Unexpected

The apparition lifts his head and looks straight at me, a frown tugging at his lips. I shudder. It’s too real this time. The man, who is now moving towards us, looks too good to be true. I bite my lip and train my gaze to my feet. My mind is a cruel mistress. Today she teases me. Tonight she’ll taunt me. And tomorrow, she’ll do it all over again.

Liam wraps his arm around me and rubs my shoulder. “Lainey? Are you okay”

All of this has been an adjustment for Liam. He thought coming to college, and living in the dorms, would pull me out of my funk. It didn’t. Asher has a part of me I can’t find again. In truth, I think he’s had it since we were kids. I just never realized that something was missing. Now that I do, there’s no going back to who I was before.

“Ellie?”

I bite my lip, tears filling my eyes. This is a new form of torture. I’ve never imagined Asher’s voice before, but it seems like my mind hasn’t forgotten. It’s so beautiful it hurts.

“I…” I shift out from underneath Liam’s hold. I can’t do this, break down in public again. I’m ruining Liam’s college experience. He’s too focused on me and making sure I’m alright to party or date or do anything besides go to class. It’s been nice, considering Maggie got that last-minute acceptance letter to Berkley, but sometimes I want to be alone. “I’ve got to go.”

I quicken my pace but stop in my tracks when I hear, “Ellie, wait!”

A cold hand touches my wrist and I shudder. Liam doesn’t call me Ellie. He doesn’t feel like this. My hallucinations don’t feel like this, so real. I turn towards the hand touching me and my head spins.

“Asher,” I whisper, not sure if I said the words aloud or in my head.

He smiles, those perfect lips lifting in the corners. I remember what they felt like against mine, the blaze that engulfed me from the inside out. That same fire spreads through my veins, starting at my wrist until it consumes every inch of me. I look at the amethyst eyes before me, in shock.

He’s here.

Asher is here.

I thought the day I’d see Asher again I’d be filled with emotions. If I love him, like I think I do, I should be throwing myself into his arms, crying tears of joy, running my hands over every inch of his body while kissing him into oblivion. I should have butterflies or fireworks or something resembling excitement.

I have crickets.

And the only thing I feel is fe

ar.

“Ellie,” he says hesitantly, “it’s me. Asher.”

“What…”

Asher is here, and he’s real, and he wants to talk. Why does he want to talk? He said enough the last time I saw him at the jail, and he put the nail in the coffin with that letter. I don’t think I can handle it if this is some weird I forgive you bullshit like alcoholics do when they’re in recovery.

“What do you want?”

“Can we talk?” He looks at Liam, anger, confusion, and disappointment spreading across his face. Believe me, no one was more surprised than I was at Liam’s one-eighty in behavior. He dropped the asshole act and became the friend he was before high school ruined us. “In private?”

I shake my head and pull my hand out of Asher’s grasp. I clutch my wrist to my chest, still feeling the burn under my skin from his touch.

Asher sighs, shoulders falling forward as his gaze meets the ground. A fraction of a second later, he looks me in the eye again. “I’m sorry. I pushed you away, but I didn't know what was going to happen to me. I didn’t know how long I’d be in there and it wasn’t fair for you to wait, because I knew you would. I knew that you wouldn’t move on if you didn’t one hundred percent believe that I didn’t love you, but I do. Oh god, I do. I thought about you every minute of every day. And if I’m too late, I understand. If all I get with you are those six weeks with you back in high school, then so be it. I wouldn’t trade them for the world because it wasn’t fake. None of it was fake to me, Ellie.”

It wasn't… he didn’t...Oh my God!

“Asher...I…”

“It’s okay.” Asher cuts me off. He takes my hand and brings my palm to his lips. Everything hits me at once, the butterflies, the uncontrollable need to touch him, and most importantly the unexpected feeling of being whole again. The heavy blanket that had wrapped itself around my soul lifts and I can take a full breath for the first time in months.

Asher’s mouth leaves my skin, but I can’t stop staring at my palm. I didn’t know there were so many neurons in such a tiny space. Each one is firing off, sending jolts of electricity up my arm. “I just needed you to know that I love you. I couldn’t live another day knowing you thought I used you.” He pauses and looks behind me. “Does he make you happy?”

I snap back to the moment with almost painful volition. I blink twice, trying to figure out how Asher could think I’ve moved on. You don’t just move on from how I feel. These kinds of emotions wrap around your soul. They either make you a better version of yourself or they break you. There’s no in-between. Until now, they've broken me. “Who?”

“Liam.” Asher tilts his chin up. “Does he make you happy?”

The thought of Liam and I together is comical. The things I felt for him senior year pales in comparison to how I feel for Asher. I think I clung to Liam because he was my first everything. What he and I had wasn’t love, it was lust dipped in unrealistic expectations and an unwillingness to let go. Asher opened my eyes and I’ll never close them again. “Liam and I aren’t together”