Heat - 18. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

We are at the dam now. I’m sitting on The Cliff alone. Asher is nearby, retching into the river but it seems like he’s just about gone dry now. My face is streaked with angry tears. I’m mad at them, of course, for everything they put him through but I’m mad at myself too. I should be stronger, I should be able to be there for him right now. Instead I am here wallowing in my own emotions. Thinking about how his awful, agonizing story affected me instead of over there helping him through the telling. Pathetic.

Eventually he collects himself on his own, comes back to me and sits down. We’re quiet for a moment, unsure what to say.“...I’m sorry.” he looks down at the ground.

I turn to him, shocked. “What do you mean you are sorry? None of that was your fault.”

“Well that’s not true but what I was apologizing for was telling you the story in the first place. I can see how much it hurt you to hear.” Oh Asher.

“No! No no no. First of all, nothing you just told me was your fault. None of it. Second, do not feel bad about telling me about your life. It hurt to hear. Of course it fucking did. It’s some awful, messed up shit that happened to you. But it’s your life and it’s real so I want to hear it. I’m sorry I don’t know how to be there for you better than I am.” I put my arms around him and he just melts into me, no hesitation at all.

Still, I can see he doesn’t believe me, not really. It frustrates me that I can’t figure out how to convince him that everything isn’t his fault. Nonetheless, he gives me a weak smile.“Hey, you are doing just fine comforting me.” He wraps his arms around me, holds me tightly. I’m surprised by just how cool he is despite everything. “See. Comfort.”

I rub my palms against my eyes to fight the tears threatening to spill out all over again and then I turn and kiss him, gratefully. Kissing him feels like locking in the last piece of a puzzle. The weird thing is, I didn’t even know I was missing that piece before.
We sit and watch the water for a long while. It isn’t until Asher nods off next to me that I realize just how late it really is. I shake him. “Time to head home, Ash. You can sleep at my place tonight.”

I’m dead on my feet when we make it to my house, and Asher fell asleep during the drive. I unload and step around to his side of the car to scoop him. He’s a lot lighter than he looks. Inside I lay him down on the couch and then remember the blanket is currently in the sink. I chuckle to myself and step, briefly, into my father’s old room to snatch the blanket off his bed. Being in here makes the hair on my arms stand up like the chill spring air from outside is seeping into the room and running fingertips up my spine. I’m too tired to dig the backup blankets out of storage though, so I just grab my father’s old quilt comforter and drape it over Asher. He’s a heavy sleeper, I guess. I don’t know why knowing that makes me so happy, but it does.

…

I am sitting in the back seat of my car. Dad is driving, like always. He is smiling. I haven’t seen him smile like this in years. His hand, fingers interlaced with my mother’s, rests on the center console. His nails are jagged and dirty from his construction job, they contrast my mother’s perfect robin’s egg blue manicure. My mom’s box braids are wrapped in a tight bun on top of her head and she’s wearing a long summer sundress. It strikes me as odd - outside the window there is snow on the ground but her brown skin glows as if the June sun shines only on her. My sister sits next to me, eyes on her phone as always. I open my mouth to speak but I can only seem to form the words “where are we going?”

Except it’s not my voice, my lips form the words but the actual sound comes from the radio. My dad turns around. “We’re going to a party.” Someone else speaking the words, tinny in the car speakers. A man’s voice, it sounds familiar but I don’t know how or why. There is music playing underneath his words that sounds like it’s building to something. My mother joins too now, without missing a beat. “It, it’s a birthday party. Happy birthday darling.” Now it sounds almost, but not quite, like singing and the music keeps building up and up and up. Together they/he says “We love you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much.” and I know what is coming now.

We hit a bump or black ice or maybe my father just isn’t paying enough attention, he’s too happy to see my mom looking as young as she does in every photo in my empty home and suddenly we are flying. Everything is slow motion. I can see shattered glass drifting through the air, watch as the front end crunches into a telephone pole or a tree or a brick wall. My father’s face hits the dash, there is a sickening sound as his skull cracks or his neck snaps. My sister, not wearing her seatbelt as usual flies out the front window and I watch her hit the ground and roll and roll and roll leaving a streak of blood for half a mile until she collapses in a heap of wasted flesh and shattered bone. Only fifteen years old.

The car flips and I am dangling by my seatbelt. I unsnap the lock, fall to the ground and look up, unable to stop myself even as I know exactly what I will see. My mother is in bed, she is wasting away, she is sobbing into my father’s shoulder, she is comforting me after they sat me down to tell me she wasn’t going to make it. Finally she is crushed, pinned by the crumpled dashboard and hanging upside down above my head with glassy casket eyes. The seat belt saved me. I am uninjured, unharmed, alive. Always fucking alive.

When my eyes open Asher is sitting next to me on my bed. It’s early, the sun is just rising outside my bedroom window. He kisses me on the forehead and then whispers “Do you always have nightmares?”

I feel the urge to whisper too - unwilling to speak too loud, give the truth too much power. “Not always. Most of the time though.”

He lays down next to me in bed, curls his body around mine. Softly into my ear he says “Me too.”

We fall back to sleep in each other’s arms and for the rest of that night I have no more dreams.