So I settled for resting my head on his chest, my ear pressed against his slick skin. His heart— his beautiful, strong heart— was beating rapidly against me and I sent a silent thanks to the person who’d given Ash a second chance at life… who’d given me the chance to find him.
As Ash’s fingers toyed with my hair and his free arm came up to curl around my upper body, I finally accepted what I’d known in my heart for a while now, but had been too afraid to admit, even to myself.
That for the first time in my life, and for what I also instinctively knew would be the last, I’d given my whole heart to another person.
And I was scared to death about what that meant.
“Ash, will you tell me about Billy?”
Not surprisingly, Ash tensed in my hold at the question.
We were lying in my bed. We hadn’t spoken much after the encounter in the kitchen. After I’d pulled free of Ash’s body, I’d carried him to the shower in my bathroom and sat on the bench with him on my lap as water had sprayed our tired, sweaty bodies from multiple shower heads. I’d only stopped kissing him long enough to wash his body and he’d returned the favor.
“You want to know why I stayed as long as I did,” he said softly.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, because that was exactly what I wanted to know. Ash was such a strong person that I couldn’t fathom him staying in any situation like that.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s something I’ve asked myself over and over again.”
He was lying on my chest. His warm breath skittered over my nipple as he spoke and his fingers stroked over my hand. He kept linking our fingers every few seconds before repeating the up and down motion.
“When I first got sick, I just thought it was me pushing myself too hard. I’d always been very driven and focused as a kid. When I put my mind to something, that was it, you know?” he murmured.
I did know. I’d seen proof of it myself these past several weeks in every argument where Ash had clung to his need for independence.
“I was on Christmas break at the time and even though I thought it was just the flu, my mom was worried about it and convinced me to go to the doctor. When he sent me to a specialist, my parents came with me to the appointment. I could tell that they were worried, but I wasn’t. I mean, I was twenty years old, in great shape…” His words fell off for a moment.
“My parents cried when the doctor told us the news. I… I was just… numb. I thought it was a mistake. Idiopathic viral cardiomyopathy.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“It means an unknown virus attacked my heart. Without a new heart, the doctor said I had a few months to live.”
Fear skirted through my body, but I managed to quell the reaction and keep my fingers light on his back where I was trailing them up and down his spine.
“Things went downhill really fast. I was in the hospital for months being kept alive by an LVAD— a left ventricular assist device. It was the only thing keeping my heart beating. I was forced to drop out of school; I couldn’t leave the hospital. My friends from college started coming by a lot in the early days, but the hospital was an hour’s drive from school. After a few weeks, they came less and less. Except for one guy.”
“Billy,” I murmured.
Ash nodded. “We hadn’t even been that close, you know? But he came several times a week to keep me company, play video games. If I was too tired to do anything, he’d read me the latest football stats from all the college and NFL games.” Ash took a deep breath before continuing. “About six months after I was diagnosed, my parents died in a car accident. I was… I was totally lost after that. Didn’t care if I lived or died. Didn’t care about anything. There was just no point.”
His words sent a chill through me because I couldn’t imagine an Ash who didn’t overflow with life.
“Billy was the one who got me through it. Urged me to keep fighting. He took care of my parents’ funerals since I couldn’t even go, much less plan them. He even brought a reverend to the hospital so we could go to the hospital chapel and have a memorial service for them. When a heart became available, he was the one telling me I was going to survive the operation and that he’d be there to take care of me afterward.”
Ash’s voice softened as he said, “And he did, too. I didn’t have to worry about anything. He paid all the bills, managed my medications… all I had to do was focus on getting better. He didn’t even kiss me for the first time until the day I was discharged.”