I love you, Asher.
I’m not sorry.
29
T
Levigaspedawakewiththe taste of blood still in his mouth, swinging out before he finished sitting up. His fist went out into empty air to his right where Asher should have been.
Asher was not there.
He sat on the floor against the side of the mattress, his knees pulled up and his head in his hands, his shoulders moving fast and small. His elbows pressed against his temples as the heels of his palms pushed on the back of his head like he was trying to hold something inside his skull from the outside.
He didn’t look up when Levi sat up. He didn’t move at all.
Maybe he’s getting it now…
Levi swung his legs off the bed, his eyes already on the window. He’d let the fog in and let Asher watch him die again. He’d do it again and again if he had to. He’d die a thousand horrible deaths if it made Asher finally agree to help him beat the game.
His hand was on the latch when Asher said into his knees, “I think I’m remembering now.”
Levi’s hand stopped on the latch. Behind him, Asher made a sound that was almost a laugh, then broke into a warbling wet cry Levi could feel through the carpet, because Asher’s whole body was shaking with it.
“Levi,” he croaked. “Levi, would you — if I’m not the same out there — would you still —”
Levi turned around.
Asher’s face was a wreck and his eyes were wrong—they weren’t just bloodshot…they were staring through Levi. Asheralwayslooked at Levi like he was the only thing that mattered in the room. Whatever Asher was looking at right now was inside himself, somewhere in the back of his own head, and the newness of it was breaking him in a direction Levi did not recognize.
“Would you still love me? Out there. If I’m not — if I’m not me anymore? If the me out there isn’t this?”
This is a trick. He’s going to get you to sit down and then he’s going to do something. Don’t move from the window.
But Levi wanted to believe it. There was a part of him that had been waiting for any version of Asher who could ask a question like that.
“Yes,” he said before he finished deciding whether it was a trick or not, because it was true. It had been true since the moment he realized he did not like dying alone. He would love whatever version of Asher came out on the other side.
Asher closed his eyes, touching the tears on his face like he just realized they were there, and he let out a shaky breath. “Okay. Levi, I need two minutes. I need you to give me two minutes.”
“Asher —” Levi began.
“I’m not going to stop you. I’m done stopping you. I’m done. I am going to help you. I just need two minutes to tell yousomething.” His hand went to his side and came back up with a knife; he tossed it across the floor toward Levi. “In case you don’t believe me.”
Levi stared at it — the knife on the carpet between them, handle toward him, blade toward Asher.
He gave it to me.
He picked it up and carried it with him as he crossed the carpet, sitting down crossed-legged on the floor across from Asher. “Two minutes,” Levi said, and pressed the blade to his own throat.
Asher nodded, silent as his eyes seemed to finally focus on Levi. He looked at Levi like he was seeing him for the first time, recognizing him piece by piece.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he said, his voice raw like he had been screaming. “I started having things in my head…after the sanitarium. The fog made it worse, I think.”
Levi didn’t move. The knife stayed at his throat.
“I don’t remember what. I can’t tell you about a house or a face or any of the things you were asking me about. It’s not like that. It’s like — there is a room in my head now where there wasn’t a room before. And the room is empty. But the empty of it has words that don’t make sense, and…I don’t remember. I–I don’t know what happens if I say…or if my head is making it up because you kept asking.” Asher’s hands moved while he talked, the fingers of one hand interlacing with the other, coming apart, and interlacing again.
He’s answering. He’s trying to answer the question I asked him in the dining room…that’s more than he’s ever given me.
