We all ended up ordering pizza because it seemed like the quickest and most convenient way to get everybody fed so that people could go off and do God-knows-what.
I had gone back into my room after leaving Phoebe and Asia's room so that I could finish unpacking and I was expecting to find Ash inside so that I could be further overwhelmed, but he was nowhere to be seen. And even now as we all ate in the living room, Ash wasn't around either. I had no idea where he'd gone, but I didn't have a good feeling about it. Although, to be fair, none of the feelings that I had when it came to Ash were particularly 'good.'
Mackenzie, Marissa, Jack, Phoebe, and Jaime were all playing a (fairly intense) game of Uno while Asia and Tonya had their eyes glued to the Project Runway finale that was currently airing. I was sitting beside the two of them since I figured it would be easier to pretend to watch the TV show than to feign being interested in a game of Uno. What was really on my mind was where Ash was, and how exactly I was supposed to explain to Riley that I was living in the same bedroom as him for the next two months. That would surely be enough to push her over the edge, and I definitely did not want to do that.
"Hey, you."
Brian walked up beside me holding a glass of water in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other.
I smiled up at him. "Hey. Care to join me?" I asked, patting the space on the ground next to me.
He grinned and sat down cross-legged, squinting up at the TV in front of us. "What is this?" he asked. "America's Next Top Model?"
"Project Runway, actually."
"Oooh." He took a bite of his pizza. "Even better," he said sarcastically.
I laughed as he tried to talk with his mouth half full. "Be careful," I warned him. "You could choke on that you know."
"Ah, but see if I choked, then I wouldn't have to keep watching this," he said, raising his glass with a wink. "Win-win."
I rolled my eyes and he just laughed in return, taking another big bite of his pizza. I looked up at his face and saw that his dirty blonde hair was slicked back in one wet swoop over the back of his head. He must have just taken a shower.
I wouldn't ever have told him, but the water that was dripping from his hair paired with the surprising amount of transparency his skin seemed to have at the moment made him look kind of like Senator Kelly from the first X-Men movie. Right before he burst into a puddle of water.
It was interesting to look at. I knew that the comparison was only so stark because of the recent shower Brian had taken, but I still found it funny.
"Why are you smiling?" Brian asked, cocking his head to the side as a curious smirk played at his lips.
I grinned at him, wide-toothed and closed-eyes. "No reason," I said.
"Mhm, right."
I laughed. "Trust me," I said. "You don't want to know about the kind of things that go on in my head."
"Don't I though?"
I raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you?" I asked, even though I had no intention of actually telling him about my newfound discovery.
Turning so that he was facing me full on, Brian gave me a purposeful look as he nodded. "Hit me," he said.
"Okay." I took a breath, adding to the dramatic effect of my next words. "I was just smiling because I was thinking about how devilishly handsome you are, and how lucky Hawaii is to have your presence even grace its beaches. Happy?"
Brian obviously didn't believe that a single word of what I said was what I had actually been thinking about, but he took the compliment, nonetheless. He rested his hand on his chin, grinning at me. "Oh, is that so?".
"Hey, you pulled it out of me."
And it wasn't necessarily a lie, Brian was a fairly good-looking guy. I wouldn't go as far as to say that he was 'devilishly handsome,' but he did have some sort of boy-next-door-type look working around in there. He was cute.
He laughed. "Well, I think Hawaii's lucky to have to both of us on its beaches."
"That is also true."
"Brian, get over here!" Jack waved Brian over to the Uno circle excitedly. "We're starting a new round."
Brian jumped up. "I'm there! Do you wanna come join, Keira?"
I shook my head. "No, I actually have to finish unpacking," I lied. "I found a way to procrastinate a whole suitcase, so..."
With a laugh, he held out a hand to help me up. I took his hand with a smile and sighed once I was up. "I guess I'll see you in the morning. I'm most likely going to pass out in an hour."
"Right, well then I'll see you in the morning," he said. "Do me a favor and dream about my devilishly handsome looks, will you?"
I frowned. "Was there ever any other option to begin with?"
Brian stopped and looked at me for a second with furrowed brows and an entertained smirk. I matched his look and we had a mini five-second staring contest before we both broke out into full blown grins and said our goodnights.
I left the living room pretty inconspicuously. Nobody seemed to notice that I was even gone, which, while convenient since I didn't really have it in me to talk to any more people, still kind of hurt. It was like not being hungry, but still being the only one in whole group that didn't get offered a piece of cake. You didn't necessarily need it, but it would have still been nice to be asked.
I got to my room and shut the door behind me, unsurprised to find that Ash still wasn't back. I pulled out my phone, my first instinct being to call the orphanage so that I could talk to Mickey, but then I remembered that I was six hours behind them. It was currently 7:58 PM where I was so there was no way that Mickey was still awake.
My second instinct was to call Riley, who could very possibly have been awake, but I still didn't know what to say to her. How to explain the situation I was currently in, and so I settled with pushing conversation off until I thought of some excuse. Or at least until she ended up calling me because someone else (most likely Ash) had mentioned the situation to her.
Ash.
Even the thought of his name brought so many different emotions to the forefront of my mind. I knew I wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon – not with my brain doing somersaults around itself, and so I figured it was as good a time as any to get started on the journal I had brought.
There were many times in my life that I had tried to keep a journal, but none of them had ever stuck for more than two weeks. Something about writing down what was on my mind and how I felt had always been such a laborious task for me. I would much rather have just talked it out or ignored how I felt altogether, but here, now – with nobody to talk to and no space left in my mind to suppress my feelings, I couldn't do anything but write them down.
I took the notebook and a pencil from my backpack, and I went into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. When Ash came back, I didn't want to see him. I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts. Alone enough that maybe I could finally begin to understand just what the hell my thoughts actually were.
~
I didn't how much time had passed with me in the bathroom or how many pages I had filled up in the notebook, but when my attention was finally drawn away from journaling with the sound of the room door opening and closing, I realized that my hand was in pain. I couldn't write any more even if I wanted to. It had been so long since I'd worked my hand muscles like that. I knew I wasn't going to be able to do much with my right hand tomorrow.
It was times like this when being ambidextrous really came in handy.
I heard Ash shuffling around the room and wondered how I was going to go out there and face him. He could probably have already guessed by now that I hadn't been able to score a room switch since all of my things were still there, but I was eventually going to have to tell him myself.
There was a light knock on the bathroom door, and I jumped, hitting my head against the sink cabinet.
"Ow – Shit!"
"What happened? Keira, are you okay?" came Ash's voice.
"Yeah...I'm fine," I muttered, rubbing my head.
There was a long pause, before his voice finally came again. "Um, alright," he said, not at all sounding like he believed me. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm gonna sleep on the couch – uh, in the living room."
My eyes widened. "What?"
His voice was slightly muffled by the barrier of the door, but not really. Not enough to hide the smooth velvet of its sound. And not enough to keep my knees from giving out when it quieted itself – sounding almost like a whisper.
"Just for the time being," he assured me. "Until I can figure out a more permanent solution."
I looked up at the door in surprise, not sure how I could even respond. He was really going to leave the room and find somewhere else to stay just for the sake of my comfort? Why would he even do any of that? None of this was making sense!
When he didn't hear a response from my end, Ash finally just said goodnight, and the last thing I heard was the sound of the room door closing behind him.
He was really doing this.
I stood up from the ground, wincing from the pain in my head as I did so. I placed the notebook on the counter of the bathroom and tried my best to massage away the pain in my right hand as I looked at my reflection.
Just what I had expected – a damn mess.
Ash must've thought that I was in the bathroom crying or freaking out (because of him no doubt) when he came into the room. Maybe that had been what pushed him over the edge and made him decide to leave. He didn't know that I was just writing in a journal, trying to organize my thoughts – validating what I knew would be nothing more than a shaky memory in one month's time.
I felt guilty for making Ash leave the room. It would be hard to live with him, yes, but it wasn't serious enough for him to need to do that. Even if I couldn't get a switch, I was mature enough to be able to just suck it up and push through. I didn't want him to have to go through all that trouble because I was being childish about a roommate situation. Yeah, the situation wasn't ideal, but it was my reality. I was just going to have to accept it.
No way was Ash sleeping out on the couch. We raised this money and paid for a bed for him to sleep in it. I wasn't going to let my fear of Riley or fear of my feelings take that away from him.
I focused on my reflection again, hating that I felt self-conscious about Ash possibly seeing me this way. My face was blotchy, the bags under my eyes were grown and heavy, and my hair fell in a tangled mess behind my back.
Pulling my hair up and above my head, I tied it in a loose bun that somewhat camouflaged the mess that it really was. That was the only of my problems with a quick fix, since I knew I didn't have the energy to wash it tonight.
I had decided as soon as I laid eyes on my reflection that I would shower before leaving the bathroom. I wanted to bring Ash back in, but I also wanted to feel good doing it. To feel less out of his league for once in my life! And so I stripped down to my bare skin, not even bothering to look at my nakedness in the mirror. Looking at my face had already been enough of a journey – and one that ended in me feeling like shit. Not until I had taken a shower and gotten some sense of cleanliness and control back, was I going to look at myself again.
I took a shower that I hoped was quick, but I couldn't really tell since my phone was out on my bed. I hadn't checked the time since I entered the bathroom but I knew that it must've been late.
When I was finally all showered and dried up, I opened the bathroom door, and was hit with a gust of warm air that made a smile settle on my lips. It was easy to forget that I was in Hawaii when I had no windows to look out of.
I walked over to my bed and picked up my phone to check the time. It was only 11:06, but the house was silent as an empty church. Everyone must've been exhausted from all the travelling. I could feel the sleep caressing my eyelids as well and knew that Ash or no Ash, I would be passed out like a baby tonight.
Dressing up as quickly as I could manage, I peeked back in the bathroom, looking at my reflection again.
It looked better now. My cheeks were still flushed from the warm water of the shower, but my face looked fresher. I felt fresher.
"Okay Keira," I said, giving my reflection a pep talk. "You're really going to do this. Just invite him back into the room and then leave. You don't even have to stay for conversation."
I took a breath, closing my eyes for a second before I switched off the bathroom light and headed out of my room and to the living room with a determination that I hoped wouldn't break once I laid eyes on Ash.
What if he was asleep though? Shit, I hadn't thought about that possibility. If he was asleep then he'd have to spend the whole night out there, and yeah, I could tell him in the morning that I didn't mind sharing with him, but something in me didn't want to have to wait that long. I wanted him to know that his presence wasn't as much of a burden as I may have made it previously seem.
I turned the corner of the living room, stopping once I was in the large archway. I held onto the wall beside me, squinting my eyes as I tried to make out the room. There weren't any lights on in the house, and so the only form of illumination was coming from the moonlight that spilled in through the windows.
I stood there for a minute as my eyes adjusted to the dark and I could finally make out Ash's figure. He was laying on the largest couch, blanket up to his waist, arm behind his head, and of course, shirt nowhere to be found.
The luminescence of the night bled out onto his skin, trickling down his body like water making its way through a rocky stream. I could see his chest moving up and down – slowly enough to make me believe he may have been asleep, but still too quickly for me to move from my spot half-behind the wall. My eyes grazed their way over every dip and curve of his body, after all this time, still amazed as to how he was real. As to how he and I were members of the same species and yet showed it in such vastly different ways.
The only sound that I could hear, other than that of his slow breaths, was the white noise of baby waves that were still scattering themselves along the beach's shoreline. I felt like I was in a movie scene. Everything was so peaceful – Ash was so peaceful – a sight that, in turn, made me feel peaceful as well.
Who would have known that being around him when he was asleep could be such a pleasant experience?
"You gonna stand there all night?"
I jerked backwards, hiding almost my entire body behind the wall as the sound of Ash's voice broke through the silence.
How long had I been standing there? I didn't even know. Watching him was such an event – such an all-consuming event that I didn't have the headspace to think about time while I did it. I didn't have the headspace to think about just how creepy it may have looked to anyone watching me. Especially if that person was Ash.
Regardless of how long I had been standing there though, one thing was for sure; it was way too long for me to pass off as anything other than downright admiration. And if he had been awake the whole time, then he must've already gathered as much. After all, I never had been very good at keeping a blank expression. My eyes gave away my every thought before my brain had time to even fully process them.
Ash's eyes were now fully open, locked on me as I slowly stepped back out from behind the wall. He had a stoic look on his face – it wasn't a particularly intimidating look, it was more closed. Like he had a lot of thoughts whizzing through his mind but wasn't about to open the door to share them with the outside world. The look he was giving me was one unlike those I was used to. There was no amusement, no dismissal, no indifference – nothing.
I didn't know what to do with such a look. It made me exponentially more nervous as the seconds passed, and I didn't want to be receiving it for much longer.
"I just came to let you know that you can come back to the room," I said, averting my gaze to the ground. I zeroed in on a crack in the hardwood floor, sweeping from tip to tip with my eyes and not daring to look back up. It was too nerve-wracking to meet his stare. "You don't have to sleep out here, I mean," I elaborated. "I'm fine with living together."
"You're fine with living together?" he repeated.
I nodded, but in the darkness of the night, I wasn't sure he saw it.
There was a pause before he spoke again. "What changed?"
"I...I don't know." I shrugged, fidgeting with the ends of my shirt sleeves. "Nothing really, I guess. It just isn't as big of a deal as I made it out to be before...definitely not worth you having to go through all of this. And you're dating Riley now anyway, so there isn't really any reason I should care."
"What does Riley have to do with any of this?" Ash asked, making my head snap up as I realized my mistake.
Bringing Riley in basically told him that, had she not been a part of his life, this roommate situation would have been an even bigger deal than I had already made it into. I had basically just admitted to harboring my hidden feelings for him. Feelings that anyone with half a brain would have been able to pick up on just from watching the nervousness claw its way up my throat whenever I had to interact with him. But for Ash to act like he didn't even understand why I felt that way...that either meant he was a master manipulator, or that he really just didn't remember our encounter at all. That he just didn't remember me.
And either way, it was a shitty feeling – one that I didn't need to reminisce over. Especially not while Ash was being all strange and closed off.
"Nothing," I muttered, looking back down at my feet. "I just – I've said what I came to say. Do what you want, I guess."
I turned and left the living room, speed walking back to the bedroom and not letting out my breath until the door was closed behind me.
I got in bed and tried to will myself asleep, but I couldn't quiet my hyperactive mind.
Was that really it? Ash just didn't remember me or what had happened between us? All the times I had talked about or tried to interact with him for the past three years – all the looks we'd shared – it was just wishful thinking? Just me being hopeful about a hopeless situation?
I didn't want to accept that. I wouldn't accept that.
Ash had brought me out of one of the darkest times of my life three years ago. It could have all ended for me at that lake, but it didn't – because of him. He had done a bigger good than he'd ever know, and there was no way I would accept that I had imagined everything I'd felt that day.
There was no way that he hadn't felt something too. I refused to believe it. I couldn't, because I wasn't far enough away from that dark place yet, and if I let myself believe something like that, then I knew it wouldn't be soon before I fell right back down.