“Lynn,” I protested.
She walked to me, stepped onto her tiptoes again, and kissed my cheek, lingering long enough that I could smell the peppermint coffee she liked so much on her breath. Her nose tickled my chin and I wanted to grab her and never let her go, but holding on to Lynn was like holding smoke in your fist. It was impossible.
“I’ll be back later,” she said.
“Be careful of Shelly,” I said to her as she walked out the door.
She turned back at the last moment. “She’s part of me. I’m not scared of her.”
But fuck if I wasn’t.
29
Ash sat across from me on the couch. She had a novel tucked between her knees, and she gnawed, rabbit-style, on a hunk of licorice rope as she read. Every now and then, she’d yank a piece off with her teeth and then she’d turn the page.
I watched her. Her face was clean of makeup and she was wearing one of my shirts and a pair of shorts. She looked so normal in that moment, like there was nothing wrong with her. Like she wasn’t bat-shit crazy.
Ash had shown up the night before, and it had been exactly two weeks and two days since Lynn left. I was going crazy on the inside, but I tried not to show it.
I nudged Ash with my toe. She didn’t look up from her book.
I nudged her again, and she waved her licorice rope in the air in warning, but she still didn’t look up.
“Ash!” I called loudly.
She looked up at the ceiling and growled. “Fuck, Mason, what do you want?”
“I want to talk to you.” I nudged her with my foot, harder this time. “Put your book down.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Is that code for I want to fuck you? If not, go away. I’m reading.” She looked back down at her book, but I took it from her and held it over my head. She crawled across the couch, trying to snatch it, but I held it out of her reach. When she pressed her body against mine, I grabbed her against me and kissed her cheek, holding her tight. She melted against me. “Mason,” she pretended to sulk.
“Will you tell me a story?” I asked.
She froze in my arms. “What kind of story?”
“Tell me about the day Lynn’s father disappeared.”
She scrambled back, landing on the other end of the couch. She drew her legs toward her chest. “Why do you want to know about that?”
“Lynn wouldn’t tell me anything. All I knew was that he was gone. One day he was there. The next he wasn’t. Where did he go?”
She smiled, and in that moment, she looked so much like Shelly that she scared me.
“Ash?” I asked.
“Still me,” she said.
“What happened to him?”
“No one is really sure,” she hedged.
“Is he dead?”
“Maybe.”
“Ash, please?”
“Why do you want to know?”