When Ash came out of the bathroom, I was still sitting on the bed, phone in hand, trying to process the conversation I had just had. As the door began to open, I readied myself to pounce immediately and demand some answers from him. I wanted to know why I hadn't been informed about the breakup, and what exactly said breakup meant for us. I was prepared to ask all the questions I needed to, but when he actually opened the door though, it was a different story.
He walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a pair of black sweatpants, and my eyes immediately zeroed in on his body. The sight of which – even with all of its wounds and bruises – left my skin hot and my mouth dry. He seemed more comfortable now since I had already seen what his new, bruised up body looked like. It wasn't necessary for him to hide it anymore.
As he laid his eyes on me, everything I had prepared to say to him disappeared from my mind. How could I think up a lecture while looking at such a wonder? This man was literally so beautiful. A marvel to just watch exist.
He was rubbing some kind of cream gently over the scar on his chest as his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth tilted upwards into a curious smile. "Is everything okay?" he asked, confusion tucked into the lines on his forehead.
I looked up and met his gaze, and once he saw the look in my eyes, the cheeky look in his own subsided. It was instead replaced with worry. "Keira," he said, watching me hesitantly, like he was afraid I would scream if he made any sudden movements. "Keira, what's going on?"
Placing my phone down on the mattress beside me, I took a breath, not at all sure how this was going to go down. Maybe there was a reason he didn't tell me about the breakup... What if bringing this up upset him? That definitely wasn't something I wanted to do, but I needed answers. I needed at least to know where all of this left me before I really drove myself crazy.
"I just talked to Riley," I began, waiting a second to see if he could tell where this was going. He could. "She told me that the two of you ended things...over a week ago."
Ash's eyes that had been full of worry relaxed as he let out a long breath and nodded, twisting the thumb of his right hand into the palm of his left. I could tell that there was a lot bubbling underneath his surface, but he seemed too unsure to say much of it. I still couldn't gauge how he was feeling. He hid his emotions so impeccably while I, in contrast, could do little more than sit there with 'I'm stunned' written all over my face.
"Yeah, we did," he said.
I waited for him to continue and elaborate on why exactly I hadn't been informed about any of it. With a frown and an are-you-going-to-finish look, I cocked my head to the side expectantly.
He sighed. "Keira...what do you want me to say?"
"What kind of – what do you mean what do I want you to say?" I demanded. "I want some answers! You let me think and talk like you were still together for over a week, Ash! Why didn't you just say something to me? I don't understand..."
Ash averted his gaze down to his hands and nodded. "Mind if I sit next to you?" he asked.
The gentleness of his voice immediately sobered me up. I wasn't sure why I'd expected him to be angry – this wasn't that Ash. I nodded, scooting over on the bed. "Uh – yeah," I mumbled.
He gave me a careful smile before walking over to the bed and sitting beside me. I watched him wrap his hands around each other as he stared at the ground right in front of him. His hair was still wet and I could see the little droplets of water running down the side of his face. I followed their path as they rolled down past his jaw and then onto his neck, only stopping once they got caught in his collarbones.
He took a breath. "Keira," he said, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I really am...I was going to do it today, up on the mountain, but you didn't want to hear it and I didn't want to force it."
I remembered that. He had started talking and I'd stopped him. Was this what he'd been trying to tell me? I felt my gut pinch at itself at the thought of how differently the rest of that hike could have gone had I let him finish. Where we might have been at this very moment.
"Sorry," I said quietly, not sure how else to respond.
Ash shook his head. "Don't be," he said. "I can understand why you were upset. What I said wasn't fair at all – especially since I hadn't explained the situation to you. I wasn't thinking about that and it was selfish of me."
"Well...why did you wait so long?" I asked him. "To try and tell me, I mean. It's been a week, Ash."
He shrugged. "I honestly don't know... I think I just didn't want you to feel like I was trying to mess with your emotions and use you as a rebound or something." A rebound? He hadn't made a single move on me though. "I know how you feel about me, Keira," he continued. "And I would never want you to think that anything I've said or done with you was just to fuck around or play with your mind."
I was so confused. What was he trying to tell me? That he had feelings for me too? That he wanted something real? Why couldn't he just say it explicitly so I knew?
"So are you telling me..." I pursed my lips together, trying to gauge from his facial expression whether or not I should finish my question. I figured that at this point though, whatever I didn't ask would forever remain in the dark, and this was something I needed to know. "Are you telling me that you broke up with Riley...because of me?" I asked, pausing. "For me?"
Ash's eyes snapped up to mine and he didn't have to speak for me to know that the answer to my question was a yes. He had done all of this for me, I just still couldn't understand why.
"I've been meaning to break up with her for a while now, actually. Dating her was a mistake, but being here in Hawaii with you, I couldn't bear to do this to myself anymore. It was driving me crazy. I had always had a feeling you were into me, but I usually just chalked that up to my mind creating things that weren't really there. I thought I was only seeing it as a way to justify the feelings I had for you," he said.
The what??
"Ash..."
He shook his head. "No, it had to be done. Even drunk, you weren't willing to do anything to betray Riley and I didn't want to put you in an uncomfortable situation. I figured keeping my distance was the best option. I thought that it would make things easier, but then the whole thing happened with Brian – whatever that was – and I couldn't do it anymore. I was literally going crazy thinking about his hands on you...him kissing you...and in the same house I was in. I knew that staying away from you wasn't an option anymore at that point, but I still didn't want to do anything to make you feel like you were hurting your friend, and so–"
"And so you left," I finished.
With a nod, he sighed. "Yeah," he said. "I'm not sure it made much sense, but I needed to clear my head – figure things out. Sometime over that week, I broke up with her, and I knew it was the right decision because I felt much better coming back. Like I was in control of my life again. Like I could pursue what I wanted. And what I want is a relationship with you, Keira. I've been trying to get to know you."
I noticed that he didn't mention any of the fighting or the bruises on his body, but I decided to let it rest at the moment. I had bigger questions I needed answered right then.
Dropping my eyes to my lap, I took in a slow breath and tried to smooth the frown from my face. "Ash," I began. "Why did you even date Riley in the first place? If you really liked me like you say you did, then why would you date my best friend? Do you know how hard that was to live through? How painful it was for me?" I demanded. The words had begun to flow from my lips like flooding water and I couldn't stop them anymore. I was angry, I was confused, and I was vulnerable. I could see my vision beginning to blur up as I spoke, and I hated that I couldn't hold back my tears. I must've looked so weak – so breakable. I didn't want Ash to think that he could ever break me.
As I blinked away the tears, a few fell onto my leg, warm and wet. My voice was beginning to crack. "You two flaunted your relationship right in front of my face! How was that supposed to show me that you cared about me? That I hadn't spent the past three years chasing after something I could never have!"
I wasn't looking at him, but I could hear Ash breathing heavily beside me. He was frustrated too, I just couldn't tell what at. "Keira, I did it to get close to you," he said. "I did everything to get close to you. I felt you slipping away from me and I didn't know what else to do."
"So you thought that wifing up my best friend was the best option?" I demanded, my voice just a little under a yell now. I was livid. I thought he would at least have had the decency to have a good reason for all this after admitting he had feelings for me! This was just disrespectful! It was like he was actively trying to embarrass me. "You wanted to get close to me through my best friend's fucking heart? What kind of bullshit reason is that, Ash? I don't–"
"I wasn't trying to date her!" he cried. "I wanted to be her friend, Keira!"
"Then why didn't you just fucking do that?" I exclaimed.
"Because!" By now we were both glaring at each other and it broke my heart to think that this conversation may have been destined for failure. Were we really only going to get this far? Ash's shoulders drooped and his eyes filled with a deep sadness, one that sobered me up and made me worry that maybe I had pushed him too far. "Because," he repeated, his voice softer than I'd ever heard it before and it broke my heart into two. "I have bipolar disorder, Keira."
He watched me as the words registered my brain, his face making it clear that he was expecting me to run off. I could tell he hadn't anticipated sharing that area of his life with me today, but I had forced it out of him. I had forced it out of him and I felt like an absolute piece of shit. I wasn't sure what it had to do with Riley, but I knew for sure that the reason must've been good.
I maintained eye contact with him, but I didn't say anything. I wasn't sure what to say at this point, but I still wanted him to know that disorder or not, he wouldn't get me to leave unless that was what he wanted.
"We had been talking and hanging out for a while," he began, "and I knew that she was kind of into me, but I figured that was better as far as her trying to keep me close. I wasn't trying to get into anything with her though. I was focused on you, Keira." He reached out his hand as he said my name – like he was trying to hold my own, but he quickly pulled it back to his body and took a deep and shaky breath. "And then I found out her mother was a doctor." He dropped his gaze, and I could tell he wasn't proud of what was to come next, but he was still going to tell me. "I know that it was such a dick move on my part," he said, "but I needed the medicine and I don't have any healthcare...so I told her about my disorder."
The breath caught in my throat as I realized where this was going. I didn't want to say anything until he confirmed it for me though.
"Her mother has been giving me medicine under the counter. That's the only way I could have access to it."
"Ash...isn't...isn't that illegal?" I asked.
He paused for a moment, before nodding slowly – still not looking up at me though. He was ashamed, and he didn't even bother trying to hide it. "I put her family in such a vulnerable position, Keira, and I can't ever undo that. When we were ending things, our conversation lasted for like five hours because I wanted her to be sure that I wasn't going to put her mother's career in danger. Throughout our whole relationship, that had always been on my mind and I never knew how I could end things and not worry them. I won't deny that a part of me also didn't want to end things between us even though I was unhappy." Now he looked up at me, his furrowed brows quivering in a way that made me believe he was holding back tears, even if I couldn't see them. "I just need that medicine, Keira. It keeps me stable and allows me to be the person that I need to be for my little sister. I can't go back to the way things were beforehand. If that happened, she'd be better off on her own."
I was trying to think of the best way to respond to Ash without making him think I was pitying him while also being helpful. I would never have guessed it was all so serious. I knew that he had mood swings because I'd seen them myself in just the three weeks we'd been in Hawaii, but never in a million years would I have guessed he was bipolar. I had heard a lot about bipolar disorder, even if I'd never met anyone with it. I heard about their high adrenaline 'manic' phases where everything was great and over the top and they were usually obsessed with making sure everyone around them was happy. The perfect life. But then soon after, those phases were followed by phases of severe depression that often caused irreparable damage and had been known to take lives. Had that been Ash's reality? If that was the disorder that he had, then the medicine was doing more for him than he'd ever know because the Ash that I knew was logical, (somewhat) stable, funny, but most importantly, realistic. He couldn't go back. Not with a sister to take care of, and not with a life to take control over.
"Ash..." I had to lower my eyes from him as I spoke my next words. I knew that this was the ultimate form of self-sabotage, the way I was going to forever cement my unhappiness, but I had to do it. If I really cared about Ash as much as I liked to think I did, then I had to do this. And so I took a deep breath, but due to the tight feeling in my chest, I inhaled it as several small breaths that almost sounded like hyperventilation. "I think you should get back together with Riley," I choked out, now allowing the tears brimming in my eyes to spill freely. There was nothing left for me to try and prove. I was giving it all up. For him.
"Keira – what?" He sounded more offended than he did confused as he spoke, but I still couldn't look up and meet his gaze. "Even if I wanted to, I don't think she would ever take me back after all of this anyway," he said.
I nodded my head, letting out a deep exhale. "Yes she would," I told him, knowing with absolute certainty that that was about the only thing Riley knew she wanted at the current moment. Well – that and Mackenzie's head.
"Okay, well I don't want to," Ash said, articulating every word in the sentence and saying it with a finality that let me know there was to be no more argument on this topic.
I squeezed my eyes shut as more tears fell from them. Somehow the happiness from knowing that he wanted me this much was making me cry more than the sadness that the prospect of losing him caused. I was a mess.
"What about your medications?" I asked quietly. "You need those...if not for you, for Lily."
Lily was his little sister, and the namedropping for some reason made me feel closer to him. That must've been what it was when he did the same for Mickey. And I had chastised him for it.
"I have enough pills left for about seven or eight more months. Mrs. Park gave me two six month prescriptions' worth of meds so I'm good for a little while longer. I hope to find a way around it by then, but I just can't go back to that relationship. What's the point of being on my meds and having my shit together when I can't even have the one thing I want most?"
My eyes flickered up and caught his, the breath getting sucked out of my chest as I locked eyes with him. He was looking down at me with a mixture of pain, regret, and...no. I couldn't say what I thought the last emotion was, because if I even dared to think that word, my entire world would come crashing down. This would be it. He would be it, and I wasn't sure if either of us were ready for that.
Reaching over, Ash placed a hand on my cheek, and my entire face grew hot. I watched his hand the entire way towards me and forgot how to breathe when I realized he was trying to touch me. I was a very "keep my hands to myself" kind of person, and so I rarely ever touched people – even my friends. And it wasn't that I was uncomfortable with touch or being touched, it was that I had never known how to properly show someone the way I felt about them through touch. Being touched was an enjoyable thing for me though; being hugged, kissed, having someone play with my hair – I loved all of that. But after a few weeks of being friends with me, people usually caught on to my seeming aversion and steered clear of touching me at all. But now Ash, the one person whose touch I craved above all, had his hand on my cheek, caressing it gently as his thumb wiped away the line of tears that had flowed past it. He was holding up my face so that I couldn't look away from him again, and I just wanted to melt into his embrace.
That look in his eyes...
No, I still couldn't say it.
"Ash," I began, trying to figure out how best to word my question in a way that didn't display all the desperation I was feeling. "Why would – why do you even have feelings for me?" I asked. "And you're willing to give all of this up? Risk your health for me? Why would you–"
"Because, Keira," he said, cutting my sentence short and causing my entire body to freeze up as I realized he might have been talking about the very thing that has been on my mind for three years. "I remember," he said. "Everything about that day at the lake three years ago, I remember it all. I remember you, Keira. I've been crazy about you ever since."
"But – But...no, that doesn't make any–" I stopped, taking moment to think back to three years ago. Thinking back to how my hopes had been raised higher than I'd ever asked for them to be, only for me to be left alone in the end. It didn't make any sense! How could he have been crazy about me all these years yet ignored me and acted like nothing had ever happened? Why would he even do that? I thought he wasn't in the business of fucking with people's minds!
Bringing a hand up to where his was rested as he caressed my cheek, I wrapped my hand around his as far as it would go and intertwined our fingers from the outside. I pulled his hands down slowly and instead held it my lap with both of my hands clutching on tightly. I didn't want to let go. I smiled sadly at the sight of our entwined fingers when Ash's thumb began to gently rub the back of the back of my hand.
"I went back," I whispered, keeping my eyes on our hands. "Every day, for an entire week, Ash. You said to be back and I came back every day but you were never there. You never came back for me."
"Keira..." The tone of his voice made my head snap up. He sounded so pained, like that was the biggest regret of his life. But then again, who knows where we would have been by now if he'd just come back like he promised to? "I can't remember exactly where I was that week," he said, "but I know that I was getting my shit together, just like I'd promised you I would. You helped me see what an utter mess I was letting my life turn into and after that night I had to go and try to fix a lot of the shit in my life – so that I could be better...for you." He squeezed my hand gently and I felt the waterworks debating with my pride as to whether or not they should start up again. "And I did come back," he told me. "The next weekend, and the one after that, and the one after that. For six months, Keira. I came back to the lake every week for six months! I thought...I just thought that I'd see you at least once, but you were never there."
Wow. And I thought my week had been a long time.
I blinked away the tears in my eyes. "Fuck," I muttered. "I didn't go back there after that week...I couldn't. It was too emotional."
He sighed and I could feel his eyes on me as he spoke. "Yeah," he said. "I figured as much once I realized that you had some sort of feelings for me – which I promise wasn't until after I began to date Riley. But that was when I began to see you more often, even if just in passing, and I noticed things that made me wonder if maybe something was up. By the time I realized you felt something for me too, I was already in too deep with Riley."
"So you've known this entire time?" I asked, half-mortified, half-dissociated.
I heard Ash take in a deep breath and felt his hand twitch from inside my grip. "Only for like two or three months," he said. "But it was too hard to come to terms with after all this time had passed and so I tried to convince myself I was wrong. That I was reading too much into something that didn't actually exist since for the past three years, we hadn't spoken at all. When I saw you at school after that night at the lake, you wouldn't look at me and I thought that maybe you had wanted to act like it never happened – or that you didn't care at all that it had. And so I played along."
"You played along? Ash, there was no game! I was scared. When I didn't see you back there the first week after that night, I thought that maybe you'd forgotten about me. You've always been such a prize, Ash. Such a goddamn prize, and so out of my league. And back then especially, I felt so forgettable...I still do sometimes. Back during sophomore year, I wasn't ready to put myself out there like that and risk my feelings with you of all people. You've broken your fair share of hearts, you know. I thought that you not showing back up at the lake was your way of trying to let me know you weren't interested in me."
"Not interested in – how could...Keira, what?" Ash raised his hand up from my lap and I let the hands that were holding onto it drop. He lifted it up until it reached my chin, and then he tilted up my chin so that I was now looking him in the eyes. Looking him in his adamantly confused and frustratingly endearing eyes. "Keira, you're out of your mind if you think you're not a fucking catch," he said, stating it like fact rather than opinion. "How could I ever have forgotten you? Keira, you made me better. You made me better for me and my sister and you're the only one who could've done that." His voice sounded strained, like he was trying to keep the tsunami of emotion hiding behind his words at bay. "You're the only one who's ever listened to me like that, who's heard my problems and not pitied me or tried to act like they weren't as important as they felt to me. Keira, you're the only one who's ever cared. And I never forgot."
And as he spoke those words, I felt everything that had been formerly suppressed come to the surface. Both in him and in myself. Everything that had happened over the course of this trip was beginning to make sense. And even though I still had a lot of questions about him, the ones that had been eating at me the most were finally being answered. He was opening himself up to me in a way that I was sure he didn't do very often – if ever. And I'd seen it once before at the lake, so seeing it again was taking me back to that place with such vivid imagery.
I wanted to let him know that he wasn't alone. That I had felt the same way that night. Having him there with me, being able to talk and listen to him had helped pull me out of the darkest time in my life. A time when I had nothing left to lose but my life, and I wondered if even that was worth fighting for.
And even though Ash had made himself so vulnerable throughout this entire interaction, I couldn't bring myself to tell him about where I was right before that night. It was still too messy of a topic for me to add onto the already messy night we were in. I would have to tell him about it sometime, but at the moment, it was Ash's time to talk to me. He had a lot to say and a lot to explain, and I wanted to make sure he could get it all out.
"You inspired me, Keira," he said. "I saw what you were going through and how even though you were struggling, you thought about your brother. About how you had to be good for him because you were all he had. I realized what a pathetic excuse of a brother I was being. That despite whatever was going on in my life, it wasn't just about me, and you helped me see that in a way that I'm not sure anybody else could have. I knew that I had to be good too, and if not for myself, then I had to do it for Lily because I was all she had."
He was right. Despite what I was feeling, I'd known that Mickey needed me. And it was a strange, dissociative feeling, but it brought me all the way from there to where I was now. To where both myself and Mickey were.
"Keira, Lily is the only thing that has been able to keep me going for all these years, and the only reason the both of us are here is because of you."
And as I looked into his eyes, I saw a tear fall from his left eye and streak its way down his cheek. When it fell, I felt the droplet crash onto my own leg and I reached up feel my own face that, lo and behold, had tears streaming down it as well.
I smiled. This was a beautiful moment. It was the first time I'd ever seen him cry. He had looked like he wanted to cry so many times at the lake, but he never did. He wasn't grown enough to realize that sometimes crying could be a good thing. This Ash that I was with right now was different though – better.
"I could say the exact same thing of you," I told him. "And it was hard to think that you did so much for me and yet I couldn't even say 'hi' at school. So much wasted time..."
"Maybe it was necessary," Ash said. "I don't think I was ready to know you in the way I wanted to back then...I was a different guy. Not necessarily a good one. I've grown since then though."
I looked up at his cute and messy hair, wanting so badly to run my fingers through it, but unable to read the situation well enough to know if that was a good move. I clenched my fist as it rested in my lap. "Yeah," I said. "You have."
He chuckled. "That night was so strange," he mused. "There have been so many nights since then that I've wondered if it was all a dream. If none of it ever actually happened, but it was all too detailed. I remembered you too well and I don't think I could've created such a picture in only my head."
I nodded, laughing as the night played through my mind again. "It was," I agreed. "I still remember you trying to get me to go into the water with you, but I didn't want to get my clothes wet or get naked so instead, I just watched."
"You just watched," he repeated, his voice nostalgic and his eyes far off. There was a gentle smile resting on his lips and it made me want to just lean over and kiss them. It had been too long. Too long since I'd kissed someone and wanted it with all my heart, all my body, all my mind. Too long since I'd kissed someone and enjoyed it the way I deserved to. And his lips looked so soft...
"I think I was actually trying to jump into the lake so that I could hide my tears," he admitted with a sheepish smile. He brought his hand up to scratch the back of his neck and even with all my might, I couldn't make my grin any smaller.
"You were crying?" I asked.
"Almost. I can't remember what exactly it was I was thinking about though."
I laughed, turning my body to face him full on as I pulled my legs up and sat crisscrossed. "So what else do you remember about that night then?" I asked.
He glanced over at me momentarily before the smile on his mouth sobered up, but the one in his eyes remained, shining brightly like a lone star in a dark sky. "I remember when the sun was beginning to come up," he said. "And the sky was that faint shade of pink..."
My breath caught in my throat as I thought about what a sight it had been and remembered what had happened only minutes later. He turned his body so that he was facing me fully the same way I was him. If I was reading the situation right at all then I knew what was about to happen, and this time, I was ready. This time everything was the way it should have been. Nothing could ruin this moment.
"We both had to get back to real life," Ash continued. "And so as we were saying goodbye, I leaned in..."
Leaning in closer to me, Ash looked into my eyes. He was searching for something – maybe for a sign that he should stop before it was too late. There was no sign for me to give him though. I didn't want him to stop, more than anything else I just didn't want him to stop.
"I put my hands on your waist, like this..."
He curled his fingers around the ridges of my hips. One by one I felt them latch onto me and hold me tightly with a grip that said he was never going to let go. Like he was afraid to ever let go. And his eyes were shaking as he looked down at me. It had been so long since I'd been this close to him – so long since I'd been in his arms, and it felt like home.
I slowly ran my hands up his arms and felt my heartbeat speed up as he shivered beneath my touch. My hands trailed their way up his shoulders, his neck, until finally they were holding onto either side of his face, and I could finally feel my happiness within my reach. I was holding onto it.
I took in a small breath. "And then what?" I whispered.
His mouth opened slightly, and I watched as he let out a calm breath that made his chest dip. "And then what?" he asked, repeating my words with a smile.
And then...he brought his lips to mine.
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