Page 85 of From Asher, With Love

“Why do you stay?” My voice is gravelly, and my throat is sore.

“What do you mean?” Her voice is so soft. So gentle.

I half turn in my bed and face her, keeping my arms tucked under my head. “Why do you stay with him? He’s a monster.”

Her shoulders fall as she tilts her head. She’s looking at me with sympathy as if I wouldn’t understand if she tried to explain. She’s looking at me as if I wouldn’t understand what it’s like to love someone.

“You wouldn’t?—"

“Understand,” I cut her off, hardening my expression. I roll back over. “Save your excuses and reasons for Dad. He falls for them more than I do.”

My words sting the tip of my tongue. I know I’ve just hurt her with my brutal honesty, but the flood gates have opened, and all my reservations have disappeared. It’s hard to feel empathy for someone who never stands up for you against those who hurt you. It’s even worse when that someone is your mother.

“I know you don’t agree, but it’s true.” She sighs, and I feel her straighten behind me. I don’t move. “But you wouldn’t understand.”

“Understand why you choose to stay with someone who consistently hurts you?” I ask her. “No, Mom. No, I don’t understand it.”

She doesn’t answer. All I hear is her soft breaths.

I close my eyes, feeling like I might burst. I swallow the lump in my throat, reciting a silent mantra in my mind to not fall apart. I’m on the brink, my toe slipping on the edge of the cliff.

“I don’t understand why when I’m in love with a good and decent human being—one who would do absolutely anything to protect me and love me—he is stripped from my life,” I continue. “Dad took away the only person I’ve ever truly loved. He took the only person to ever truly see me,” I tell her, thewords spilling out of me. “Your daughter’s heart is broken, and you did nothing to stop it. You did nothing to stophim. Again, you chose him over me.”

“All I ever do is choose you.” Her voice quivers. “But you have to understand, Charleigh. I love him, too. These things aren’t always black and white.”

A silent sob escapes my chest with a shudder. I roll forward and press my mouth to my pillow. I don’t want my mother to hear my cries. The scent of flowers mingles with my tears, and I know the smell is coming from her as well as me. She always smells like flowers, and it makes the pain all the worse.

I inhale a deep breath before pulling away from the pillow and keep my focus on the window, hoping Asher won’t follow through on my father’s threat. I’m hoping I haven’t lost him completely and this will all be solved in the morning when I see him at school.

“Just leave me alone, Mom,” I manage to choke out. “Please.”

She doesn’t speak another word, and neither do I. She pats my shoulder before she rises from my bed. I feel her absence behind me, and the hollow ache in my chest grows.

My world has turned black.

“Try to get some rest,” she says, her voice farther away. “I love you, sweetheart.”

I close my eyes and hope my new black world swallows me whole.

I wakeup in the morning to a world of white, feeling no more rested than before I fell asleep last night. Light pours into my room, and I’m facing my closed bedroom door. Then the memories of yesterday come barreling into me at full force.

I scramble out from under the sheets, sitting up as I snatch my phone from my nightstand. My screen lights up, the picture of Asher kissing me in the snow coming to life. My heart thrashes inside my chest, certain I’m going to find a message, but when I see there’s nothing, my heart is ripped open all over again. Asher’s silence is a dagger piercing my flesh and bone. With every passing second, it digs in a little deeper, twisting its way into me.

I wipe the tears from under my eyes and turn my head to look at my window. I stared at it so long last night, willing Asher to appear, and I still am, even in the blanket of snow outside. The sun is shining, and the sky is a bright blue, not a cloud in it. Opposite of how I’m feeling on the inside. The sun reflecting off the snow is blinding, but I’m bounding off my bed the second I see a square piece of paper taped to the outside of my window. I open it and reach my arm under, tugging it off the glass, careful not to drop it. Shivering, I close the window and stare at the paper.

My hands shake, and I struggle to take in a breath. It’s the first sign of Asher since yesterday. A letter. A bad feeling washes over me, knowing if it were good news he wouldn’t have left this for me. He would have texted me or called.

I stumble backward until the backs of my legs meet the edge of my bed. I slowly sit down, not taking my eyes off the letter pinched between my fingers. Shakily, I start to open it.

Fresh tears spring to my eyes, seeing noFrom Asher, with Love. The words blur the second I read my name in Asher’s handwriting.

Charleigh,

I know it isn’t right to leave you a letter like this, but as I sit here at the hospital, writing these words, I don’t see any other way.

After I left last night, I walked home to my trailer engulfed in flames. My mom was inside, passed out. I tried to get to her, but it was too late. According to the paramedics, she had already inhaled too much smoke, and there was no reviving her.

The police said it was an accident. They concluded she’d gotten drunk, spilled alcohol all over the trailer, then fell asleep witha cigarette in her mouth. All it took was one ember to fall, setting our world on fire. Everything is lost, turned to nothing but ash. And now I’m facing an ugly truth.

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