Page 75 of Apathy
I knew the color of his eyes, and that dark, dark hair. I knew how he made me feel, but I didn’t know anything else, and it fucking sucked.
I knew that he made me feel like I was floating on air, that every second I spent in his company felt like an eternity because he made me forget about other things in my life. I knew he loved nature and the wilderness and that he carried violent things inside his heart, but I didn’t know why.
I knew that his lips tasted like sin, but it was the kind of sin I didn’t mind committing.
He knew everything about me, which made me feel like I had a disadvantage from the very start.
“Ash,” I started again, approaching him slowly. Sometimes it felt like he was a wild animal, just waiting to attack. One wrong move, a wrong word, and he could destroy me in a second. “Can you, for the love of everything, just answer one simple question?”
Thunder sliced through the air, angry and devastating, just how I felt right now.
“Ash!” I whisper-yelled, pushing his shoulder, but he wouldn’t move.
His head was hanging down, his forearms firmly placed on his knees, and that dark hair I loved so much was dripping wet. I knew that if I touched it, even as wet as it was, it would feel like silk beneath my fingers. I also knew if I allowed him to stay like this, we would never get out of this vicious circle, and I would allow myself to get sucked into yet another toxic situation.
I couldn’t.
I had to choose myself this time.
“You know,” I took a step back, “the first time I saw you, I felt like I knew you from somewhere. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me, which wouldn’t be the first time, but in the eternity of sorrow, I saw you. And I thought you saw me, the real me.”
“Sky—” He lifted his head and looked at me, but I wasn’t finished.
“And you looked beautiful, even with all that pain swirling in your eyes. You felt like mine, and God knows that I kept looking for something or someone that would feel like mine. But I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
“I don’t—”
“You made me forget, Ash. You made me think about something else—about you—but I can see now that what I started to feel for you wasn’t the same as what you felt for me. I can see now that you won’t be my salvation. You will be my destruction. I was looking for paradise, but I found hell instead.”
“Hey, that’s not—” He stood up, and I took another step back, putting much-needed distance between us.
“When I woke up in the hospital, the first person I thought about was you,” I whispered, my voice breaking. My chest hurt, tearing me apart as all the things I kept locked up for the last three days started tumbling out. “I was terrified, and you weren’t there.” I placed a hand to my chest, as if I could keep myself from falling apart right in front of his eyes. “Why weren’t you there, Ash? Do I mean nothing to you?”
“Skylar, please,” he choked out, reaching for me, but I couldn’t handle his touch on me until I was finished, until I knew the whole truth.
“Don’t touch me,” I gritted out. “You don’t get to disappear from my life when I needed you the most and then show up here as if nothing happened. As if I wasn’t attacked by a maniac in my own house, thinking I was going to die. You don’t get to fucking touch me! Not now, not ever.”
“No, baby—”
“Where were you, Ash?” I broke down. “I-I know…” I hiccupped. “I know we aren’t together, but I thought that you at least cared about me.”
“I do.” He grasped one of my hands, his touch burning my skin.
“Then fucking show it!” I pushed him away. “I don’t care about words, Ash. I don’t care about any of these things, but I do care about deeds, about things you would do to show me you care.”
I thought he would argue with me. I thought he would try to make me believe in another lie, but he said nothing. He kept standing in front of me, tilting his head to the side, hiding his truths behind those eyes.
“I think you should leave,” I mumbled, taking a step to the side, and showed him the balcony door. “Now!”
“No!” he roared.
“What do you mean, no?” I asked. “Get out of my house.”
“Goddammit, Skylar.”
One minute he was aggravated, and in the next one, I was airborne over his shoulder as he started walking to my bed.
“Let me go!” I hit his back. “This is fucking idiotic.”
