Page 212 of Scrimmage

“Nope,” she mumbles. “Didn’t take long for them to send us back. They always send me back.”

It opens my eyes a little bit. Ash has been rejected in ways that I’m not aware of for her entire life, and she’s waiting for me to do it, too. I did already. I wish I could comfort her and tell her everything will always be okay. It won’t, and she isn’t stupid enough to believe it. She’s lying in a hospital bed right now, and that just proves it.

I love her. I meant what I said, and I’ll always take care of her. It doesn’t mean things will be perfect. It doesn’t guarantee things will work out either. The moment Ashland is free she could run, and I won’t blame her. She could still disappear. I’ve been living day by day, but I’m going to do what I do best and make a fucking plan, even if it’s hopeful.

In three months, Ashland will be out of this hospital. I’ll be fucking sure of it. In four, summer will be over. I don’t know if Ashland wants to go back to school, and it’s not something I can ask right now. It’s our senior year and my final season, which makes things fucking complicated. Just one more season, and then I can worry about details for the future. In eight months, we’ll almost be done. I’ll be making hard decisions, but I don’t want to make them without her. I meant what I said. I love her. She’s in my life plan, and it wasn’t a bluff. I don’t need her to love me back. I just need to love her.

Summer

Chapter Thirty

Ashland,ThreeMonthsLater

Koda stands in the hall outside of my hospital room with his arms crossed looking down at the doctor. He’s wearing a flat billed hat backwards with his sandy blonde hair peeking out of the sides. He’s in sweatpants that hang around his hips, and his muscles flex through shirt. I see his jaw tick in irritation. This is my favorite version of Koda. I’ve seen it a few times before, and it makes me fucking weak.

The doctor is speaking, and he doesn’t nod. Not once. Whatever the doctor is saying is unacceptable in his opinion, which I’ve learned is pretty specific. By now I would have rolled over and just let them do whatever they thought was best. Turns out my best is most people’s bare minimum.

Handing over the control lifted a weight from my shoulders. I want to hate it, but I don’t have it in me. Koda’s attention feels good, and I want to hate that, too. He already left me once. Who’s to say he won’t do it again? The words he said the night I woke up drift through my lucid thoughts. There’s something gentle in Koda. The way he has been taking care of me is beyond what I could imagine. It’s the second nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.

After Koda shoved his way back into my life, Penny and I spoke to Jeremy. We are officially Ashland and Penny, people who aren’t running, but living. It’s a new feeling. It’s unfamiliar. Most people would say the morning after they escaped the nightmare I had been living in with Damien all those years ago would feel like being reborn, but it didn’t. The next one didn’t either. It was a slow agonizing journey to be glad to even wake up. This feels different though. Freeing in a way I haven’t been before. It’s all still there. All of that trauma doesn’t go away, and anxiety is permanently etched into my brain chemistry, but there are pieces of myself that have awoken. I don’t know how to describe it, but I feel it and that’s enough.

“He really doesn’t take any shit,” Sinclair says. He settles into the bed next to me and offers me his open bag of chips.

“No, he doesn’t.” I take it, and when I look inside there are only crumbs. “What the fuck, Knoxy?”

He gives me a mischievous grin. “It’s my job, as your little brother, to piss you off.”

“Don’t you have some songs to sing in front of your worshipers.” I roll my eyes, crumbling the bag into a ball.

He’s been visiting every other weekend driving me insane. He’s brought Penny with him a few times, but I insisted that she go back to her internship and focus for the rest of the summer. I’m past the point of immediate death. Anything else will be slow. I think she only listened because Koda and Alexi have been up my ass.

“Fuck those twats. They can’t appreciate a perfect rendition of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’.”

I lean my head on his shoulder, watching Koda try to calmly explain something to the doctor.

“I think we’re going to write a new album,” he informs me.

“Please don’t do a drum solo to my death.”

He laughs. “I don’t want to leave you, Yinny.”

“You can’t just stop your life because of three minutes. I’ll recover. I’ll be fine. Still mentally tortured and emotionally stunted, but I’ll be fine.”

“Do you think you…Could we…See each other more?” The words rush out of his mouth, and I know they had to be difficult.

“Feed me, Yinny. Hold my hand, Yinny. Live, Yinny. Tell the handball players I’m going to kill them, Yinny,” I mock his accent. “You sure are always full of requests. It’s a wonder I’ve ever gotten anything done.”

He cackles, holding my hand in his fuckinggrubbyone. “Those are all perfectly acceptable requests.”

“How do you expect me to coordinate my chaotic life with your insane one? It took me dying to get us in the same country.”

“I already worked it out with your personal assistant.” He nods at Koda.

“You did?” I glance back at him. His jaw is becoming tighter and tighter the longer the doctor speaks. If he still has molars after everything that has happened I’ll be surprised.

“Said there’s plenty of room, and that I’m welcome to stay whenever I want.”

“Koda’s condo only has one bedroom, that way Alexi won’t stay.”

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