Amongst all that I stayed frozen, terrified that feeling would come back. That pain would blindside me. A few seconds brought back that blessed numbness that allowed my feet to shuffle into the living room.
I went to the pot, bleary vision only focusing on the one thing that made me half human, that woke me up enough to contemplate the dreary day—coffee.
“Morning, sweetie,” a voice from the sofa had me jumping out of my skin. Luckily, my unpoured coffee did not scald my arms, which I was surprised about. Fate usually loved to screw with me. Second-degree burns would be the cherry on top of my shit sundae.
“Aiden,” I croaked, my voice shaking off sleep.
He straightened off the sofa and stretched, the fabric of his tee lifting with the movement. My gaze flickered over the washboard stomach for a moment before I moved to his eyes.
“You didn’t have to stay,” I said, pouring coffee and then retrieving another mug.
Aiden skirted around our shitty sofa and padded into our equally shitty kitchen. He took the mug I offered and lightly rested his free hand on my hip.
“Yes, I did, Lil,” he murmured looking at my eyes.
“You didn’t,” I protested. “I’m fine, I don’t want you risking your back muscles and having a horrible night’s sleep for me.”
The hand on my hip tightened and his attractive brows furrowed. “Your mom died, sweetie,” he said softly, as if to remind me. “I care about you. Therefore, I stayed. And I’m not going anywhere. You’re not alone,” he told me firmly.
I looked into his clear blue eyes. We had been friends since my freshman year. A month ago it had turned into something else. In the midst of my nightmare, Aiden had somehow turned from friend to boyfriend. Not that the handful of dates and makeout sessions constituted an actual relationship, but my schedule didn’t exactly give me the luxury of time for a boyfriend. I spent every moment I could with Mom, until she demanded I go out and have some fun. As if fun was even a plausible prospect when my mom was dying in a hospital room. But I played along, let Aiden take me out, faked a smile while my insides were shredding. I’d never let anything go further, go deeper. My time and my heart were dedicated to Mom. Until now I guess. I had a huge gaping hole in my life, one I couldn’t even contemplate right now. One I knew Aiden wanted to fill. One that I knew he would never fill.
“Thanks,” I whispered, realizing arguing was pointless.
He was wrong, though. I was alone. Completely. My mom had been the one and only person on this earth who actually loved me. The me, the one that was plagued with anxiety, and felt like I had a dumbbell on my chest twenty-four hours a day. The me who barely spoke around new people, and got nervous in crowds. Everything that made me ordinary she found extraordinary, and subsequently she made me feel extraordinary. It was just me and her, against the world. Now it was just me. I had friends, good ones too, ones that I loved. But nothing like what I had with Mom. Even Bex, the best of them all, would never be what my mom was to me.
He nodded and kissed me lightly on the cheek before searching my eyes. He was waiting for me to break down, I knew. For days, he and Bex had been watching me like I was an unexploded grenade, ready to go off at any moment. He seemed to be satisfied I wasn’t in danger of exploding any time soon and moved to the breakfast bar, to perch on our rickety bar stalls.
I stared at him. Even after a no doubt terrible sleep on our lumpy sofa, he looked good. His sandy blond hair was mussed, but in a way that looked like he’d taken hours to do it. His face was classically handsome, and his body was lean. He looked like an all-American boy, Abercrombie and Fitch style. He was from a good family, was in law school and a genuinely nice guy. Too bad he didn’t make me burn. Didn’t consume my mind and soul. Like someone else had for the past three years. Someone that definitely wasn’t a genuinely nice guy. Someone who would never be mine.
Asher.
Time didn’t mute the memories I had of him. Of us. I indulged myself a moment of escape into that memory, one that offered a respite from the horror of the present.
Three Years Ago
I liked margaritas, I decided. No, I loved margaritas. The handicap that stopped me from unleashing my true self seemed to fall away with the help of this magic drink. I was uninhibited by the shyness that had plagued me my whole life. The weight on my chest.