He pushed me away and shook his head. “Don’t. Whatever bullshit you’re about to come out with, keep it toyourself.”
“Bullshit?” The hate I expected to see in him wasn’t there, and my pulse slowed. But any relief I might’ve felt was tempered by the hopelessness inAsh’ssigh.
“Pete, it’s not me… it’s you, and it has been ever since your mom got sick. If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine, but don’t ask me to pretend everything’s okay because I can’t do itanymore.”
He got in the van. The door shut quietly, but the soft click echoed in my head. He didn’t know what I’d done, but he knew there wassomething. And if I didn’t tell him soon, I’dlosehim.
A strange calm settled over me. I’d likely lose him anyway once he knew, but the prospect of shedding the only real secret we’d ever let get between us was more liberating than I’d ever dared imagine. Shame broke my heart with every step I took to the driver side ofthevan.
I climbed inside and started the engine. I took a deep breath, but Ash spokefirst.
“Youneedhelp.”
“Forwhat?”
“For your depression, Pete. Your grief… whatever you want to call it. You can’t go onlikethis.”
“Depression?”
“Don’t throw it back at me. Being so messed up has taught me a lot about shit like this. I ain’t no shrink, but you’re not happy, and you don’t seem to care aboutchangingthat.”
That he still saw himself as the broken kid he’d been when I met him cut me to the bone. “I’m notdepressed,Ash.”
“Yes,youare.”
He shot back his reply like he’d made up his mind a long time ago, and as I rejoined the traffic on the road, I let his words sink in. I was pretty well-versed in mental health, but I’d never thought to apply any of that knowledge to myself. Ash had lived with depression and PTSD since I’d known him and for years before that. He’d been to hell and back so many times that a day didn’t go by without me consciously thinking how lucky I was to stillhavehim.
My mind flashed to the marks that littered his arms—scars that he’d put there himself. In an effort to ground myself, I gazed out at the North Dakota scenery that had so far passed us by. But there was nothing there, the horizon was barren and flat as far as the eye could see, and I found nothing to tie me down to a world where Ash knew who I reallywas. “Ash—”
“Pullover.”
“Huh?” The reverse echo of a conversation we’d had ten minutes ago spun my head, but then Ash gasped and I realized that he was about togetsick.
I threw the van off the road, much to the annoyance of the truck behind us. It rumbled past, the driver flipping me the bird, but I barely noticed as Ash kicked his door open andthrewup.
It took everything I had to stay in my seat. Comforting Ash was in my soul, but he didn’t like being touched when he got sick. And I was with him there. There was nothing romantic about throwing up, and Lord knew, I’d seen every sideofit.
Ash leaned out of the van doorway, breathing heavily. When I was sure he was done puking, I laid a cautious hand on hisback. “Okay?”
“What do youthink?”
“I don’t know what to think. We haven’t traveled farther than Lincoln Park together before, so I don’t know if you getcarsick.”
“Yeah, well. I do when I don’t eat enough. I was sick on a plane last year, but I didn’t tell you because you were asleep when Igothome.”
“You could’ve told me thenextday.”
“You weren’tthere.”
There was no accusation in his words, only the kind of bleak exhaustion I knew so well. I took my hand from his back and let my gaze drift to the dull stream of traffic speeding past the van. We were broken already. All that was left was for me to drown us once and forall. “Ash.”
“What?”
“I helpedMaggiedie.”
ChapterEight
Ash
