Heat - 6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When I come to, Asher is standing above me and I am laying on the asphalt staring at his running shoes with a cigarette butt stuck to my cheek. It’s disgusting. I spring up to a sitting position, swatting at my face like there are baby spiders in my nose. The butt flicks away and I shiver internally thinking about where it may have been. Then I look up at Asher. He is looking, infuriatingly, amused at my predicament but holds out a hand to help me up. I start to take it and am suddenly reminded of what exactly had just happened with that hand and elect to get up on my own instead. Asher looks at his own hand and then, sheepishly, returns it to his side.

“So… are you gonna say anything?” He asks and doesn’t meet my eyes.

I am silent for a moment, reeling inside as I go over the events of the past few moments. My mind is doing that thing it does when it comes across something it can’t process, which is to say telling me that what I am seeing is not real. “I don’t think I can handle this.” I finally say.

“Oh. I… ok. What now then?” Asher looks confused, like this isn’t what he expected.

“I don’t fucking know. I was unconscious thirty seconds ago and you want me to be the one making the decisions? Jesus Christ I’m no better than a Victorian lady, somebody get me a goddamn fainting couch.” I twist up my face “Hey why the hell did I wake up on the ground anyway?”

“Well, I was worried you were gonna choke on your tongue. People can do that you know. I think.” He shrugs.

“Oh my god I’m going home.” I start to climb back in my car, but my legs don’t work right and I stumble a little, nearly falling face first into the cigarette butt again before I catch myself on the door handle.

“Hey maybe you shouldn’t drive? Y’know, ‘cause of the unconscious thing? Maybe you have a concussion.” He rushes over as if to put an arm around me to hold me up but I flinch and he backs off, looking hurt.

“I’ll be fine.” I crawl into the seat and slam the door.

He taps on the glass and with a sigh that reads as dramatic, even to me, I roll it down. “Maybe I should come with you and keep an eye on you in case you pass out again and get in a car crash or something.”

“Asher, no. Back away from the car.”

“But-”

“NO!” I shout and shift violently into reverse, pulling away without waiting to see if he is a safe distance or not. I swing wildly out and around the lot and just before I roll the window up again I hear him shout my name.

I make it five blocks before I have to pull over because I can no longer see through the tears. I don’t understand what is happening to my life. A few months ago I had a close-enough-to-normal life. I had a dad who maybe didn’t try hard enough sometimes but who tried at least. I had a sister who was so much cooler than me in every way. I had friends who talked to me without looking at me like I am a puppy drowned in a storm drain. Moreover, I had friends who didn’t suddenly burst into flames. Now all I have is a bunch of money I can’t touch, my mom’s old camry, and a crush that is almost certainly gonna kill me.

Eventually I pull myself together enough to drive the handful of blocks left between my house and the market. Asher is already there, standing in the driveway waiting for me. He is glistening with sweat and breathing hard, it’s obvious he ran here full speed and just made it back before me.

He’s talking before I even get the car door all the way opened. “Thank gosh I was so worried when your car wasn’t here what took you so long I thought you died-”

“Asher. Shut up and open the front door.” I throw him my keys and then go back to get my groceries before I remember that all I bought was a box of chocolate chip waffles. I feel like an idiot when he holds the door open for me and my single box of waffles but I go inside anyway and toss them on the kitchen table.

Asher gently places the keys into the little bowl on the table next to the entrance, a nicety that I never bother with myself, and quietly closes the door behind him. “I’m sorry for following you. I know you wanted privacy. I was just so worried you were gonna get hurt or something on the way home and I wanted you to be ok.”

Why does he make it so hard to be angry at him? I am the type of person that holds grudges - for weeks, months, sometimes years. I am still mad at Michael S, a kid from elementary school who spilled pop on my DS and got the buttons all sticky so that they would never go in and out the right way again. I don’t even have that game system anymore and I am still mad at him. But Asher, who has set my skin on fire, knocked me out, and burned my third favorite shirt all in the span of like, two weeks - I just can’t stay mad at him.

“Go take a shower. You fucking stink and if you’re gonna be staying for dinner I don’t want to deal with your BO. We’ll talk after.” I point to the downstairs bathroom then think better of it - that was dad’s bathroom - and instead direct him up the stairs to the bathroom that my sister and I shared. “You can borrow some of my clothes. Just take whatever from the hamper in the hall, it’s all clean. I haven’t gotten around to folding them yet.” By yet I of course mean even once since the funeral but I don’t have the energy to address yet another personal failing and honestly, I never folded anything before anyway. The only difference now is that it lives in the hall instead of my closet.

He nods and opens his mouth as if to say something in reply but I hold up my finger and shake my head and he sighs and walks up the stairs. Halfway up he turns around and takes a breath but I waggle the finger intimidatingly and he slinks the rest of the way up the flight.

After I hear the shower turn on I open the fridge. Half a casserole (my least favorite kind, macaroni, spinach, broccoli, and a watered down sludge pretending to be cheese), a wilted head of lettuce and a quarter of a gallon of milk. Right. I went to get groceries for a reason. I stick the casserole in the microwave for five minutes and hope that will nuke out the fridge taste, then make something that vaguely resembles a salad from the lettuce and the crushed bits at the bottom of a bag of croutons. It isn’t exactly a one star restaurant or anything but it’s edible.

Eventually Asher comes down wearing a pair of my sweatpants and no shirt with a towel slung over his shoulders to catch the water flattening his curly brown hair. My stomach clenches and I bite the inside of my cheek before averting my eyes. The sweatpants ride low and I can tell he chose not to borrow a pair of my underwear (which is a good thing because eww but also I feel like I’m gonna die looking at him) “You mind putting on a shirt? We’re about to eat.”

“Oh! Sorry. There wasn’t one in the hamper. It’s why I came down. To get a shirt.” Out of the corner of my eye I can see he is giving me a lopsided smile like it is perfectly normal to be walking around the house of an almost-stranger half naked.

“Fine, just get one from my closet. I keep all the stuff I don’t wear in there anyway.”

He laughs and when he does the muscles in his stomach flex in an incredibly distracting way. “Isn’t that the opposite of how you’re supposed to use a closet?”

Why is he still standing there? I have to make him leave. “You’re dripping on the carpet and the food is getting cold, go get dressed.” He isn’t really dripping on the carpet. He just needs to not be here, in this room, looking like that before I have yet another breakdown today.

“Oh right! Sorry. I’ll be right back.” He goes back up the stairs and I can’t help myself, I watch him go.