I cringe at his word choice. I’ve felt a lot of things toward Asher, but sibling love was never one of them.
“I just don’t get why he wouldn’t want me to know.” The night he left was perfect…until it wasn’t. It was as if a switch went off, and I have no idea what tripped it.
“I don’t think he wanted anyone to know, really.” Dash shrugs. “He hasn’t told me much, but I know the past three years weren’t exactly fun.”
My chest aches at the thought of anything bad touching Asher. He’s had too much of it in his life. Throughout the years, whenever he got a raw deal—whether it was a misunderstanding or plain old shitty luck—he never complained. Not once. He simply accepted every negative thing life threw at him. More than accepted it, he expected it. Like he thought he deserved it. And it broke my heart.
“Come on. Let’s get back.”
I nod, not trusting my voice to hide the hurt, and we head back to our friends. Nat curls her fingers around my hand and gives it a squeeze without saying a word, and we all explore some more. When we come up to a decrepit escalator, I have to stop and stare. It’s the creepiest, most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen. No one realizes I’ve stopped, so they keep moving, but there’s something about this escalator that has me rooted to this spot.
I pull out my phone. Four percent battery. If I’m lucky, I can get a picture or two before it dies. I back up, taking in the missing stairs and gutted handrails with metal protruding like curled ribbons. I lean over the ledge, just a little, to get a better angle, and snap a photo. I survey the picture, and it’s too dark to make out. I lean a little further, hoping for enough battery life to use the flash one more time, and snap another.
“Don’t fall.”
I jerk at the cold, taunting words rumbled near my ear and pitch forward. Instead of falling to my death, I’m yanked back by a fist closed around the back of my shirt. I stumble before righting myself, and I attempt to calm my erratic heart. My chest heaves, and Asher’s eyes follow the movement for a fraction of a second before the apathetic mask falls back into place. Those green and brown eyes appear even darker, and the shadows cling to his features, making him look like some sort of otherworldly creature.
For long moments, we stare. Him with his hands in his pockets, me with one hand on my chest, still catching my breath, but both of us unspeaking. I open my mouth to say something, anything, like maybe why the hell did you just almost kill me? Or why did you leave us? But the words are stuck in my throat. Realizing that I’m not going to be the one to break the silence, Asher gives me a derisive laugh before shaking his head and prowling off. I really hate the sight of his back walking away from me.
“Okay, so tell me about that night again. Don’t leave anything out,” Nat says from the driver’s seat of my car. After my encounter with Asher, I practically dragged her out of the building, leaving Jackson and Brett’s drunken protests behind us. I was feeling a little lightheaded myself—from chugging that beer, or being near Asher again, I still don’t know—so I asked Nat to drive.
“I’ve told you this a million times.” I sigh, reclining my seat all the way back. I stick my hand out of the backseat window, feeling the hot, summer wind whip against it. “I threw myself at him. He was into it for a minute. Then, Dash and Whitley showed up before anything else could happen.” Not that it would’ve happened anyway, much to my fourteen-year-old self’s dismay. “He basically told me we made a mistake, gave Whitley a ride home, and I never saw him or heard from him again. Until now. He didn’t even end up taking the scholarship. I checked.”
“Hmm,” Nat says thoughtfully, tapping her fingers against the leather steering wheel. “I mean, obviously, he was running away from whatever he was feeling for you. But to disappear for three years? That’s a little extreme, even for him.”
I snort at that. There’s no way I had anything to do with his vanishing act. I’d have to mean something to him for that to happen, and the past three years have proven otherwise.
“There’s no point attempting to figure Asher out. You’ll only hurt your brain trying.” I would know. Asher’s always played his cards close to his chest, never letting anyone in on the thoughts and feelings within.
We pull into the long driveway leading up to our ranch-style house, then Nat throws the car into park.
“All right, I’m out. I have to help my mom set up for an event tomorrow, so I promised I’d be home early.”
“Boo. Call me after.”
After Nat takes off in her little red sports car, I make my way toward the house, then tiredly stab the code into the keypad at our front door. Too lazy to go to my room on the other side of the house, I steal Dash’s charger from the kitchen counter and plant myself onto the couch in the media room. It’s fluffy and huge and could sleep ten people at least. This is my preferred room in the house. I throw in my favorite movie—the one I love to hate and hate to love since it reminds me of that night. Tombstone.
I can’t focus on the screen. The events of tonight and the ones of three years ago play in my head on repeat, searching for something, anything, that will fill in the missing pieces. I keep coming back to the same two questions. What made him leave? And what brought him back?
Before long, I drift to sleep with images of Asher’s hardened expression in my mind.
“Don’t fall…”
Someone should’ve warned me not to fall years ago.
Chapter 2
Asher
“Are you sure, man?” I ask for the third time since Dash insisted I stay with him as we walk into his house. Being here again is the last thing I thought would happen tonight. Ever since I got back into town, I’ve managed to avoid this place like the fucking plague. This house and the people in it were the only good part about my life growing up. But after the younger Vale sibling betrayed me in the worst way, I lost that, too.
I stopped by my old house exactly once. I was greeted by my father in an alcohol-induced slumber in h
is old, tattered recliner. A cigarette dangled from his fingertips, dangerously close to burning the house down. I walked out before he even knew I was there.
“I told you, my parents are living in SoCal now. It’s just Briar and me, and you know she won’t mind.”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that.