Ashton’s response is to start horridly screeching the words to the song floating through the speakers. Laughing until my belly hurts—until the sound turns to sniffling tears—I know I’ll never hear “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver the same way again. The lyrics snuggle inside my brain and wrap themselves up in a blanket, prepared to stay awhile.
Where do I belong?
Who am I now?
Chapter Nine
In My Room ~ mid-July
“Ilove your place, Ashton.” I kick off my light blue Blowfish slip-on shoes in the doorway as Ashton slips out of his tennis shoes. We step out of the entryway and into the small house he shares with Noah. Behind me, Ashton’s keys clink together as I take in the living space, narrating what I see. “The plants, the sage accent wall, the neutral tones thrown in for balance. Oh!” I dart to the dining area. It’s not quite closed off from the kitchen, but there is a wall that serves as a barrier between the two rooms. I like how it’s a closed floor plan, but it’s not closed off enough for me to miss the sparkling chandelier in the dining room. “I love the chandelier. You are one classy guy, Ashton.”
The various stones glitter in the sunlight, pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows and reflecting onto the walls and my skin. It reminds me of my stained-glass lamp in my bedroom back at the camper, though these colors are softer. Reminiscent of a setting sun. Hues of daydreams and heaven.
“Noah picked it out,” Ashton says as I trace the cacophony of colors projected onto the off-white walls. He clears his throat. “They’re fake. Not real rubies, sapphires, diamonds, emeralds.”
“There’s beauty in the illusions of life.” I run my fingers along the matte black, rectangular wooden table before tracing more of the refracting colors along the wall as I make my way into the kitchen. There’s beauty in the brambles. The phrase ricochets in my thoughts. Ashton didn’t have that phrase on his tattoo when he showed me. Does Noah?
I tuck the thought away for when I find him. Because Iwillfind him.
You got that right, my little author. I’m waiting.
I gasp at the monstrosity of vibrant red walls, all-black shiny appliances, and a black-and-white marble floor. “Ashton.” I turn to face him, and he’s biting back a laugh. “You’re not a classy guy. You’re a contradiction.”
He lets his laugh loose, throwing his head back in amusement. “Noah designed this room. He prefers the loud to the soft whereas I’m happy with quiet and small pops of color.” He raises his brows. “When he told me he found the love of his life, I got excited. He’d finally move out, and I could decorate this place how I want it.”
“Even pre-amnesia me would have hated this.” I scowl at the screaming walls as if they’ve personally offended me. “There’s no way I would have been okay with Noah decorating our place like this. Cue conniption fits.”
Noah snorts in my head.I like loud and in your face, remember?
I face Ashton once more. He looks as if he wants to ask, but something in my expression must deter him. Instead, I ask, “So where are you stowing the runaway for the next two nights until we leave for Bora Bora?”
Ashton swallows, cutting his eyes away from me. “Noah’s room, if that’s all right.”
My heart does a weird thump. “Yeah, no problem. Can you show me the way? I’ll grab my bags from the truck after.”
Ashton nods, leading down the narrow hallway. It’s full of family photos and enlarged framed photos of Ashton Ashley book covers. “You’re Ashton Ashley,” I state stupidly. I’ve been so caught up in everything else I forgot I was walking side-by-side withtheAshton Ashley. IntheAshton Ashley’s house. “You’re one of my favorite authors.”Because now is the perfect time to remember that tiny fact and fangirl.I cringe at myself.
“With Noah, yes. He’s the Ashley. I’m the Ashton. Though we haven’t come public with the fact we are who we are. We like having our identities hidden, so again, please do not tell anyone.” Ashton takes my wide-eyed, starstruck gaze in stride as he reaches from behind me and opens the door we’ve stopped in front of. His coconut smell lingers even after he’s pulled away, and I’m met with a new scent. One that stirs longing in my stomach. One of ocean breezes, vanilla, and citrus.
Turning, I take my first look at my supposed fiancé’s room.
Pristine and put together, the room, though sonorous as if I can hear the contrasting colors ringing in my ears, elicits a well of joy. The bed is by far the largest item in the room. It’s king-sized, topped with sunset orange quilts on top of light gray sheets. There are lamps on either side of the bed; journals upon journals that he must have filled are stored in one of the light wooden nightstands. The walls are a cloudless blue, smoothly blending with the pops of yellow, orange, and pink. His room is the sky, and I’m floating within it.
See? You like my brand of loud, Meme.
I walk around and peek into his closet. It’s a mess in there with clothes haphazardly placed in wooden cubbies and shirts falling off hangers. There’s a desk facing the window, and it’salmost as if I can imagine him hunched over it, writing in one of his notebooks as if he’d run out of time. Suddenly, as if someone held a flashlight up to my eyes and clicked it on just to immediately turn it off, I picture Noah hunched over a desk in a bungalow, scribbling a note down before briefly looking back at something with a mischievous grin.
My heart clenches and my knees grow weak, but before I collapse to the distressed gray wooden floor, Ashton catches my arm. “Esme, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Breathless with a racing heart, I cling to his forearm. “I think I just had a memory. A real one. Of Noah writing at a desk. At the resort.” I stare dazed at the wooden floor, transposing the memory to a certain scene I wrote in my book. “He’s real. It’s all real.”
And then I shake loose of Ashton, take three steps into Noah’s room, and crumble onto his bed in a heap of harrowed sobs. The braveness from today loses all sense of existing. I cry because I’ve forgotten him. I cry because I desperately want to feel what I’m supposed to feel—in love. I cry because I’ve hurt this very real man by not knowing him. I cry because I have no idea what’s going to happen when we find him, and I don’t want to hurt him further.
I cry because I have no idea what I’m doing here despite my initial haze of enmity and guilt in which I made this decision. Did I, in the name of standing up to my parents, fall into my usual trap of people pleasing to appease Ashton and his family?
“Hey, hey,” Ashton says in a hushed, soft tone, sitting down beside me. Or so I assume because of the way the bed shifts. “Do you remember how you feel about him? Like, do you actually remember him?” The hope in his voice cuts like a serrated knife.
“No,” I wail. In between heaving cries, I manage to get out, “That’s the problem. It was just a glimpse.”
