I CAN’T REST.
The nurse has to sedate me so I’ll close my eyes and sleep for the duration of the night.
The following day, the nurse and Reina help me wash up. The face I see in the mirror is too disfigured to be considered human. Purple and green bruises are scattered all over my skin; it’s even worse than the previous time.
As I stare at it, I break down and cry. I hold on to the sink and let go of all the emotions I’ve been numbing for long years.
I cry for the little girl who had to run from one city to another, for the teenager who coveted someone she thought didn’t belong to her, and for the woman who lost him all over again.
Asher and I always miss each other. Like parallel lines, it’s almost as if we were never meant to cross paths. Whenever we do, a disaster occurs and we have to go back to that parallel existence, that helpless attempt to keep the order, and as a result, we become miserable.
At this point, I’m starting to think we’re cursed. Maybe Arianna did some black magic before her death and made sure we’d never reunite.
The nurse pats my back, telling me none of my injuries will scar, that in a few weeks, it’ll go back to the way it was.
She thinks I’m crying because of that, and it makes me cry harder. I don’t stop until Reina comes inside and helps to wheel me back to bed.
It’s then I notice the men in black standing in front of the door. In the beginning, I thought it was my security, but I don’t spot Gaige and the others amongst them.
That’s when I realize they must be Reina’s people. She really does lead a different type of life.
“Are you better?” She takes the glass away after I swallow the pain pill the nurse gave me.
I shake my head as I close my eyes. I’ll never be better until he’s better.
It’s crazy, but over time, Asher’s wellbeing has begun to feel like my own.
Why don’t they make a pain pill for the heart?
A shadow sleeps on the chair beside me, which means Reina is staying the night again. She’s barely left my side for the past two days. She only stepped out when Lucy, Naomi, Sebastian, Owen, and the cheerleading squad members visited.
Even they didn’t know Asher’s fate. The only information available is that Alexander hasn’t left his side. I’ve tried to call him, but his phone is always turned off.
Sitting up, I try to reach for the bottle and stop.
The body sitting on the chair isn’t Reina’s. She’s not so broad and tall and…oh my God.
“Are you awake?” The tenor of his voice, that familiar deep tone makes me jolt.
“Asher?”
Please tell me this isn’t a dream. It’d be the cruelest one yet.
Strong hands wrap around mine, and a sob catches in my throat.
It’s Asher. Definitely Asher.
The way my skin bursts to life and how my body is attuned to his can’t be mistaken.
Only he would elicit this reaction. It’s not a dream or a hallucination; it’s reality.
“I’m here, prom queen. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“It’s really you.” My voice is haunted by the force of my emotions. “What happened? Are they letting you go?”
“Alexander managed to have them rule it as self-defense. Rai’s testimony helped.”
“Thank God. I thought you…you’d be locked up.”
“And leave you up for grabs? Not going to happen, prom queen.” Under the soft light coming from the window behind me, he appears exhausted, his face worn out. He must’ve not slept for days, but he still came here the moment he was released. That warms my heart and allows little butterflies to explode in my stomach.
“Are you okay?” I can’t help asking.
“I’m fine, but are you?” He stares at me, and even in the dark, I feel his gaze swallowing me whole. Being in the center of Asher’s attention is like that, overwhelming and uncut.
He reaches a hand to my face but stops midway, clenching it into a fist and letting it drop to his lap. “I should’ve killed that fucker slower.”
It should scare me that he’s thinking about murder and ending lives, but I hated Ivan too much to care. Besides, Asher always had this side to him, ever since high school, the side that needs to hurt and maim, the side that was once unleashed on me.
But he stopped himself; he always stopped himself when it came to me. A part of him might have wanted to kill me because of the grudge Arianna left between us, but the other part couldn’t stop wanting to be close to me.
“Reina or Rai or whoever you want to be.” His hold on my hand tightens as he straightens and lowers his voice. “I fucked up. I know I did and it was bad. I can lie to you and say I never wanted to hurt you, but that would be a lie and I promised myself I’d never lie to you again. So here’s the uncensored version, prom queen. I wanted to hurt you. I thought if I hurt you, if I erased you from this world, then it would stop the fucking urge that’s been gripping me for three years. But the closer I got to my goal, the emptier it felt. It was even more fucking pathetic than in high school when I was beating people up for talking to you. When I watched you hanging from the roof that day, I wanted to keep you, and since then, with everything I did, you stood back up, and that made me want to have you more.
“That’s what I want to do with you all the time, Reina. I want to dominate you, hurt you, but only so I can hear you scream in pleasure. I want to keep you, to have you, to play games with you, not against you. If you want nothing to do with me, it’d be the smarter choice. No one would blame you.”
I stare at him after he finishes talking. His words hit a deep place inside me that’s been yearning for something like that, for something true and raw from him.
He’s still a psycho in some ways and I can’t completely forgive what he did to me, how he tormented me, but I can see why he was compelled to do it. I can also see how he stopped every time.
I can also see the boy I used to sit with because his presence tuned down the chaos from the outside world. He made it safe and pleasant and then I had to screw him over and act cold because I was scared of him, of what he was offering, of what I’ve been feeling.
Yes, I could make him grovel for what he did, I could delay this and hold on and make him fall to his knees. But when Ivan was beating me up, I had an epiphany: life is too short to delay things. You never know what will happen tomorrow, so the present is all you get to make a difference.
Besides, he can grovel while he’s glued to my side.
“Just so you know,” he says when I remain silent, “if you do want to stay away, I can’t promise I will. I’ll keep trying until you’ll have me again.”
“What if I don’t?” I keep my voice nonchalant.
“I’ll keep trying until you take me.”
“I love you, Ash. I always have.” The words slip out of me so easily, it’s baffling that I never said them out loud before.
He pauses, his breathing turning harsh, almost animalistic. “Always?”
“Always.”
“Even when you were cold and standoffish?”
I laugh. “Especially when I was cold and standoffish. It was a façade, Ash. The deeper my feelings ran for you, the harder I tried to kill them.”
He’s quiet for a second as if mulling my words over. When he speaks, my heart stops beating. “I love you, too, Reina. You’re my first and last.”
“You’re my first and last too.” I retrieve the ring Reina gave me. “Now, give me a decent proposal, because I don’t remember the last one.”
