Page 59 of Don't Hate Me
“Damn it!” I barked at her. “Don’t tell me no. I can’t do this. I can’t stay in this place knowing you’re living in his house. Knowing he can touch you, hurt you at will.”
“Marc. Do you love me?”
The question took me off guard. Did I love her? We were talking about her face. We were talking about Sanderson. We were talking about murder.
Did I love her?
No. Love was supposed to be this simple, happy, joyful emotion. It was never simple with Ash. Everything was always so damn complicated with her. Besides, I’d told her I would never say it. Never let those words ever come out of my mouth again.
It was as if she could read my thoughts. I watched her slump, seemingly defeated. It bothered me, but not enough to cough up the words, even if I knew they were what she wanted to hear.
“I know it’s hard for you,” she said. “Because of your mother. You should find her. When you get out. Find out what happened to her. Get some closure.”
“What are you talking about? My mother is most likely dead.”
“But you don’t know that. Not for sure. It could help you. Maybe if you found her, talked to her, you could put the past behind you and really move on.”
“That’s never going to happen,” I said, emphatically.
My mother? The heroin addict who’d left me time and time again. Who couldn’t fucking stay clean long enough to regain custody of me. Because if she had, then, there would have been no George, no estate in Harborview, no Ash and no…prison.
Shit. Was it happening? Was I starting to resent everything about Ash because I was stuck in this place? While she was out there in the world with that monster who hurt her.
“I don’t know why we’re talking about my mother,” I said, pulling myself out of those thoughts. Me being in here wasn’t Ash’s fault. “Tell me what that fucker did to you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, looking away from me. Toward the windows that overlooked the grounds where we were allowed to walk a couple hours each day.
I focused on her bruised flesh. The yellow and purple colors of it. Her skin was normally so pale. Her body always a little fragile. How could anyone think about hurting someone who could so easily break?
“Ash, look at me. Talk to me.”
She turned to me and smiled. It might have even cost her some pain to do it. “I do love you. I have since you drank that grape soda I offered you. You were the world to me, and I wanted to be so much for you, but it all fell apart. If I’d known what kind of bastard my father was, I would have told you to run away. Run as far away as you could from me. I promise I didn’t know it would end like this. Because if I had, I would have pushed you away instead of constantly trying to hold onto you.”
“Ash, what the fuck are you talking about? What end? Are you saying you’re leaving him? That’s good. Get the fuck away. Take some of his damn money and head for the south of France or some fancy place like that. Somewhere he can’t find you.”
She smiled again, but this time it was much sadder.
“I’m so sorry. For everything. Just know that. At least, that. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“You didn’t,” I said, not understanding any of what she was saying.
Then she lifted her hands as if to suggest the very room we were sitting in was all her fault.
It wasn’t. It was her father’s. It was Sanderson’s.
What if you hadn’t gone to work for Landen? What if you’d minded your own business and let Ash stay in Switzerland?
Thoughts I’d had before came back, but again I pushed them away. There was no changing the past. There was only seeing our way forward. I already had a month and a half behind me.
“Ash, you’re hurting and you’re sad, but you need to stop talking like we’ve lost.” Because it sounded wrong. Ash was always positive. Always hopeful. Always the one trying to change my mood, my attitude. She didn’t give up. Ever.
So why did it feel like she was now?
She stood and arranged her scarf around her face, covering up the black eye as best she could. We still had twenty minutes left of visiting time, but she was leaving early. I stood as if to stop her, but she held her hand up, signaling me to stay back.
“I can’t. I can’t make this any harder on myself. I have to…I have to protect myself. I’m sorry, Marc. For everything. Please know I will never stop loving you. In my heart, I will never leave you.”
“Ash, you’re not making any sense to me. What the hell is happening here?”
