Maybe Once, Maybe Twice(82)

Asher exhaled with his entire body. He looked back down at his hands as they twirled the orange pill bottle against the counter. They were likely the same pills he took when we were teenagers. I was relieved he was still taking them—I was relieved he was getting help for the pain that life put on his shoulders—pain that he shouldn’t have to fight by himself.

“It’s easier this way, Mags,” he whispered.

“That didn’t really answer my question,” I said. “Ash—if I’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that hiding all your pain…well that just causes more pain.”

I swallowed a past punching at my throat, and he met my eyes, seeing it.

“I don’t keep him a secret for me,” Asher said.

His eyes seemed to swallow a new kind of sadness. I walked over to him, gripping my hand in his until his brown eyes met mine.

“My parents didn’t want to relive it. They didn’t want every interview I gave to be about their greatest loss. You know my mom, she’s…” He drifted off. “When my career took off, they asked me not to offer it up.”

Asher’s parents were cold people. I couldn’t judge them. They had lost a child in the worst way. But Asher needed warm arms that would hold him tight. At camp, Asher told me that I came along at just the right time. That feeling was mutual. He said I taught him how to let someone love him, which broke my heart. I knew how to love before I met him, he just became the first thing in my life worthy of loving.

“Do you want to talk about him?” I asked.

“To pretend he never existed—to pretend that the person who made the biggest impact on my life never lived—it fucking kills me, Mags,” he said, letting tears envelop his eyes. “But…sometimes I don’t know where to start.”

I gripped his hand harder.

“If you want to, you should tell his story, Asher. You loved him—I don’t want you to be afraid to tell people how much you loved your brother.”

“It would—it would kill my mom.”

I studied the pain written all over his face.

“I think it’s killing you.”

He swallowed hard and rested his hand against my cheek. He took my other hand up to his mouth and kissed it.

“Thank you.”

“What for?” I asked.

“I—I haven’t dealt with my own stuff in a while. And being around you, it reminds me of the first time I cared enough to try. So, thank you.”

“Thank you,” I said, my eyes locked on his.

“For what?” he asked with a grin.

“Everything.”

He hesitated for a moment, then scanned my eyes.

“Mags, do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?” I asked brightly.

“I feel like…maybe something happened the last few years. You’ve hinted at it, but…”

My throat grew hot and tight, and I felt my chest swirl. His eyes widened upon my expression, and he bent down, his warm face right in front of mine.

“Not yet,” was all I could manage.

He pulled me tight to his body, kissing my forehead hard, as if shielding me from a bullet. I hugged him back, trying to hold all his pain.

He had the kind of pain I couldn’t hold.

And the bullet was already inside me, sitting in my gut.





41

THIRTY-FIVE




A HANDFUL OF WEEKS LATER, I rolled over at the sound of my phone ringing, edging my arm delicately past the gorgeous man quietly snoring in my bed—well, his bed.

“Who is it?” Asher grumbled, a pillow covering his face, half asleep.

“I got it,” I said as I reached for my phone.

I squinted my eyes, seeing that Summer was calling me at five thirty in the morning, which was something I usually did to her.

“Hello,” I said, my voice hushed as I tiptoed out of the dark bedroom.

“I told her,” Summer said, her voice trembling.

I froze and leaned on the kitchen island, my eyes blinking back the sun rising atop the brownstones in the distance.

“You told Valeria you don’t want kids?” I asked softly.

“Late last night. And—and she told me…” Summer paused with a thickness in her voice, as if she was being strangled by her own emotions. “She told me it was nonnegotiable.” Her words were barely audible amid the tears.

I felt my heart thumping against my chest as my spine grew upright, as if the child had become the adult. It was a strange feeling, a role reversal.

I once read an article about relationships. It stated that some of the best partnerships existed because someone was the rock, and someone was the kite. In my love life, I preferred two kites. But as far as friendships went, Summer and I were a rock and a kite. Summer was my rock: my rational backbone, a logical thinker, the person I could untangle all my warring questions with without her crumbling under my chaotic spiral. I was Summer’s kite: full of wanderlust and consumed by matters of the heart, floating through the clouds, swayed by my surroundings, allowing emotions to tug me toward another corner of the universe without a stable force below. I was the place Summer went to lighten her load, to dream a little, to chase the stars among the harsh light of day.

Suddenly, the rock was calling the kite for advice.