Page 43 of Don't Leave Me
Had she always been this cute when she was pissed? It was like suddenly, I couldn’t remember any moment from our past. We were just here and now, and everything was different. She was this cute single mom I was flirting with. It was kind of fun.
“Yes,” I said. “But if we’d done things the normal way where we dated, got married and had a kid, at some point, we would have found time to go to the movies.”
“We are not normal!” she shouted, stating the obvious.
“So how do we get there?” I asked, very seriously. “How do Marc and Ash go back and do it all over?”
That quieted her up. Like she was actually thinking about the question. What did she want from me now, that was different from what we’d done in the past?
“Well, for starters, it might be a switch if you were nice to me.”
I tilted my head and laughed. Yeah, that made sense. “Noted. Be nice to Ash.”
She sighed. “Marc, I can’t…”
“Okay. Forget the movies for now. Maybe that’s too much. We could just walk over to the park. Share a cupcake. Talk. I’m still getting used to it. Being out, being free. Communicating with people without being watched, in case I break a rule.”
She bit her lip.
It might be a low blow. I was playing on her guilt. I knew, though, that this thing I was working toward was going to take time and patience. Winning back her trust in us was not going to be easy. Helping her let go of the past was also no simple task. Her guilt was still a real thing. Not only did I have to do all that, but I had to do it in the context of proving I was a worthy enough candidate to be a father to her son.
Which, if I were honest with myself, I didn’t know if I was. By the time I came to live with George, I was angry, sullen, and, as Ash had pointed out, not very nice. At least to her. I was driven beyond the point of having any idea of what I wanted in life, other than having enough money that no one could control my future again.
Princeton was a means to an end. I hadn’t once considered the idea of enjoying college as an experience in and of itself. Prison had probably helped more with that. It taught me, at the very least, patience and endurance. About living in the moment. However, the last thing I wanted to tell Ash was that I might be a better father than she imagined, because I’d done time in jail.
“An hour or two. Just to talk. I promise.”
“An hour. That’s it. I need to be home for Danny.”
* * *
Later that day
Ashleigh
I watched him bite into the mini cupcake and groan with satisfaction. We were sitting on our bench. The sun was shining. I’d picked out what I knew would be his favorite flavor. Double chocolate, with chocolate chips. The sound he made had me squirming a bit. Not because I was remembering the sound of Marc groaning when he did other things he found enjoyable.
Because I wasn’t remembering that at all. Especially not after last night.
“What made you start saying all that stuff last night?” I asked him.
He looked at me, and raised his eyebrows as if to suggest it was obvious. It wasn’t.
“No, I’m serious. You could barely look at me when I was at George’s place, and now, you’re sexting me.”
“I was still processing at George’s,” he said. “Everything. You know that takes me time. You weren’t gone. You weren’t missing. You were dead, Ash. There’s supposed to be no coming back from that. When George first told me the news…I lost it. I mean, pretty literally lost it.”
He was looking down at his hands, stretching his fingers out, and I could see there were a few that weren’t completely straight. Like he’d hit a hard object at full force and broken a couple fingers.
“That’s my point, Marc. There is no coming back from what I did. From what I cost you.”
“No, that’smypoint. I sent you texts about sex last night. I haven’t thought about sex in well over a year. Untilyoucame back from the dead. Until I sawyouagain. There are all these pieces inside me that feel like they’re coming back to life as quickly as you did. You think I’m going to be resentful, I’m not. I’m not mad, Ash. I’m reborn.”
I reached out and took his hand with the two crooked fingers. I traced the lines of them, the curve. These hands had taken my virginity. These hands held mine when we’d gotten on a plane to Las Vegas in an attempt to save me. These were the hands that had worked so hard, for so long, for me.
“I need you like air,” he said softly. “I always have, and you have always known it.”
The words touched something inside me. A long-ago memory when I’d been so confident in what he felt for me, but would never admit. When I was sure of my place in his life.
