nowhere else to go.
"Are you sure that's what you want?" Jay asks me.
I let out a breath of air as I pull away from him, Jay reluctantly dropping his arms from around me. I let out a breath of laughter, crude and without a smile. My fingers fold into fists. "If I don't, things will only get worse."
Jay shakes his head and grabs my hand. His eyes seared into mine. "You've barely processed this." He brings his other hand over to my lap so he is grasping both my hands. Jay's eyes pleaded me to listen to him, his face showing his concern and worry. "It's like we were talking about earlier. Sticking your neck out for the benefit of others isn't your job." Jay tugs on my hands. "You're parents are the ones that have to figure this out."
I blink down at our connected hands and pull away from him to rub at my face. "What am I supposed to do, Jay?"
"I'll take you to my house." He says like it's the most obvious thing ever.
"What?" I say, stunned.
Jay instantly starts to persuade me. "We have plenty of extra rooms, and besides, you won't have to be alone."
I shake my head and stand up, brushing off my knees as I do so. "I don't want to be a burden." I look into the woods, trying to identify any landmarks that might signal the way back to civilization. Jay opens his mouth but I start talking before he can do so. "I'm fine. I just want to go home." I lie through my teeth, and by the look that Jay gives me, he can read me like an open book.
As I turn my head southeast, a slight feeling of familiarity runs through me. This way.
I start walking back towards the bar and Jay reluctantly starts to follow me.
"Ash?" Jay says quietly as he matches my pace by my side.
I spare a glance at him. His blue eyes watch me carefully.
"I don't expect you to talk to me or anything." Jay regards me with a possessive look on his face. "Just let me take you to my house. You shouldn't have to go home tonight. Not like this."
I shake my head. "I barely know you. Sage has been lying to me for weeks. Ronnie acts like he's keeping something from me. I really can't take much more of the secrets bullshit. It's starting to piss me off. Sometimes you guys act like I'm really dumb enough to catch on. If Sage really doesn't care about our friendship, and he's not willing to make an effort, then fuck it. I won't try either." I said more than I meant to in front of Jay. But getting it off my chest eased the growing tension inside of me a little bit.
I gasp as Jay grabs my wrist and pulls me to a stop, turning me so that I'm facing his towering form. I swallow as I look at the intense look in his eyes. "Stop that."
I raise an eyebrow. "Stop what?"
"Being so fucking stubborn all the time." Jay bores into my eyes, his gaze never faltering. "I don't care if you're refusing to give up. But this not trying shit? I don't want to hear it. I don't even want you to think about giving up. It's weird to hear you say something like that. Your ambition is something I really admire about you." Jay's eyes flick away from my face, a tint of red covering his cheeks. "I... I don't think I meant to say that."
Jay admires me? I look away from his face as well as my own cheeks turn the slightest shade of pink. A moment passes where we don't share a word.
"Okay." I say quietly and Jay looks back towards me. "I won't. And, I'll stay at your house tonight. But this is the only night." The corner of Jay's lips tips up in a halfhearted smile. I nod towards the way back. "Let's go. I'm really tired."
Jay nods quickly and we walk the rest of the way to his car. I am too tired to be alert enough to actively search for my dad in the parking lot, but I do notice that the car is gone. I sigh once I get in Jay's seat, letting myself lean back, resting my head on the cool window.
"Ashlyn?" Jay says softly as we begin to drive down the road.
"Mhm?" I say in a flat, tired tone.
"I just wanted to let you know, that Sage just ended things with his old boyfriend." Jay says from behind the wheel.
I turn my head towards him. "I thought that ended a while ago."
Jay glances in my direction before returning his eyes to the road. "Yeah. We all did for a while. I really only knew because I guessed. Ollivander, is a really good manipulator. A puppet master. His strings were attached to Sage along time ago. But Sage cut those strings for good."
"I didn't know." I say softly, letting my head fall back to the window.
"And..." Jay starts and I sense him shake his head. He was internally struggling with himself. There was something he was keeping from me, something that he didn't want me to know.
I sigh. "You don't have to share if you don't want to." I say, trying to get a sense of what he was feeling.
"And he's been lying to you for me." Jay says abruptly like he forced the words out.
I look back at him, drawn by curiosity. Why was he admitting this?
His forehead was wrinkled in worry, his eyes strained on the road ahead of us, not meeting my eye. "I can see that your friendship with Sage is important to you. I regret getting in the way of that. But please, Ash, don't blame him for any of this. If you need someone to put the blame on, I'm the only person deserving."
I stared at him for a long moment, the minutes ticking by as he drove. The feelings building up inside of me brought from a boil to a simmer. The creases on his forehead didn't disappear as he watched the road with wide anxious eyes.
Eventually, I leaned back to the window, letting my heavy eyelids droop.
"I'm sorry." Jay whispered as I slipped into a light sleep.
-
It was when tingles began shooting up my arms and legs when my eyes fluttered open, still half asleep. I looked up and tried to focus on Jay's blurry face. He looked down at me, his blue eyes still wore a trace of the earlier worry. "I didn't mean to wake you." Jay said quietly. "I'm going to take you to an extra room. You can go back to sleep." His hand lightly brushed over my hair as he tucked my body closer to his chest as he carried me inside his house.
A glimpse of the white pillars outside the door reminded me of the ones I saw outside of the mansion when I first drove into town.
As we entered the house, I breathed in the scent around me, but mostly the strangely appealing cedar scent of Jay. My eyes closed and remained shut until I fell back asleep, listening to the sounds of Jay's breathing as he carried me up a set of stairs.
-
I awoke with a start, reaching out and knocking something off of the nightstand and onto the floor, making a crash. Sitting up, I back into the headboard of the bed, my hands flying to my sides. I blindly felt around my hips and slowly breathed out, knowing that the fire was just a dream.
I jumped when the door swung open, revealing a half-naked and very disheveled Sage. "Ash?" He asked, his voice croaky with sleep. Sage's chocolate hair was in disarray, sticking up all over his head. He wore tiffany blue fuzzy pajama pants, with cartoon wolves across them, adorned with yellow crescent moons and pink hearts. "Are you okay?"
Before I could reply, Sage stumbles to the bed, the sleep in his eyes very prominent. He motions for me to scoot and as I make room for him in the bed, he lifts up the comforter and crawls under next to me. Sage sets his head down on the pillow I was just using and stares at me, his eyes beginning to droop.
The light from the hallway filters in through the open door, filling the room with a soft yellow glow.
Sage lifts up his head towards the hallway like he can see something I can't. "Go back to sleep, she's fine."
I look across the room. "What?"
Sage's head falls back onto the pillow, his eyes shut. "You have a lot of people worried about you, ya know." Sage yawns and reaches out, patting the bed until he finds my hand. "Good night Ash."
I let myself think about his words for another moment before a smile comes onto my face. I let my eyes close too and focus on the warmth from Sage's hand as I fell asleep again.
Bro, this was so hard to write lol. I'm still cringing at myself. Hope you enjoyed!