Page 124 of Outside The Wire

I could hardly stand to see her like this, so sad and upset. I was terrified that if I said the wrong thing, I’d push her over the edge and send her right back to her pills and get her killed. I couldn’t be responsible for her death a second time.

“Tell me, Asher! Tell me!” she shouted, running at me and pounding her fists at my chest.

I grabbed them and held her to me, remembering what it was like when she broke down all those years ago. How I held her in my arms and made everything alright. Slowly, she melted into me, wrapping her arms around me as the tears flowed freely. I slumped down on the couch, cradling her in my arms and trying to come up with anything I could say to make this better.

“Jade, you have to calm down.” I ran my hand up and down her back until her sobs slowed and her tears dried. A half-hour passed with me rocking her in my arms. I didn’t know where to go from here. If anything, the situation felt even more fucked up than when I walked through the door.

When she sat up, she wiped the tears from her eyes and straightened her shoulders. “God, I’m sorry, Ash. That wasn’t fair.”

“Jade…let’s just take a break and?—”

“We should get out of here. Get some breakfast.” She popped up, happy as can be, with a smile on her face. The sudden change in her attitude caught me off guard, but anything was better than her sobbing on the couch.

“Let’s get the guys to come with us. We can talk about old times.”

Great. That was just what I wanted to do. “Sure.”

“You go tell them and I’ll freshen up.”

She whirled out of there like nothing had happened, letting the door to the bedroom snick quietly behind her. I was almost scared to leave her alone. What if she was in there right now popping pills? Could I really trust her?

I wanted to tell myself that she wasn’t my responsibility anymore, but she was. I was still her husband according to the law, and even if I didn’t wear the ring on my finger, that didn’t mean I could abandon her. But I couldn’t be with her all the time either. They let her out for a reason, and I had to trust that.

“So,this asshole appeared at my bedside, standing over me like some goon, and I thought I still had a fucking brain tumor,” Chase laughed.

Jade’s eyes sparkled as she looked at me. “So he was daydreaming about you. That’s sweet.”

“Yeah, it should have been me,” Patrick spoke up. “I’m more handsome.”

“You were already there, asshole,” I said, tossing a napkin at him.

“But why weren’t you there?” Jade asked, making the table go quiet. She looked at each of us, confused as to why none of us would look at her. “Did you leave on a job or something?”

I shook my head, my eyes flicking to the guys. “No, I quit after the job with—the one with your dad.”

A small gasp left her lips as she looked at each of us again. “Wait, I’m confused. Why would you quit?”

“Because the job took too much.”

“But you loved your work,” she argued.

My head snapped up to meet her gaze. “I loved you, too.”

Her face flushed red and she shoved back from the table, excusing herself as she quickly ran to the bathroom.

“Nice job,” Patrick laughed. “If you wanted to make her uncomfortable, you’re doing a bang-up job of it.”

“Excuse me?” I snapped, sitting up. “I’mmakingheruncomfortable? You showed up out of nowhere to return my dead wife to me. My girlfriend isn’t speaking to me.”

“She’s just trying to understand what happened,” Chase piped up.

“She fucking drove herself into a tree. That’s what happened,” I snapped. “She wasn’t thinking about me when she did that.”

“She wasn’t thinking about anything but ending the pain, Asher. She was hurting.”

“No, she was hopped up on pills. She didn’t ask for help.”

“Maybe the middle of a restaurant isn’t the best place to discuss your dead, not-dead wife’s mental problems,” Patrick said with a shrug. “But that’s just me. I could be way off base.”

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